Three Ochoco Wildernesses 6-21 – 6-22-17

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bobcat
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Three Ochoco Wildernesses 6-21 – 6-22-17

Post by bobcat » June 28th, 2017, 3:39 pm

I went on a six-day, six wilderness car camping excursion across the Blue Mountains, from Prineville to Baker. In between these two cities, I avoided civilization like the plague and mostly kept to forest roads except for a brief run up to Canyon City for gas. I brought more than enough food, beer, and drinking water with me. My only expenses on the trip itself were for three tanks of gas and $16 for two nights at the North Fork John Day Campground. My other nights, I took of advantage of free campgrounds or the open range. I had visited three of these wildernesses before; in those, I chose trails that I hadn’t hiked. The others were new to me. Two of the latter were in the Ochocos, which is where I began the trip.

1. Mill Creek Wilderness

You wouldn’t really know it just by hiking around, but most of this wilderness comprises an ancient volcano’s caldera – 40 million years ancient, in fact. The central attractions are the Twin Pillars, 200-foot rhyolite intrusions that have been unveiled to the light of day over millions of years of erosion. I had hiked to the Twin Pillars from Wildcat Campground almost 30 years ago, and then you had to go cross-country up through a grassy ponderosa pine parkland to clearly see the pinnacles. The year 2000, however, saw a raging inferno consume much of the wilderness, so the pillars are now very visible from the snow brush thicketed slope below. I took the short way in from the north at Bingham Spring this time, much of it through the burn, but got to admire Desolation Canyon and some remnant groves of old-growth ponderosa.
Bingham Meadow, Twin Pillars Trail, Mill Creek Wilderness.jpg
Lustrous copper (Lycaena cuprea), Twin Pillars Trail, Mill Creek Wilderness.jpg
Above Desolation Canyon, Twin Pillars Trail, Mill Creek Wilderness.jpg
Ponderosa slope, Twin Pillars Trail, Mill Creek Wilderness.jpg
View to the West Pillar, Mill Creek Wilderness.jpg
The West Pillar and outcroppings, Twin Pillars Trail, Mill Creek Wilderness.jpg
Twin Pillars, Mill Creek Wilderness.jpg
2. Bridge Creek Wilderness

Like the approach road to the north Twin Pillars Trailhead, the road in here requires clearance and patience. I camped right at the unsigned “trailhead” for the long-abandoned Bridge Creek Trail, the only official trail this wilderness ever had. Wilderness signs were five yards away, and just below were the lush meadows of Pisgah Spring and the Bridge Creek headwaters. The Mt. Pisgah Fire Lookout stood out on forested Mt. Pisgah just south of the wilderness. That evening, I foraged for the abandoned trail: it was not that difficult to find as it traverses an open sagebrush slope just north of the creek and dips to the stream a couple of times. I followed the trail trace for about a mile, losing it only a couple of times, before returning.
Pisgah Spring, near Bridge Creek Wilderness.jpg
Wilderness boundary, Pisgah Meadows, Bridge Creek Wilderness.jpg
View to Pisgah Meadow, Bridge Creek Wilderness.jpg
Gairdner's penstemon (Penstemon gairdneri), Bridge Creek, Bridge Creek Wilderness.jpg
Bridge Creek, Bridge Creek Wilderness.jpg
Bridge Creek Trail, Bridge Creek Wilderness.jpg
The next morning, the goal was to hike to North Point, the outing now touted in guidebooks for this wilderness. The old North Point jeep road also left from my campsite and headed up a slope with scores of Brown’s peonies just going off bloom. The road bed itself soon became cluttered with what I call the “Curse of the Blues,” dense, twiggy, dessicated, thick as spilled matches blowdown. I squelched up a verdant false hellebore meadow to the right, and then crossed the track to find a better path to the grassy prominence of North Point, which looks down on conical White Butte. To the west, however, is a higher prominence, which I’ll call Northwest Point, an interesting rimrock viewpoint with copses of gnarled mountain mahogany trees amongst the sagebrush. This spot offers one of the most expansive views in the Ochocos as I could see, even with a slight summer haze, the Cascade peaks from Mt. Adams to Diamond Peak. Deciding that I had had enough of the Curse, I found an easy way down from Northwest Point, threading through a series of sagebrush meadows and traversing across the open slope to my campsite.
View to Mt. Pisgah Lookout, Bridge Creek Wilderness.jpg
White-rayed wyethia (Wyethia helianthoides), Bridge Creek Wilderness.jpg
Brown's peony (Paeonia brownii), Bridge Creek Wilderness.jpg
North Point Road, Bridge Creek Wilderness.jpg
False hellebores, off of North Point Road, Bridge Creek Wilderness.jpg
Alpine prickly currant (Ribes montigenum), North Point Road, Bridge Creek Wilderness.jpg
Tolmie's onion (Allium tolmiei), Bridge Creek Wilderness.jpg
Applegate's paintbrush (Castilleja applegatei var. applegatei), North Point Road, Bridge Creek Wilderness.jpg
Looking to White Butte from North Point, Bridge Creek Wilderness.jpg
Mountain mahogany copse, Northwest Point, Bridge Creek Wilderness.jpg
View to Gable Creek Meadow from Northwest Point, Bridge Creek Wilderness.jpg
Three Sisters from Northwest Point, Bridge Creek Wilderness.jpg
3. Black Canyon Wilderness

I began this hike from Boeing Field, a mile-high flower meadow on a saddle near Wolf Mountain. The meadow is named for the ill-fated February 1942 flight of a B-18A Bolo bomber on a flight from Sacramento to Spokane. The plane cleared Wolf Mountain but hit the tall trees on its summit ridge and shattered on the slopes below. The crew of four had last radioed from northern California, so that is where the unsuccessful search was concentrated. It wasn’t until seven months later that an Ochoco shepherd saw the wreckage glinting below and alerted the fire lookout on Wolf Mountain.
Looking to the trailhead, Boeing Field.jpg
Wyethia meadow, Boeing Field.jpg
Northern mule's ears (Wyethia amplexicaulis) and White-rayed wyethia (Wyethia helianthoides), Boeing Field.jpg
Paintbrush, mule's ears, lupine, Boeing Field.jpg
Immediately entering the wilderness from Boeing Field, I was confronted by the ruins of the 2008 burn that scorched a lot of this wilderness. While the wildflowers were at their peak, the trail was sometimes lost among them. It was a short distance down to Owl Creek, however, which I crossed to join the Black Canyon Trail and began hiking down Owl Creek, which at times has carved a narrow ravine. I soon entered unburned, shady forest and crossed Owl Creek again. The section of trail between Owl Creek and the first Black Canyon Creek crossing is mountain lady slipper heaven at this time of year: literally hundreds of these orchids displaying full bloom in the dappled light. I crossed Black Canyon Creek and continued downstream. A white diamond on a ponderosa proclaimed the Coffee Pot Trail, which intrigued me. This trail has essentially been abandoned for years, but in 2015 an Americorps crew began to recarve the trail bench. I headed uphill on 18 steep switchbacks in a grassy parkland of ponderosa pine and mountain mahogany. The new bench, having rarely been hiked, was already disappearing under the flora of the season. After the 18th switchback, the Americorps effort ended, so I retreated to the canyon trail. I soon abandoned this however, turning back at a lush meadow, when the trail itself became more overgrown with wild roses that were tearing at my exposed forearms.
Descending from Boeing Field, Black Canyon Wilderness.jpg
Eaton's shaggy fleabane (Erigeron eatonii var. villosus), Owl Creek Trail, Black Canyon Wilderness.jpg
Owl Creek crossing, Black Canyon Trail, Black Canyon Wilderness.jpg
Mountain lady slipper (Cypripedium montanum), Black Canyon Trail, Black Canyon Wilderness.jpg
Mountain lady slippers (Cypripedium montanum), Black Canyon Trail, Black Canyon Wilderness.jpg
Spotted coral root (Corallorhiza maculata), Black Canyon Trail, Black Canyon Wilderness.jpg
Coffee Pot Trail sign, Black Canyon Wilderness.jpg
Scratch in the field, Coffee Pot Trail, Black Canyon Wilderness.jpg
Elkhorns clarkia (Clarkia pulchella), Coffee Pot Trail, Black Canyon Wilderness.jpg
Saxifrage Meadow, Black Canyon Trail, Black Canyon Wilderness.jpg
Western Jacob's ladder (Polemonium occidentale), Saxifrage Meadow, Black Canyon Trail, Black Canyon Wilderness.jpg

pablo
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Re: Three Ochoco Wildernesses 6-21 – 6-22-17

Post by pablo » June 28th, 2017, 5:13 pm

As usual, nice report, photos and descriptions. You have this encyclopedic knowledge of bugs and flowers - is this from interest or vocation?

I was wondering about the Boeing field site section and looked it up in wikepedia -> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Douglas_B-18_Bolo so I have to ask why if the bomber was built by Douglas is the spot named for Boeing?

I notice this is all prime eclipse watching territory.

Thx,

--Paul
The future's uncertain and the end is always near.

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retired jerry
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Re: Three Ochoco Wildernesses 6-21 – 6-22-17

Post by retired jerry » June 28th, 2017, 5:16 pm

ha, that's what I was thinking, prime eclipse viewing territory :)

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bobcat
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Re: Three Ochoco Wildernesses 6-21 – 6-22-17

Post by bobcat » June 29th, 2017, 6:04 am

pablo wrote:You have this encyclopedic knowledge of bugs and flowers - is this from interest or vocation?
Interest . . . and years of practice . . . and knowing how to look things up efficiently (which does require some knowledge, I guess).
pablo wrote:I have to ask why if the bomber was built by Douglas is the spot named for Boeing?
Excellent point. Ignorance, I'm guessing, but maybe not on the quite the same level as Columbus calling all of the inhabitants of the western hemisphere "Indians." It looks like Boeing and Douglas did cooperate on a couple of bomber projects in World War II, but not on the B-18, which was purely a Douglas aircraft. Of course, the two companies are now merged, but I'm sure it was "Boeing Field" long before that.
retired jerry wrote:prime eclipse viewing territory
Shhhh!

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Paul2
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Re: Three Ochoco Wildernesses 6-21 – 6-22-17

Post by Paul2 » June 29th, 2017, 9:08 pm

Awesome! Really cool pictures and narrative. I haven't made it too these wildernesses yet.
I've been wandering early and late, from New York City to the Golden Gate, and it don't look like I'll ever stop my wandering.
-James Taylor

justpeachy
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Re: Three Ochoco Wildernesses 6-21 – 6-22-17

Post by justpeachy » June 30th, 2017, 5:47 am

Nice! I really like that area. I've explored it a bit, but would love to go back and see more.

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