Day 2: The Great Basin

Having left the Owhyee uplands behind we drove west toward a small village pomising black gold. To be so reliant on fuel is a gross necessity for our trip but it still disturbs my conscience and not to mention my wallet. While these outback towns in the heart of nowhere have been introduced to neon lights, a little corporate attention as well as all the standard vices that seem so stark naked in tiny hamlets, the lady at the gas pump still claimed heartily that she doesn't own a tv. So no, she can't tell me what the weather is supposed to do. I didn't ask about the radio or the internet. We headed for Burns, another 100 or so miles to the Northwest, for Leslie Gulch and Rome took the meat of our day. Surely we'd find some good camping around there. We had even heard about some hot springs just out of town.

The terrain had flattened out to say the least. In the distance we began to make out the rising hulk of Steens Mountain, a beastly 3o mile long mountain draped in snow, rising a vertical mile above the flats we motored over. It made for an impressive backdrop, something to fix our eyes upon due to the fact that other cars on this stretch were simply non-existent. Nearing Burns we a saw sign for the hotsprings and for the next two miles we were filled with anticipation. Yet the Hot spring was not a bubbling oasis on the windswept plains, but rather a "resort," complete with an uninviting metal box of a building. The camping was designated to the parking lot amidst a few trailer campers and the usual outpost accessories like stilted deisel tanks and old work trucks long since retired from need. Passing our windows, much like the seemingly abandoned trailers out in the sage with tattered flags, the resort came off more like a lonely prison and we passed without pause. It is easy to believe that on these edges of what we think of as normal "society" the people are somehow backward, behind or directionally challenged in some way, but of course only sometimes does this ring true. For all the interactions we had, people were exceedingly friendly, helpful and polite. Farmers in relict fords didn't think twice about waving to a couple in a japanese truck. And I must admit I felt deliciously midwest with all the small town waves. After all, outside of town, you have to act as if you'll see the same folk more than once. So I hope my descriptions do not make me out to be a blindfolded liberal from Portland who'll never understand the way of the range.

Let's just say Burns did not offer the camp we had in mind. After taking some direction from a couple of chatting cops we found an rv campground that offered "tent sites." Let me also say that these tent sites had no fire pits and our's in particular was a triangular sliver of grass behind a maintenence shed, offering no respite from the wind now howling cold out of the west. 18 dollars they asked for this grass patch. Jamie and I looked at eachother trying to choke down frustrated laughter. We talked the kid down. After all this was his grandmothers business and he didn't care one way or another. Jamie and I promptly fed Chuck, who shivered on his leash until we all crept into the tent, played scrabble, and drank some wine while the tent whipped and flapped in the breeze. Blackbirds turned off their singing and all that was left was the same relentless wind, pushing the moon into the sky like an aluminum skiff drifting on a dark pond.

Temps by morning were now in the twenties with the wind. We caught a greasy spoon breakfast and busted the hell out of Burns by ten. We headed southwest, zagging back toward Christmas Valley. On the way we made a stop well worth it to a little traveled place called Elk Butte.





















It runs through some of the most uninhabited country I've ever been in. On this road, the enormity of the great basin swallows vehicles. It just keeps stretching on and on. We drove on for elk butte, which the guide book said was north of the highway several miles near an old cow camp, where we could ditch the vehicle and walk the remaining miles via an old 4x4 path. We passed through a bedraggled barbed wire fence marking the entrance to the camp and soon came across a derilict hermitage that, incredibly, must have bustled with life at one time in history. If you've ever seen No Country For Old Men you'll know the feeling of standing among the old fences with only the wind and this abandoned shack.

After gawking at the old camp we set out for the ridge along an old trail. The guide book I brought, fit for the bedside drawer at an east Oregon motel, told of an area full of "gnarly old-growth juniper trees." It was worth the visit. Some of the trees were strange contortions while others had sprawling crowns. If the cow camp was old, these trees were ancient, their age measured in four figures. We took many pictures as you can see but like always, the feeling falls somewhat flat

It was here, on the way back down the butte that Chuck got a whiff of something, maybe related to the elk or coyote shit we saw along the cliffs. Whatever it was he bolted leaving Jamie and I to feebly call his name. Eventually I took off climbing back up the hill yelling for him but no sign. I headed back toward the cliffs thinking he might be snacking on that sun parched crap, but nothing. Stopping at the edge of the cliff I startled two turkey vultures that lifted away from the rocks below me, flapping their big wings away from the cliff. It was an ominous sight. I scanned the ridge for the dog with bincoculars to no avail and slowly started zig-zagging my way back toward the base of the butte where Jamie was. As I neared the slope I heard her voice thinly yelling my name and ran down a little further to see her holding chuck on a leash now panting after his crazy headed run.

It may not sound like any cause for alarm, except for the fact that we were in the middle of cliched nowhere. Had we been in the cascades, usually crawling with hikers, we could have left notes at the trailheads or on the windsheilds of cars, we could have asked passing hikers if they had seen him or simply waited on the trail. Out here, those luxuries don't exist. Ironically it's part of the reason why we were enjoying the place so much. But there was no trail to wait beside, no other hikers to ask and certainly no prospect of seeing another person for a very long time. With all that in mind, little problems like a lost dog increase the gravity of each decision. Our next stop was Christmas Valley.