* Summer Lake (Windbreak Dike) *
I arrived at Summer Lake in the middle of the day. It was 89° and time for a totally exposed stroll. While deer, bears, and cougars were resting panting in the shade, Summer Lake’s avian residents seemed oblivious to the blazing sun and were either snoozing out in the open or furiously prospecting for snacks. I walked about 2 1/4 miles before turning back. A short list of the larger birds I saw includes: ruddy duck, blue-winged teal, cinnamon teal, double-crested cormorant, black-necked stilt, American avocet, white-faced ibis, common egret, Wilson’s phalarope, killdeer, white pelican, sandhill crane, ring-billed gull.
(Photos include birds seen on the auto tour route.)
* Winter Ridge *
The high rim of Winter Ridge rises 3,000 feet above Summer Lake. I drove up to Government Harvey Pass and began to hike north on the section of the Fremont National Recreation Trail that follows the ridge. That evening I hiked about five miles round-trip from the pass to the junction with the trail to Currier Spring. There was some deadfall on the trail, lots of wildflowers, and a curious little gate to pass through. Just past the gate, there was a viewpoint over Summer Lake and its extensive alkaline flats. Turning back, I was surprised to run into a mountain biker coming my way. I have no idea where she started out or where she was headed (I saw her tracks heading north on the Fremont NRT the next day), but it couldn’t have been much fun negotiating the blowdown.
For the night, I camped at Currier Spring under tall ponderosa pines and falling asleep to a lullaby of rustling aspen. In the morning I walked to the spring itself. The pole and rail fence which is supposed to protect it was broken and cows have moved in. There was no water running at the spring, which now manifests itself as a capped well.
Then I hiked the tie trail from my campsite out to the Fremont NRT and headed north. There was no blowdown on this section, and the forest was healthy here. Shady sections were interspersed with sagebrush openings where lupine, paintbrush, and peonies bloomed. My goal was Point 7111, a prominent point on the 30-mile rim. This involved an off-trail bushwhack stomping through twiggy wind-stunted snowbrush, but then I could get views up and down the Summer Lake basin.
* Paisley Caves *
Not really a hike, but I had to visit them. The small caves are north of Paisley, part of a little basalt ridge known as Fivemile Point. The caves are in a weaker layer of volcanic breccia and tuff under a cap of basalt, essentially at a wave-cut platform created when Summer Lake was a much bigger inland sea. In 2007, a University of Oregon archeological team announced that they had dated human coprolites to 14,300 years ago, making these ancient stool samples the oldest evidence of human DNA in the Americas. The announcement gained great excitement at the time, for the dating of many samples, along with some stone projectiles found, revealed that the occupants of the caves were from a pre-Clovis culture now called the Western Stemmed Tradition, blowing away the theory that Clovis cultures were the first to employ “stone age” technology in the Americas. Of course, controversy ensued, with Clovis partisans arguing there could have been DNA leaching down to the coprolites (e.g. through urination thousands of years later), which do not particularly resemble well-formed stool samples.
The site has been put on the National Register of Historic Places, but there are no signs or other markers, other than posts announcing the boundary of the Diablo Peak Wilderness Study Area. There is a sort of parking area, and I scrambled up to the breccia layer and followed the series of caves from south to north. These are really shallow overhangs (and I kept wondering why lots of people 14,300 years ago would want to poop in a cave, even one on a lakeshore). The first cave hosted a dove nest, and a little column of guano on the cave floor attested to perhaps multigenerational residency. The next couple of caves were where, I believe, the excavations took place. Now the floors are covered with rocks, but under the rocks are green sandbags put there by the archeological team when they decommissioned the dig. (No human bones were found, but there were plenty of other bones – of extinct fish, ducks, camels, lions, bison, and horses!) I made my way along the lines of overhangs, rousting a fence lizard and disturbing an entire family of canyon wrens. Some of the caves hosted packrat nests. It was satisfying to feel that I had at least poked around such an obscure place that carries such massive historical import.
Summer Lake Area 6-23-22
- Pick-a-Pika
- Posts: 34
- Joined: June 23rd, 2016, 7:14 pm
- Location: Upper Hood River Valley
Re: Summer Lake Area 6-23-22
I was at Summer Lake the last week of April and made a mental note to do Winter Ridge at a future date. There was much snow up there. The rim looked so intruiging from the wildlife refuge down below. Exploring that area is a must, now that I've read this trip report. Thanks for the trip report.