B
Saturday, August 29, 2020
The Observer & Baker City Herald
RECREATION
REPORT
ODFW REPORTS
PROBLEM WITH
MYODFW APP ON
APPLE DEVICES
SALEM — The Or-
egon Department of
Fish and Wildlife re-
cently became aware
that the MyODFW
app will not open
on iPhones or iPads
when the device is
out of cell service or
in airplane mode. Us-
ers will get an error
message instead.
The issue does
not affect Android
devices.
ODFW is work-
ing on fi xing the
problem but isn’t
sure when it will
be resolved. In the
meantime, ODFW is
asking iPhone and
iPad users to take the
following steps.
• Take a screenshot
of your license and
tags.
• Open the app
while you still have
cell service or Wi-Fi
and leave it turned
on/logged in during
your trip.
• Do not swipe the
app off the screen
during your trip as
this will close the
MyODFW app.
• If possible, do not
turn off your phone
during your trip as
this will close the
MyODFW app.
Until this prob-
lem is resolved, the
screenshot show-
ing a valid tag will
temporarily suffi ce
to show to Oregon
State Police or
ODFW, should you
encounter them in
the fi eld. However,
MyODFW app users
who encounter this
problem must im-
mediately complete
e-tagging once they
are back in cell or
Wi-Fi service. Also,
app users will need
to update to the lat-
est app version that
fi xes this problem
once it is available as
the screenshot will
no longer suffi ce for
proof of tag (users
will be alerted to
update their app
once the new version
is available).
Hunters and an-
glers who have this
problem with their
MyODFW app in the
fi eld need to take the
following steps:
• HUNTERS: If you
harvest an animal,
take all the steps
you normally would
(except for electroni-
cally validating the
tag and adding the
confi rmation number
to your handwritten
tag). Reminder that
hunters who are e-
tagging need to write
their name, ODFW
ID, date of birth and
harvest date on any-
thing that will stand
up to the elements
(like fl agging or duct
tape) and affi x it to
the animal like a
traditional tag. Keep
it attached to the
carcass in transport.
As soon as you are
back in cell service,
complete e-tagging
and write the con-
fi rmation number
down on whatever
is affi xed to your
animal.
STEEP ROUTE TO ROCK CREEK LAKE ILLUSTRATES DIFFERENCES IN TRAIL-CONSTRUCTION TECHNIQUES
Lisa Britton/For the EO Media Group
Rock Creek Lake.
S IMPLE
E LEGANCE
OF THE
Lisa Britton/For the EO Media Group
Rock Creek Lake occupies a glacier-carved basin below Rock Creek Butte, tallest peak
in the Elkhorn Mountains at 9,106 feet.
S WITCHBACK
■ Most trails in the Eagle Cap Wilderness zigzag up steep
slopes to reduce the grade and make the routes easier for
horses to negotiate, but paths in the Elkhorn Mountains
generally take a more direct route to their destinations
I
never appreciate
switchbacks so
much as when
there aren’t any.
My legs and my
lungs are especially fond of
these simple but elegant bits
of footpath engineering.
If you have neither the
time, inclination nor the
budget to build a tram like
the one that hauls passen-
gers from Wallowa Lake to
the top of Mount Howard —
and such conveyances aren’t
exactly common hereabouts
— then constructing a series
of switchbacks is the best
way to tame a section of wild
terrain.
A switchback, as its name
suggests, is the spot where
a trail abruptly switches
direction. Generally this is a
roughly 180-degree shift — if
you’ve been walking north,
the switchback will set you
on a southerly course.
The concept of the zigzag
captures the essence of the
thing.
Trail designers most often
call for switchbacks on steep
ground.
A switchbacking trail
allows hikers — indeed,
anything that has feet and
employs them for locomo-
tion — to ascend a slope in
a series of traverses that
are at a much gentler grade
compared with clambering
straight up.
For reasons best explained
through geometry or phys-
ics or anyway some other
discipline with numbers and
symbols that frighten and
confuse me, the steeper, and
to some extent the narrower,
the hill, the more switch-
backs, with shorter traverses,
are necessary to moderate
the grade.
On a nearly vertical slope
ON THE TRAIL
JAYSON JACOBY
— hardly an uncommon fea-
ture in our region where the
topography is as rumbled as
the piles of clothes on a teen-
age boy’s bedroom fl oor — a
trail might switch directions
every couple hundred feet.
In less severe terrain, es-
pecially on broad slopes not
confi ned by cliffs or cleaved
by a canyon — a traverse
might extend for a quarter
mile or more before the trail
switches back.
Northeast Oregon has a
wealth of examples of both
approaches to building trails.
Although there are notable
exceptions, most trails in
the Wallowa Mountains are
generously endowed with
switchbacks. This design
refl ects the frequent use of
horses to carry visitors, and
their gear, into the Eagle Cap
Wilderness, Oregon’s largest
primitive area at 365,000
acres.
Horses are fi ne climbers, to
be sure.
But if you’re riding one, or
even if it’s only your week-
end’s supply of pancake fl our
and beer that depends on
equine agility, you’ll likely
prefer the gentler ascent that
a well-designed switchback
trail encourages.
The Elkhorn Mountains
are a decidedly different
matter.
Switchbacks are scarce.
Trails are also shorter, as
a rule, in the Elkhorns com-
pared with the Wallowas.
This refl ects in part of the
sizes of the ranges, certainly,
as the Wallowas sprawl over
three times as much ground.
Wilderness, or lack thereof,
is also a signifi cant factor.
The Wallowas are mostly
designated as federal
wilderness, which means
motorized vehicles aren’t
allowed. Most popular
destinations such as lakes lie
several miles from the end of
the nearest road.
By contrast there’s very
little offi cial wilderness in
the Elkhorns, so roads — ter-
ribly rough roads, in many
cases, about which more
later, but roads just the same
— penetrate deeper into
the mountains, resulting in
shorter trails.
But the comparatively
puny trail mileage in the
Elkhorns also refl ects trail
builders’ choice to largely
eschew switchbacks.
Attacking the terrain di-
rectly, as most trails do in the
Elkhorns, is a shorter, steeper
way to get to where you’re
going.
Several trails exemplify
this strategy.
But none demonstrates
it quite so brutally, or so my
quadriceps tell me, as the
path to Rock Creek Lake on
the east side of the Elkhorns.
The 4-mile trail includes a
section about a third of a mile
long that is, if not the steep-
est sustained climb among
Elkhorns trails, then surely
belongs in the upper echelon.
(The path from the North
Powder River to Summit
Lake is comparable, although
I believe its most torturous
stretch is slightly shorter.)
Were the Rock Creek trail
rebuilt to the general specifi -
cations common to the Eagle
Cap Wilderness, it would
be at least 50% longer, and
probably nearer to twice the
distance.
Its antithesis is the trail
to Frances Lake, on the east
If You Go...
From downtown Haines, turn at the sign for Anthony
Lakes and drive 1.7 miles to the fi rst corner. Stay straight,
then left on Pocahontas Road for a few hundred yards to
a junction with South Rock Creek Road. Turn right (west,
directly toward the Elkhorns) on South Rock Creek Road.
Follow this paved, two-lane road, which turns to well-
graded gravel after about 3.5 miles and then to a rough,
rock-strewn and dusty road for which four-wheel-drive
and high clearance are all but necessities. Continue west,
uphill, into the mountains. Pass the Killamacue Lake
trailhead about 2 miles from where the road deteriorates
(the trailhead is not marked, but it’s where the road crosses
Killamacue Creek) and continue past Eilertson Meadow (on
the left side, past a bridge over Rock Creek).
About 1 mile beyond Eilertson Meadow turn left on Road
250, a short (less than a tenth of a mile) spur that descends
slightly and ends at the trailhead.
side of the Lostine River
Canyon in the Wallowas. The
Frances Lake trail, which
replaced an older, steeper and
shorter route, ascends the can-
yon in a series of long travers-
es, connected by switchbacks,
that are so consistent and so
gradual that when I hiked the
trail several years ago with
my father-in-law, Howard
Britton, we scarcely detected
the elevation gain.
And it’s a considerable gain,
at about 3,000 feet from the
trailhead to the ridgecrest
several hundred feet about
Frances Lake. But that eleva-
tion is spread over about 8
miles.
There’s nothing so subtle
about the Rock Creek trail.
After crossing the North
Fork of Rock Creek and
then the mainstem, both in
the fi rst tenth of a mile, the
trail climbs steadily but at a
moderate grade for half a mile
or so until it plunges into the
jungle.
That, at any rate, is what
I’ve long called the short
stretch where the trail cleaves
a grove of alders and thimble-
berries and cow parsnip with
stalks as tall as an elk’s back,
much of it dangling across the
trail.
Fortunately none of the
species that make up this veg-
etative gantlet is especially
scratchy.
The hard work, though,
starts where the trail emerges
from the jungle. The path
immediately scrabbles its way
up a forested slope so steep
that the trees seem to be
growing at a peculiar angle.
And yet as taxing as this
trudge is, I never fail to be
amused, as I plod along, heart
thudding and breath wheez-
ing, at the pathetic gesture
the trailblazers made to
acknowledge the severity of
the terrain.
I would describe their ef-
forts as half-hearted except
that cliché strikes me as an
exaggeration. And quarter-
hearted is an awkward
alternative.
Regardless, the trail does
meander a bit as it climbs
toward the gap that Rock
Creek has spooned out of the
Elkhorns’ geologic goulash
over the millennia.
But these slight squiggles
don’t qualify as switchbacks
even under the most gener-
ous defi nition of the word.
If anything, the trail gets a
trifl e steeper at these spots.
A well-constructed switch-
back requires a fair amount
of digging, to keep the grade
steady. The Rock Creek trail
has none of this.
At the top of the climb the
trail — perversely, it seems to
me — descends briefl y. This,
of course, merely ensures
that on the way back hikers,
rather than relishing the
downward tug of gravity all
the way, after having defi ed
it so sweatily on the way up,
instead, albeit briefl y, give
truth to the old adage about
how in the old days people
had to walk to school “uphill
both ways.”
See Switchbacks/Page 6B