1. Succor Creek Canyon
In the morning, I hiked up to get elevated views from the eastern rim of the rhyolite crenellations, pinnacles, and columns across the canyon. Many of the caves you see are actually old zeolite prospects. I crossed Trimbly Creek, which has carved a very brushy slot canyon to meet Succor Creek near the campground. Hiking south along the rim, I started looking for a way down so I could loop back along the creek. Above the very narrow upper canyon, I slid down a steep bunchgrass slope and discovered a keyhole through which I emerged at the canyon bottom. From there, though, I had to follow a rough cow trail through thickets of poison ivy, startling a couple of rattlesnakes along the way. The creek has carved a passageway under the cliffs in a couple of spots. Soon enough, I was back at the campground, which is situated at one end of a broad sagebrush flat.
2. Carlton Canyon – Painted Canyon Loop
This nine-mile loop is often touted as the marquee hike/bushwhack of the Owyhee. I drove tracks west of Succor Creek to a cattle trough near the head of Carlton Canyon. The two trucks already parked there were still there when I got back, so their occupants must have backpacked down Carlton to Benchley Flat on Lake Owyhee. The descent/ascent of Carlton and Painted canyons can be divided into the same three segments: (1) the upper canyon of rolling sagebrush/bunchgrass hills; (2) a shorter central section where the canyon steps down rapidly in a series of dry waterfalls that need to be climbed or detoured; (3) a lower section of towering rhyolite formations and honeycombs (pockmarked chemical weathering of the rhyolite also known as tafoni). The Carlton waterfalls required care, but there were a couple going up Painted Canyon that were even sketchier. Both canyons exhibit impressive formations although, in the middle of the day, there was little shade. (Plenty of water should be taken and sunscreen needs to be liberally slathered; the windy plateau seems to be 10 degrees cooler than the actual temperature, while the canyon bottoms feel 15 degrees warmer.) It being spring, there were blooms aplenty, my best find perhaps the Owyhee clover (Trifolium owyheense), native only to a small part of Malheur County and an even smaller sliver of Owyhee County in Idaho.
3. Three Fingers Rock
The Three Fingers Rock presents its inviting profile along the drive to Carlton Canyon, so on the way back I parked in the open steppe and hiked up a rubbly jeep road to its base. Then I made my way around the north side of the formation and scrambled up between First and Second Finger. There are summit registers on First Finger, and the views take in a broad expanse of the Owyhee Plateau, with Lake Owyhee to the west and the broad plains of western Idaho to the east.
