Heading north from Santa Cruz we visited Kelly’s great-grandmother, Elaine, who lives in McCloud, only a few miles from Mount Shasta in northern California. We had an excellent breakfast with her at a small restaurant in McCloud. From here, you get a nice view of "The Mountain".
The "John Day Country" refers to the area within the drainage basin of the John Day River in north-central Oregon. This area receives about 20" of rain a year, but is referred to as high desert and has vegetation much like the Eastern Sierra of California. Geology gives this region spectacular scenery and made it of special interest to us. In the most simple terms, the geology consists of hard lavas of the Columbia River Plateau (~15 Ma - Millon Years Ago) capping soft and easily erodable sediments of the John Day Formation (~36 to ~24 Ma). This layering results in a topography of high, flat topped ridges separated by wide, deep valleys. The kids wanted to collect fossils and the John Day Formation is famous for its abundance of fossils. Some of Ken's research at UCSC involved lavas similar to those of the Columbia River Plateau and he was especially interested in seeing the rocks in this area.
The Ranch is located a couple of miles from the town of Fossil, the county seat of Wheeler County. Fossil has two restaurants, a mercantile and a very small museum. Gasoline is available at the garage, and liquor can be purchased at the hardware store until it closes at 5 pm. The community was named by a rancher in the late 1800's who discovered fossils on his land. The photo of the town to the right was taken on one of our horseback rides on the ranch, and it shows the typical "John Day Country" topography of the area.
The Wilson Ranches Retreat Bed and Breakfast is an old bunkhouse on the 9,000 acre working cattle ranch in the beautiful and secluded Butte Creek Valley. Far from the interstate, we experienced Rural Bliss. We met friendly folks, appreciated wide-open space at a slower pace, savored the peaceful surroundings, and got some wonderful surprises like discovering a badger walking across our path. And no cell phones.....there is no service in all of Wheeler County!
Our hosts, Phil and Nancy Wilson, are fifth generation Oregonians whose families homesteaded in the area over a 100 years ago. They showed us a great time and made us feel like part of the family. Every morning, Phil and Nancy prepared a "cowboy" breakfast with all the trimmings, served on Phil's handcrafted 11-foot knotty pine dining room table. The knotty pine planks are from the nearby Kinzua Mill (now a ghost town) in the late 1930's.
This view shows some of the ranch buildings and the surrounding alfalfa fields. |
Snapped just outside the back door of the ranch house under a big pear tree. |
Riley used a loaner hat on the first of our two rides. On the first we rode to a high ridge north of the ranch where we could see Mount Hood in the far distance through the haze. The second was a very pleasant ride to the south up a small valley with aspen then up to a ridge with a view of Fossil. The far right photo shows an aspen that a cougar uses for a scratching post.
For $5 a person, you can collect fossils, mainly leaves, from a hillside behind the high school. Below is a link to a story about the site that played on NPR in 2006. Some of our bounty are shown in the photo to the right. The top two fossils are leaves of Metasequoia, closely related to our present Redwoods. It was once thought to be extinct, but was found living in China in the 1930s. The lower leaf is an Alder.
The John Day River is the second longest free-flowing (i.e.undammed) river in the western U.S. The Yellowstone is the longest. We had a raft reserved for a 12 mile-long “float trip” on our second day at the ranch. Unfortunately, Kelly came down with a chest-cold and she and Debbie missed the rafting. The trip proved to be a lot more rowing than floating. Riley couldn't get the hang of rowing, and Ken spent the better part of five hours pulling (facing backwards) and pushing (facing forward) the oars. We had a few adventures, including getting hung-up on big rocks a couple of times. When we were approaching the pull-out spot at end of the trip, Ken thought the water was shallow and told Riley jump out and pull the raft up on the bank. Riley jumped in and completely disappeared – just his hat was floating on the surface - it was way over his head! It was a good laugh to end the trip.
We got a special bonus at the end of our stay: an invitation to the nearby farm of our innkeeper's daughter, Kara and her husband, Brian (who was the trail guide on the rides at the Ranch). We played in the barnyard among sheep, cows, goats and chickens and fed three orphaned calves with giant baby bottles, a messy and slobbery affair for us city folks!
Their son, Dima, is raising two lively goats that he is very proud of. He was determined to sell us one to take home, and critter-loving Kelly was ready to buy it with her own money. (Pleeeese, Mom!) We were told that the goats have successfully escaped all attempts at fencing, sometimes bleating at the bedroom windows in the middle of the night (not a good selling point for Dima). They are now confined to a big silo, well out of ear-shot.
Daughter Marina raises all different kinds of chickens. Here the kids are showing off a bucket of eggs that they've just collected from the hen house, while Marina holds the "attack chicken". The variety of breeds makes for a beautiful rainbow of eggs which are delivered fresh daily to the B & B as part of the hearty cowboy breakfast.
Next on our literary was white water rafting through Hells Canyon on the Snake River. We were surprised to learn that Hells Canyon is the deepest river gorge in North America, even deeper than the Grand Canyon. This view of the gorge is up-river from the Hells Canyon Dam.
This time of the year, the high temperature is usually in the 80s and it rarely rains. We planned to camp in the Hells Canyon National Recreation Area for a few days before and after the raft trip. But when we checked the weather forecast before we left the ranch, we found that the forecast was for rain and unusually cool temperatures, highs in the 50s. Hells Canyon is very remote; there are only two B&Bs and a lodge within 80 miles of our launch point. Fortunately, we found a comfortable, warm and dry two-bedroom house to stay in at one of the B&Bs.
The morning of the raft trip we awoke to steady rain. Kelly was not well enough to spend the day wet and cold, so she and Debbie had to miss the raft trip, but they got to ride the rapids down the canyon in the afternoon on a jet boat. More about that below.
In the photo to the right our guide, Matt, is standing and giving a war whoop as we launch. Matt was totally stoked to be on the river and he made the trip really fun. He and Riley immediately hit it off. You can see Ken and Riley in the front of his raft.
The raft trip covered about 25 river miles and several dozen rapids. The rain tapered off in the early morning but the air temperature remained cool. The river water was noticeably warmer than the air, so getting splashed in the rapids was like getting hit by a bucket of warm water!
The guides are scouting “Wild Sheep”, one of the two Class IV rapids on the trip. The other Class IV was “Granite”. Standing waves in the rapids there form "The Green Room", a permanent “hole” in the water about 6 feet deep. The raft in front of us completely disappeared into the hole and then shot out. Our raft dropped in and we were surrounded by a wall of water, and then the wall came crashing down on the raft. Great Fun!
Mid-afternoon, with Debbie & Kelly aboard, the jet boat rode the rapids down the canyon to pick up the rafts and rafters at the end of their trip. The person peering out from near the front of the jet boat is Kelly. The return ride to our point of departure at Hells Canyon Dam was another wild adventure, especially going UP river through the Class IV rapids. In spite of missing the rafting, Kelly and Debbie had a hair-raising ride on the Snake!
Debbie took this picture of our raft from the jet boat. Riley is “riding the bull”, the most exciting seat in the raft. Ken is in the back with his camera.
Ken spent quite a bit of time this spring reading about and researching the Lewis and Clark Expedition. After the Snake River rafting we had planned to drive eastward across Idaho and the Bitterroot Mountains on the “Lolo Motorway” following the route of Lewis and Clark. The “Motorway” is a 100 mile-long, high-clearance required, precipitous dirt road without services of any type that winds thought the higher elevations of the Bitterroots. Sounds perfect for us! But unfortunately, the Motorway was still closed by snow and fallen trees. So we headed home to Santa Cruz a few days earlier than we had planned. But we hope to do Lewis and Clark related travels in the future, and may try the Motorway next summer later in the season.
Below are some links related to the trip.
The Wilson Ranches Retreat Bed and Breakfast - site 1
The Wilson Ranches Retreat Bed and Breakfast - site 2
NPR story on Fossil
Paleo Lands Institute