The Glass House mystery solved

Got this info from a blog reader familiar with the history of the glass house referred to in our Sheldon 7th Leg post.


From allan_e@efn.org

I read your blog post on going to Crump Lake and visiting the Glass House by the Narrows.

The house was built by Walt Benson, a wine grape grower from CA. I did some of the work on the house while living at The Nature Conservancy's Crump Lake Preserve (the abandoned ranch 1/ mile south of Fisher Hot
Springs) in 1992 - '93. There is a solar well located down near the gate.

Last I had heard Walt was trying to sell the place.

The old homestead just west of Walt's place is the original valley homestead and is on TNC property. Locals were disappointed w/ their entire TNC experience (I was the good part of their experience). They were especially miffed that TNC was letting the homestead fall apart.

Living at Crump Lake was one of the best experiences of my life. A quiet unmatched in my experience.

Klamath Basin - Leg 15

Next day we did the Klamath Basin – about 20 miles along roads and canal levees across the southern part of the valley from Malin to Hwy 97. Couple of small ridges, otherwise nothing but trudging on while marveling at the pelicans, hawks, and multitude of other birds like the two below we came on when nearing the last 5 miles or so before Hwy 97. The birds were really neat, but open, dusty, walking without much terrain to marvel at was the rule for this 20 miles.



If you look closely, you'll see three different surveyed monuments in the picture below.

We found several of the earlier mile point monuments protected with a larger diameter pipe driven in later to encase them such as below.

Mile point 83 from 1952.

One of the older Mile points, # 82 dating from 1919.

The whole border is north of the 42d through here. This is looking back straight down the line towards Malin about 6 miles out.

You can see the scar of the pipeline in the distance coming down the western slope towards Malin. Below, Mt Shasta loomed in the distance from its California perch.

Looking back to the east towards Malin about 12 miles distance. Most of our walking was along the canals. There were plenty of side roads and berms, so we were able to avoid any muddy places or having to cross water.

The only rough going was a few hundred yards of tumble weeds and brush to navigate a couple miles short of Hwy 97. The wayside on 97 is at the base of the hill in the distance here. We had a flooded field to slog through on the other side of this brushy part.








The Malin ridge in the far distance looking back east as we climbed out of the basin the last half mile back to the wayside along Hwy 97.

The last mile got a little “damp” and muddy, but the end was in sight.

All in all, tiring, but a lot of miles and beautiful country. Sure would like to know who the folks up Hidden Valley Road are however so we can certainly cross them off our Christmas list.

We'll likely go to the Lakeview area next time out and work west to near Willow Valley Res. Probably avoid doing the other side of the Klamath River canyon until fall - it has a well deserved reputation for being "snaky" and although we only saw a single garter snake in one of the meadows, the sun was out and plenty of lizards (skinks) were out. We've now covered 225 miles of the 375 mile long border by my calculations, so it's down hill from here, figuratively and literally except for the two 5 mile mountain tops we skipped each side of Denio.

Klamath Basin - Leg 14

This is the last picture in this post - it's our view to the west overlooking the Klamath River with Mt Ashland in the far distance.

Sunday we started at the state line where Hwy 97 crosses into CA. There’s an interesting wayside there with a monument and some history about the border between the two states at mile point 93.

An older 1921 survey monument is a few feet away.

Our plan was to do the 15 miles west to the Klamath River and have Paul pick us up on the old wagon road called Topsy Grade Road. Topsy Grade was engineered in the 1880s and ran from K Falls to Yreka as the only all weather wagon route linking the Klamath basin with Northern California. Unfortunately, our timing and plans fell apart due to our first negative encounter with an individual or land owner in over 200 miles of hiking across properties, climbing fences, gates, corrals, thru refuges, showing up in the middle of the night on rancher’s doorsteps, driving across and into remote ranches and farms, and dealing with a whole host of individuals and businesses along the route.

We started west thru the hills and juniper forests initially along the old railroad track.

Found some initial monuments that dated from 1919 and noticed immediately that the state line here is strays significantly away from the 42d parallel. Mile point 94 was laid in 1981.

There are places where it’s a ¼ mile off and counter to along most of the Oregon-Nevada border, California seems to enjoy the benefit of the additional acreage in this area. The actual, surveyed border is north of the 42d – I wonder what they were drinking? The terrain was hilly with fairly thick juniper and pine forests. We encountered our first locals at a point in a valley where their driveway ran along the line and bisected their home site and properties. The son met us in the driveway as we walked up and we introduced ourselves as the father came out. They were very helpful and happy to let us trudge on by their home and thru their forested, rocky pasture. However, they suggested we might want to go around their neighbor to the west a mile or so the other side of the next ridgeline. The father said that they had very little contact with those neighbors and didn’t know them at all other than he believed the rancher operated a martial arts studio in town. We said that we hadn’t encountered anyone that wasn’t friendly and helpful yet, so we’d take our chances especially since the terrain would be challenging at best to circumnavigate their large ranch. We headed on into the forest and rocky ground until getting to the top of the next ridge over looking what we now know to be “Hidden Valley”. Wish I had gotten some better pictures of the valley, but I figured I’d get them looking back from the next ridge as we crossed at a high saddle we could see the state line went thru.

We noted the house and barn and two large pastures with a road bisecting them along the state line and started down the ridge. We were startled to hear gun shots and paused near the top till we could discern that there were two shooters along our planned track shooting at varmints in both north and south directions. It’s not unusual at all for folks such as these to set up on their pickup truck and try to dispatch some of the marmots and ground squirrels that infest their pasture lands. We figured on walking up to them and introducing ourselves since we couldn’t go around without entering their field of fire to the north or south. As we cleared the forest at the base of the ridge we picked up the road and started towards them. The apparent matriarch of the family hailed us from the second deck of a very nice log home before we got within shouting distance of the shooters, so we turned to walk the 75 yards up their driveway to introduce ourselves to her. It was clear from the outset of our conversation we were not going anywhere on their property as far as she was concerned. I tried to be my most diplomatic, after making our introductions and explaining we just wanted to proceed on foot the last ¼ mile across their lands past the folks in the pickup – but she wouldn’t have any of it. When I told her it was the first time in 200 miles of hiking anyone had refused us anything including simply allowing us to walk across their land. She remarked with a small laugh that 200 miles was quite a lot of hiking, but continued to say we needed to follow the road south to their gate and get off their property. Told her we were both public employees, not carrying any firearms and would be out of sight not to return in a mater of minutes if she’d let us pass, but she insisted and so we wheeled around and headed south a half mile to their gate. This is looking back into their valley.

Never did learn their names although I kept hoping the two males would pursue us to talk as they had clearly seen us in our bright yellow and orange. Sadly, I noted a Marine Corps decal on their No Trespassing sign on the ranch’s gate. I’m sure I could have invoked a Semper Fi or something and gotten a more reasonable reception from the males of their clan. The guys didn’t follow us in their truck, however so we plotted an alternate track around their property and over the next ridgeline. This took us several extra miles out of the way and I backtracked a couple of times to shuttle our car a few miles further west as the day wore on. Once we felt we were within striking distance of the Klamath River we parked it for good in the forest on an old logging road at the line. We did manage to confuse ourselves on which side of the 42d we should be on a couple of times. The plan had been to text Paul with an ETA in the bottom of the canyon before we stepped off the rim and down the 1000 foot descent to the river and Topsy Grade Road. After the un-neighborly folks were 7-8 miles behind us we were crossing a fairly open and flat forest which made the traveling pretty fun.

Passed some old homestead sites, meadows, and small streams.

Interesting places where the fence had been built and rebuilt several times over probably the last 6-7 decades including many places such as the picture where trees had grown around the barb wire.

At about 11 miles in at mp 104 we started down towards the river and had to cross a steep canyon at a junction of two streams before they dropped off below.

Used a log to cross the side stream easier than the first one. I slipped off a rock and wet my socks in the first stream crossing. The views into the Klamath River canyon were beautiful, but we were running out of daylight and I started calling Paul.

I had good service and texted him we were looking at a 7PM show on the road below as we skirted to the west along the high canyon wall initially.

The grades were steep and we were encounter a little more brush and oaks at this point, so I later texted Paul it would be closer to 7:30 which he acknowledged.

Dwane struck a pose on the way down.

It was slow going along the steep hill side until we found a finger with a little less slope to start down. We could see Mt Ashland to the west as we descended into the canyon (1st Pic in this post at top).

PLAN C: Shortly after hitting the bottom of the canyon and Topsy Road right at 7:25PM Paul called us with bad news as we were resting our feet and contemplating having traveled 20+ miles to get credit for 15. Paul was blocked at the top of the Topsy Grade and couldn’t get past a large mud hole covering 75 yards of the roadway. We had a quick conference and determined we had no other choice but to walk to him. It was now sundown as we started up what we figured was a 3 plus mile hike up the historic road and side hill cut to the top of the canyon that we had just descended into with so much difficulty. We passed a herd of perhaps 20 deer in a meadow as darkness set in and we trudged on. Probably about 9:30 we passed through a side hill cut that is an engineering feat in and of itself as it was constructed in the 1880s. I can’t imagine wagons rolling up the grade and along the ledge and thru the side cut into a basalt rock cliff. We noted several abandoned cars that had been deposited over the cliff along the grade and remained wedged in trees a few hundred feet below the road bed before the light gave out. As we crested the top near a historic stage coach stop called the Topsy Site we oriented our selves at an intersection. To the south perhaps 2 miles was our car a half mile off the road into the woods, but Paul had said his vehicle GPS indicated he was only a short distance from the intersection- so we trudged on to the north in the dark. We had also failed to gas up as intended in the last town we’d gone through while doing all the shuttling, so we were concerned there wouldn’t be a station open when we went back through Doris, CA. After perhaps a mile or so in the dark and calling Paul to have him honk and flash his lights without being able to hear or see him, he conveyed some more bad news. His car GPS now couldn’t decide if he was 1 or 2 miles from the intersection. So, we likely could have just walked the same distance back to our car in the dark. Found him about 2 miles north on the road, loaded up, picked up a can of gas in K Falls, topped his mom’s Explore off, and headed back south on 97 to Doris and back up into the woods to retrieve our car. Managed to first make a wrong turn on the skid roads and waste a half hour, then try a short cut (My bad) and nearly get stuck in the mud before we found our car. We transferred our tired bodies and muddy clothes into the Saturn after adding a gallon of fuel to the tank and headed back to the motel in K Falls. Rolled into the room at 1:30 in the morning with a long tiring day planned next.

Klamath Basin - Leg 13

We struggled again with our GPS and in fact weren’t at all successful in documenting the locations of mile points encountered on this trip. Being digitally challenged, I was not able to get my data from the last 12 legs downloaded from my GPS on to my lap top to clear space for the next legs and to forward back to the geographic sciences branch of the Oregon BLM office. I struggled for hours with my Magellan GPS and the TOPO and Vantage Point software I’m using. Couldn’t figure out how to delete the waypoints previously given to me by the Geo folks and the ones I entered at selected mile points monuments we have encountered. This is tremendously disappointing. I was given a new string of the mile points to load for the OR-CA border from Lakeview area to the coast, but just couldn’t get it loaded in since my GPS didn’t have room without deleting the old ones. Consequently, we were simply navigating via the TOPO maps I have loaded without the benefit of mile points. We did encounter quite a few mile points on these three legs ranging from 1919 to 2006 origin. I’ve failed my work organization since this area is their primary interest in as much as most of the CA-OR border has never been surveyed with digital devices or data. I’ll have to get help.

We started late at about 11:30 on Saturday from about 25 miles east of Malin past Willow Valley Reservoir at about Longitude 121. We had to ford a 75 yard section of flowing shallow water with our Saturn on the drive to the start point. Willow Valley Res the water was flowing out into the juniper across the road as the Res is above capacity due to the snow melt and season along the state line and worked our way around and thru the pipeline construction project for a few miles. Juniper forests and fairly flat topography greeted us as we followed fence line for most of the day. 1002jpg We encountered a small herd of perhaps 15 deer in the forest that were too wary to let us get within picture range. It was great weather, sunny with comfortable temps as we slogged along thru the sage and juniper.

Found several recent blaze marks at some of the mile points in this segment that have been surveyed within the last 10 years. Mile point 56 is pictured here near a small seasonal stream we had to cross. 993jpg 996jpg The water is flowing in the high desert/mountains as there’s been rain in the last couple of weeks and the snow is beginning its early melt.

Took our first break between mile points 56 and 57. The flowers are out and our pictures don’t do them justice. The contrast between the green Juniper, grey sage, and the yellow flowers was dramatic. For several miles it appeared like the forest was carpeted to our left and right. We saw the biggest jack rabbits either of has ever seen as we approached the river crossing. Two of them that looked as big as coyotes. They had the body of those giant lop eared rabbits but with the tall legs and ears of the typical jack rabbit. We couldn’t believe they were rabbits at first.

Crossed the Lost River at a point it was only ankle deep, but with 6-12 inches of sand and mud to slog thru. Dwane led off in the crossing. We went barefoot as we crossed while noting the fresh water mussels along the sandy bottom and found a fishing pole we carried to the shore line and left propped up for its owner to claim next time thru. It took some effort to clean the clay mud off our feet and put fresh socks back on before heading on to the last few miles approaching the first hill feature – a ridge perhaps 900 feet high.

You can see the ridge line in the distance and barely make out the scar of the pipeline project, which is within 100 meters of the line up and over the first ridge.

As we approached the impending ridge it was getting long in the day and we debated trying to finish the last 5 + miles over the ridges into Malin. We figured we could easily follow the pipeline up and over, if it followed the state line as closely as it appeared, however that would put us out pretty late and we’d lose the chance at a full day on Sunday. Since we’d knocked out about 20 miles, we decided to bug out and called for our ride as we headed down thru the forest to the nearest highway at Langell Valley. Relaxed in the waning sunlight at an abandoned ranch house while waiting for Paul – I managed to confuse him and he was hanging out near Malin about 30 drive miles away since we had hoped to make it there this day. Had a good rest before Paul arrived to take us back to our car past Willow Valley Res. We ambled back into K Falls, hit WalMart for some foot remedies and supplies and then found a local Buffet that we both proceeded to dramatically overate at while consuming a gallon or more of iced tea each. We went downtown K Falls to find an Econo Lodge on Hwy 97 to check into for a couple of nights. The folks were friendly and accommodating letting us walk across to the Comfort Inn under same ownership in the morning for their free breakfast.