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Saturday, August 8, 2020
The Observer & Baker City Herald
VISITING THE FORMER SITE OF A FOREST SERVICE GUARD STATION
If You Go...
Lisa Britton / For the EO Media Group
A sign marks the former site of the Forest Service’s Porcupine guard station. The building was removed in June
1971, according to the sign, but a largely intact concrete foundation remains. The site is beside Beatty Creek.
If you’re coming from North Powder, Baker City or
points south, drive on Tucker Flat Road to Pilcher Creek
Reservoir, west of North Powder near the Elkhorn Wildlife
Area headquarters. From La Grande or points north, exit
Interstate 84 at North Powder and drive west on River Road
to Tucker Flat Road. From the reservoir, continue west into
the mountains on the road, which becomes Forest Road
4330, for 3 miles to the junction with Road 7312 (marked
by a sign “Anthony Lakes Hwy. 9.” Continue straight, uphill,
still on Road 4330.
Road 4330 climbs, steeply in places, for about 2 miles
along Dutch Creek, which is dry now. The road crosses a
couple of cattle guards in a logged area that produced a
bumper crop of huckleberries in July (and perhaps still is).
Just beyond the logged area the road crosses Wolf Creek
and meets Road 4316, which leads north (right).
Stay on Road 4330, which veers left and continues climb-
ing for 3 miles to its intersection with Road 43, the well-
maintained gravel Ladd Canyon Road.
Turn right onto Ladd Canyon Road. The easier of the two
roads to fi nd is the 4300-301 road. It branches off to the left
(west) just a few hundred yards from the 43-4330 junction.
There’s a graveled turnout here and a fence gate.
Hike west on the road to the quarry, which is less than a
tenth of a mile away. The road turns right (north) just before
a pond. The route is a bit sketchy but once you enter the
denser woods the path is obvious. Follow it for about half a
mile to a clearing where the 4300-300 road comes in from
the right (east). Hike west for about three-quarters of a mile
to the meadow along Beatty Creek and the former site of
the Porcupine guard station.
H IKING I NTO F OREST H ISTORY
T
he word “Porcupine,”
printed on the map in bold
black letters, piqued my
curiosity.
Or perhaps prickled is the more
apt verb.
The word sat snugly beside a sym-
bol that I took to denote a structure
of some sort.
Exactly what sort I couldn’t tell,
although it looked to me rather like
a lean-to that Laura Ingalls Wilder’s
Pa might have thrown together.
The map lacked a legend, in any
case.
We were planning to go camp-
ing in the mountains above Pilcher
Creek Reservoir and I was perusing
the map looking for places to hike.
Which is to say I was looking
at roads, as there are few trails in
that part of the Wallowa-Whitman
National Forest.
The “Porcupine” and its symbol
were only fi ve miles or so from our
intended campsite, and much closer
than that to the thoroughfare of the
Ladd Canyon Road, Forest Road 43.
My knowledge of the Wallowa-
Whitman is hardly encyclopedic.
But I am pretty familiar with the
forest’s complement of buildings
— guard stations, most of them —
and I had never heard of one called
Porcupine.
The map showed a road — albeit
one denoted by the dashed lines that
usually suggest something more
akin to a deer trail than to a freeway
— leading to the place.
The structure was just inside the
La Grande Watershed, a parcel of
public land in the Beaver Creek
drainage that was the city’s primary
water source until 1991, when La
Grande started relying solely on
wells to slake its thirst.
(The city maintains the forested
watershed, and specifi cally the La
Grande Reservoir at the north end
of the area, as a backup source. La
Grande’s watershed, unlike Baker
City’s, which is also managed by the
Wallowa-Whitman, is open to public
entry.)
We left on the fi rst day of August.
This was the day after the tem-
perature reached 105 degrees at the
Baker City Airport, the fourth-hot-
test day there since World War II.
August 1 was about a dozen
degrees cooler but it was still pretty
toasty, even in our campsite that
was well-shaded by thick Engel-
mann spruces and Douglas-fi rs. We
decided to put off the hike until after
dinner.
We drove up Road 4330, which
crosses Wolf Creek and then climbs
to a junction with the Ladd Canyon
Road near Bear Wallow Spring,
ON THE TRAIL
JAYSON JACOBY
a place I have visited but where I
have never seen a bear wallowing.
Or doing anything else, come to
that.
From the intersection it’s just a
mile or so north to the road leading
west to Porcupine, whatever that
might be. I fi gured the road ought
to be easy to fi nd, as it branches off
where the Ladd Canyon Road veers
sharply to the northeast.
We found the veer easily enough.
But I didn’t see anything that re-
sembled a road, even accounting for
the likelihood that there wouldn’t be
an offramp or an exit sign.
My wife, Lisa, who generally pre-
fers that I focus on not driving into
the barrow pit and instead leave the
spotting to her, said there was no
apparent gate or breach in the old
drift fence that parallels the Ladd
Canyon Road.
Fortunately my map showed an
alternate route, a road that starts
a half-mile or so to the south and
connects to the road we searched for
in vain.
We found the second road easily
enough.
Although I gashed the leg of one
of my favorite pair of shorts while
trying to get through the aforemen-
tioned fence, a futile attempt that
was a clumsy combination of the
limbo and electrocution.
The fabric, to its credit, sacri-
fi ced itself and left my skin, which
is more problematic to sew shut,
unscathed.
The map, which frankly I had
begun to feel less than confi dent
about, redeemed itself almost im-
mediately. It bore the crossed shovel
and pick symbol that means a rock
quarry, and sure enough the quarry,
and a great pile of crushed basalt
gravel, was right where I expected
to fi nd it.
The surprise — to us, at least, as
its presence was not hinted at on
the map — was the pond.
It was a trifl ing body of water,
covering probably a few hundred
square feet, but my son Max, who’s
9, was entranced.
The pond teemed with tadpoles
and actual frogs, and in my experi-
ence there are few things in nature
more appealing to a small boy than
slimy amphibians and the potential
to fall into a pond and get muddy.
Also there was a dead snake
beside the water.
And Max is fascinated with
snakes of all sorts, regardless of
Lisa Britton / For the EO Media Group
Beatty Creek, a tributary of Beaver Creek, runs through a meadow dotted with false hellebore plants.
their respiratory state.
The gravel-making operation and
its associated heavy equipment had
obscured the route of the road but
we eventually found the way.
The dashed lines on the map
turned out to be appropriate. Once
the road entered the lodgepole
pine forest it ceased to resemble a
route that had been traveled by any
wheeled vehicle since maybe the
Reagan administration.
But the clearing through the trees
was obvious, and there was a nar-
row but well-trodden trail meander-
ing in the right-of-way. Although it
appeared to me that most of the feet
doing the trodding were not feet at
all but the hooves of elk and deer.
The junction of this road and the
other was a conspicuous open area,
and the new road — the one we
were searching for initially — was
obvious. Most of the width was
overgrown with juvenile lodgepoles,
and every few hundred yards or so
the old roadbed had been gouged to
create a “tank trap” — a deep divot
suffi cient to turn back most vehicles.
But there was a fi ne trail — indeed,
it was in better condition than many
offi cial paths I’ve hiked.
The road descended gently, and
with the sun low on the western
horizon it was quite pleasant stroll-
ing along, the day having shed the
worst of its cloying heat.
After half a mile or so the slope
steepened slightly and we could see,
not far below, the green swath of a
meadow through which fl ows, ac-
cording to the map, Beatty Creek.
We had just reached the mead-
ow’s edge, where the lodgepoles give
way to the hip-high grass, when I
saw the concrete foundation.
It was a curious sight — a symbol
of human habitation in an other-
wise wild setting.
The foundation had tilted slightly
in a few places but seemed oth-
erwise quite sound. The building
it supported had obviously been
gone for a considerable span, as the
interior — where the building would
have stood — had several 20-foot
lodgepoles growing in it.
Max saw the sign fi rst.
It was even more incongruous, in
its way, than the foundation.
The brown sign, which was bolted
to a stout post, had “Wallowa-Whit-
man National Forest” etched into
the bottom, but it was the script on
the top that if anything deepened
the mystery.
“Removed June 1971.”
It was obvious enough that what
had been removed was a structure,
but I found it passing strange that
the sign didn’t so much as give the
name of that structure.
I’ll concede it’s possible that a thief
is responsible for the ambiguity.
There are a couple of round holes
in the sign that suggest it might
originally have had another part,
perhaps one that told the complete
story of the erstwhile building.
Regardless, we were all amused
that the Forest Service deemed it
necessary to erect a sign to memo-
rialize the removal of a building
that could hardly have been terribly
signifi cant.
I later talked with Bruce McMil-
lan, a retired Forest Service employ-
ee, and he recalled the Porcupine
guard station. He later called me
back and said he had spoken with a
former colleague who also knew of it.
It’s an excellent spot for a guard
station, to be sure.
The Beatty Creek meadow is the
epitome of a mountain fi eld, neatly
bordered by dense forest. It’s the sort
of place where you expect an elk to
emerge from the woods at any time,
or perhaps see a bear.
We retraced our route to the clear-
ing where the two roads meet. Then
we continued east, curious about
whether the junction with the Ladd
Canyon Road was as obscure as we
thought it was, having missed it the
fi rst go round.
We didn’t feel too badly about our
gaffe.
There was nothing to distinguish
the junction, although, having fi nally
recognized it, I suspect I wouldn’t
drive past it a second time. There
was no sign, but a pair of orange dia-
monds — markers to guide snowmo-
bilers — serve as a substitute.
Also I managed to get through the
fence without any further damage to
any garments.
Even Max and his older sister,
Olivia, seemed impressed.