The drive to the park was full of great photo opportunities with the occasional tiny remnant farm communities like Olex and Mikkalo with their old dying remnant buildings, and Condon that is actually thriving for a small town in the middle of nowhere. The drive was sunny, but very cold. Where it had been in the 50s earlier along the Columbia, it was 41 and very windy between Condon and Cottonwood Canyon, but the views demanded attention and an exit from the warm car in places to get photos. One location offered a view of Jefferson, Hood, Adams, and Rainier.
I finally dropped into the canyon and came to the bridge across the John Day River. The road to the park circles underneath this bridge and before I went under it I came to a little side road that dropped down into a gravel lot that was obviously a trailhead. I was still pretty cold from getting out of the car up on the plateau and the prospect of a hike along the warmer canyon bottom seemed like a more appealing idea. Especially as I currently have a calf injury that I'm not really sure how bad it is and was solo. The sign said it was the Hard Stone Trail and that it only went up river for 1.5 miles and that while it was closed there, an extension was planned. I figured I could turn it into more if I wanted with a trip upslope or into a side canyon or another hike in the park later. The trail had a sign in sheet which I thought was odd for something so short and close to a state park. I could see nobody had been on it in two days and the lot was empty on a Saturday (perfect!).
The trail is really more of an old grown over dirt road which is not too surprising as the park was built out of an old ranch property. As I started out I realized that this looked like prime snake habitat and was a little surprised that a state park wouldn't have a warning sign as this is the kind of place somebody would let their 20 kids go running up the trail ahead of them. As I moved along their were some great overgrown very old stacked stone walls. The trail most of the time has a fairly clear single track or still looks like an old dirt road in drier areas, but there were some areas of tall lush grass that hadn't gotten enough traffic to create a clear track and struck me as sort of a hazard from the snake standpoint. It was still windy and pretty chilly and I figured the threat was pretty non-existant (foreshadowing here) and was looking more at the possibility ticks looking for a ride.
Initially I travelled through some areas that were pretty rife with cheatgrass and some other invaders, but as I went in further I encountered some nice bunchgrass and sage with lots of wildflowers.
I stopped realized it was next to me and looked down at a small rattlesnake coiled and poised to strike six inches from my right calf. I worked in mining exploration in southeast Oregon for a summer in college and have had some relatively close encounters, but my brain informed me that " sorry you are *#@ked this time, and moved into how far are we from help mode, while I simultaneously, made a million view worthy bugling/gargling sound and accidentally dropped my big heavy old film camera about two inches from it (not what the books recommend). It's rattle intensity kicked into the next gear, but for whatever reason it did not strike me or the camera, and my brain recognized a second chance and I jumped away and it went about a foot away in the brush. After I got the heart rate down and it still buzzing, I was thankful my strap had dropped in my direction and so was able to pull my camera toward me and retrieve it.
With it still buzzing I headed back down the trail. The lesson being that they truly do just want to be left alone because this guy had me "dead to rights" and I pissed him off even further with the camera. This of course made travel through the rest of the grass a rather paranoid experience, but I returned to the car with a really nice hike and a bit of a story, and no ticks. So pleasant hike, I recommend it, but keep your eye frequently on the trail
That would have been funny to see, but I'm sure it was scary at the time!
