B
Saturday, August 1, 2020
RECREATION
REPORT
BEAR SEASON
STARTS TODAY,
AND HUNTERS
DON’T NEED TO
CHECK IN BEARS
AT ODFW OFFICE
Due to COVID-
19-related closures of
Oregon Department
of Fish and Wildlife
(ODFW) offi ces, bear
hunters are tempo-
rarily not required to
check in their animal
at an ODFW offi ce,
though they do still
need to report basic
information about
their harvest within
10 days. The fall bear
season opens today,
Aug. 1. Hunters need
to call the offi ce in
the district where
they harvested their
cougar or bear and
report their name,
ODFW ID number,
date of harvest,
location of harvest
(wildlife manage-
ment unit), sex of
animal and confi r-
mation number for
electronic tags. Or,
they can email all the
above information to
ODFW.WildlifeInfo@
state.or.us.
FISHING
FORECAST
WALLOWA LAKE
Fishing for rain-
bow trout is currently
very good with many
fi sh congregating
near the river mouth.
Boats are helpful
but fi shing from the
east shore can be
productive. Kokanee
fi shing has remained
productive with
most anglers being
successful with both
trolling and jigging.
Look for the most
productive fi shing to
be between 40 to 60
feet deep.
GRANDE RONDE
RIVER
Trout fi shing will
get diffi cult in the
lower Grande Ronde
as water tempera-
tures increase. Bass
fi shing will be the
best bet for most
anglers. Recently,
late evenings have
been best.
ANTHONY LAKE
Fishing remains
good for stocked
trophy-sized rainbow
trout. Anglers are
doing well with
standard baits from
the bank and trolling
or casting fl ies and
spinners from boats.
At 7,100 feet in eleva-
tion, Anthony Lake
is a great place to
escape the summer
heat. Boaters are
reminded that the
lake is restricted to
electric motors only.
FISH LAKE (NORTH
OF HALFWAY)
Fishing is good
for stocked rain-
bow trout and
naturally produced
brook trout. The
campground at the
lake fi lls quickly on
weekends so camp-
ers are encouraged
to get there early or
be prepared to camp
at other undevel-
oped camping sites
in the area.
The Observer & Baker City Herald
Spectacular
Solitude
Lisa Britton/For the EO Media Group
The South Winom trail on the Umatilla National Forest runs through a valley burned in the Tower fi re in August 1996. Most of the area is covered
by a dense forest of young lodgepole pines, but this south-facing slope is more open, with scattered lodgepoles and patches of snowbrush.
M ISSING
M OUNTAINS
■ The North Fork John Day River
country lacks the dramatic alpine peaks
of the Wallowa and Elkhorn Mountains,
but the region has its own enticements
B
ig mountains beckon
us.
We are entranced
by their sheer scale, making
even the largest man-made
constructions seem the puny
playthings of a child.
Climbers scan the ridges
and faces and plot potential
routes to the summit, imagin-
ing the moves they’ll make
and contemplating the comple-
ment of carabiners they’ll
need.
Photographers ponder the
time of day that would bathe
the slopes in the perfect light.
Painters strive to preserve
on canvas the magnifi cence
of a peak in winter, its white
point piercing the pale blue
sky.
Big mountains are aloof.
They are inscrutable.
Like the ocean abyssals they
are places we visit, and then
only briefl y. Most mountains
are uninhabited — indeed,
often all but uninhabitable
— and they are occupied by
humans so infrequently that
they might well be considered
a sort of hybrid between
the terrestrial and the
extraterrestrial.
But mountains, as
with most things, span a
wide range of sizes.
And I realized just recently
how much the allure of great
mountains had diminished
my appreciation for ones less
lofty.
It happens that from my
yard in Baker City I can see
two prominent ranges.
The whole of the northeast
horizon is dominated by the
Wallowas.
These mountains are not
so well-known as the Cas-
cades. This is not surprising.
The Cascades extend for
several hundred miles while
the Wallowas at their broad-
est span perhaps 45 miles.
The Cascades also lie much
nearer to metropolitan areas,
including Portland and Se-
attle. The Wallowas dominate
a sparsely populated part of
Oregon, visible on a fi ne day to
the thousands rather than to
the millions.
Lisa Britton/For the EO Media Group
The North Winom trail cleaves a carpet of lodgepole
pines that sprouted after the 1996 Tower fi re.
If You Go...
Lisa Britton/For the EO Media Group
Fireweed along the North
Fork John Day River.
ON THE TRAIL
JAYSON JACOBY
The volcanoes that crown
the Cascade crest have a
solitary splendor, soaring
many thousands of feet above
the nearby terrain and thus
dominating the views for doz-
ens of miles around. The Wal-
lowas, mostly the product of
stony accretions and subter-
ranean magmatic intrusions
rather than frothing, fi ery
eruptions, are quite different,
a rather jumbled collection
of canyons and divides with
few individual summits rising
much more than 1,000 feet
above the surrounding land.
And yet, no range in Or-
egon can rival the Wallowas
for sheer extent of elevated
ground.
Of Oregon’s 29 mountains
that top 9,000 feet, 17 are in
the Wallowas. The Cascades
boast a mere nine, albeit a
roster that includes such
famed peaks as Mount Hood,
Oregon’s tallest at 11,235,
and the Three Sisters near
Bend (each sibling surpasses
10,000 feet).
Among Oregon’s three
9,000-foot peaks that are in
neither the Wallowas nor the
Cascades, one is also visible
from parts of Baker City (but,
alas, not quite from my yard,
which lies a bit too far south
and west). That’s Rock Creek
Butte, at 9,106 feet the apex
of the Elkhorn Mountains, a
range that much resembles
the Wallowas, both in its
scenery and its goulash of a
geologic history.
The Winom Creek campground is on the Umatilla
National Forest, about 23 miles east of Ukiah and near
Road 52, the two-lane paved Blue Mountain Scenic Byway.
The campground, which is also a trailhead for the Winom-
Frazier Off-Highway Vehicle network, is about 1 mile off the
Byway, along Forest Road 440. Both the North Winom and
South Winom trails, leading into the North Fork John Day
Wilderness, start at the campground.
There are 10 campsites, including three group sites, as
well as two vault toilets. All sites are fi rst come, fi rst served,
with no reservations. Individual sites are $10 per night, the
group sites, $25.
If you have a high-clearance vehicle you can drive to
two Forest Service fi re lookout sites, although only one
remains active. That’s Tower Mountain, the highest point in
the area at 6,850 feet. It’s about 8 miles north of the Byway,
via Forest Road 5226. Tower Mountain, which was added to
the National Historic Lookout Register in 1995, is rare in that
it’s an all-steel tower, 92 feet tall. Forest Road 5225 leads
south for about 10 miles to Silver Butte, the site of a lookout
removed in the 1960s. Both roads start along the Byway
about 1.1 miles east (toward Granite) of the 440 Road,
which leads to the Winom Creek campground.
(The two other 9,000-footers
are Steens Mountain in Har-
ney County, and Strawberry
Mountain south of Prairie
City.)
I have over the decades de-
veloped a considerable affi nity
for both the Wallowas and the
Elkhorns.
I have hiked their trails and
driven their roads and relished
their wares in all seasons, from
the shimmering heat of an al-
pine rockslide in August to the
frigid white silence of January.
My familiarity has bred not
contempt but an ever-increas-
ing fascination. I never fail to
appreciate my good fortune at
living so near to such grand
mountains.
But my affection for the
Wallowas and the Elkhorns
also has constricted my views,
in a psychological rather than
a physical sense.
I came to understand this
summer, from a confl uence of
factors, that I have dismissed
other nearby mountains as
less deserving of my attention
solely because they lack the
imposing precipices of the Wal-
lowas and the Elkhorns.
The main thing is that late
last summer we bought a pop
up trailer.
And once the weather
turned warm we naturally
started looking for places to
park the thing other than in
our driveway, which is a pleas-
ant place but is not, strictly
speaking, a campsite.
Olivia Jacoby/For the EO Media Group
Paintbrush in bloom near
Tower Mountain lookout.
Although there are plenty
of spots to haul a trailer in the
Elkhorns and the Wallowas,
lingering snow — and the in-
cipient infestation of mosquitoes
— prompted us to head west,
beyond the Elkhorns, to the
section of the Blue Mountains
where the Wallowa-Whitman
and Umatilla national forests
meet.
I’ve come to think of this area
as the North Fork John Day, for
the river that drains most of the
region.
This is mountainous country,
to be sure. But the mountains
are of a decidedly different sort
from the Wallowas and the Elk-
horns. There are no great peaks,
their shapes sculpted by ancient
glaciers into craggy ramparts
and U-shaped valleys.
See Mountains/Page 6B