Day 4: Crack in The Ground / Fort Rock

Hurried clouds ushered in a cool, bright morning. The shadows and configurations of the night had been doused by daylight. I stirred some ashes and had a fire in under a minute. We made a delicious breakfast of eggs and cheese with coffee. A few big Ford trucks rumbled up the road. We left for "crack in the ground."

Crack in the ground is, no surprises here– a crack that’s in the ground. It’s almost more of a miniature canyon. When lava sheets flowed over this region, they exerted so much weight on the ground that it fissured from the pressure, creating this two mile long crack. Jamie and I walked the trail to where the crack rises briefly on both sides of a narrow strip of land, affording us a way in. Our initial plan was to traverse the crack end to end, but that was soon aborted. Immediately entering, we found sheets of ice leading down in slides, steps and slopes. Our boots were useless We had to brace ourselves, arms outstretched against the walls, in order to have any feeling of control. Chuck scurried/slipped down paws stretched out in front of him. To get back out he had to grapple and slither, but overall did a better job than us.

Partially accepting defeat we clambered out the way we came and walked instead at the top looking in. We followed the crack about a mile or so, noticing chunks of rock having broken away and become lodged between the narrow walls. In one of the low sandy spots where the crack’s floor met the outside world we found the track of what looked to be left by a large cat. Anyone can be subject to a little cougar mania now and then, but even the assumed presence was enough of a thrill. After all, there are plenty of rocky out-crops, few people and more than enough of both land and mule deer. A stiff breeze accompanied the sight of navy blue clouds and we made the decision to move on.

As we walked the mile or so back to the truck a squall blew in hard, with face stinging sleet/snow. We pulled our hoods down tight, looked at the ground and moved on. We had hardly climbed in the truck when snow reached almost a white out. The wind was howling and we watched the road quickly go white. It was time to go.

Leaving Christmas Valley that morning was akin to staring at the end credits after a really odd movie. Plains slid by. As we moved west, we began to close in on the eastern front of the cascades. On our left were the pine studded foothills. To our right and east was a world of sparse juniper and sage. On both sides of the road was lava.

Out here it's easy to think change is far away on some suburban front sacrificed for "progress." I would love to bask in that naivete, but the truth begs to be addressed. Much of the plains we have passed through, thankfully not all of it, has been relentlessy grazed by cattle. In the past 100 or so years, much of what was a bunchgrass prairie has been grazed so often that sagebrush has extended its range. Junipers are also extending their range, and ominously replacing more moisture seeking species like ponderosa pine, after wildfires and other disturbances. I say "ominously" because it implies that the climate that gave us the pines is no longer functioning the same. This backs up much of the evidence that the west is drying out. Be it climate change or cycles of wet and dry, things could look a lot different here in twenty years. But as for now it is what it is and we're enjoying it. We make an impulse decision to go right toward Fort Rock.

This is Fort Rock. If viewed from above, it would look like an enormous horseshoe. Viewed from the ground it is an imposing fortress of hundred foot high cliffs. The geology of this place was impossible to ignore. We learned that it is a caldera, remnants of an ancient volcano. What's more is that this entire valley, which it rises from, was once part of a vast inland sea. At the base of the rock you can see drop offs and wave pounded shores much like you might find at the coast.

In the pocked walls of the fort, prairie falcons perched and dove. Owls can be seen here in the evening. At the state park kiosk, just below the entrance to a trail leading up into the crater, a message had been posted claiming two cougar sightings in the past two weeks. I later learned that spring brings elk herds out of the shelter of cascade forests and out into the plains to feed on new shoots of grass. The lions of course follow.

We climbed a up into the crater to be greeted by swirling devil winds. We could see clouds of dust whipping down off the walls and at one point turned away just in time to be pelted by a curtain of sand. Chuck took it straight in the face. The wind was tearing over the plains, bringing the threat of another squall. We thought better of it to stop by a small museum near an old ghost town. I ran up to the door to check the admission price expecting the usual twelve dollars to find it only 2 bucks.

The museum consisted of an entire village of authentic frontier structures. They had been rescued from dilapidation at various points in the valley and brought here. Some have been refurbished, but all of them contain antiques of the time, complete with family history and an eerie sense of abandonment. The museum host was an affable character, genuinely excited about our interest in the place. He gave Jamie a sheet full of stories and facts pertaining to each building and encouraged us, against the usual museum grain, to touch things. "Open drawers," he said, "explore." And we did. Jamie had a great time reading out loud each building's history as we walked in among the creaking floors, entranced with lives lived differently.

Jamie checks me in at the Silver Lake post office.

Jamie sitting in the schoolhouse - one of the most interesting buildings.

Here are two copies of original postings for the schoolhouse. You can click on the pictures to blow them up if they are hard to read. This was evidently not the best time to be a teacher.

We got a good laugh out of rule #5.

After anothe short talk with the host, who offered us a camping spot in the parking lot of the museum, we had to choose a place to crash for the night. It was downright cold, with snow on and off. With our final night closing in on us, we decided it was time to cheat on our outdoor trip and find a cheap motel.