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About The Observer. (La Grande, Or.) 1968-current | View Entire Issue (Jan. 23, 2021)
B Saturday, January 23, 2021 The Observer & Baker City Herald Four Hikers Complete The New, 566-Mile Blue Mountains Trail Renee Patrick/Contributed Photo Autumn scenery near Hawkins Pass in the Eagle Cap Wilderness. The Blue Mountains Trail as- cends the pass and then drops into the valley of the South Fork of the Imnaha River. T HE B LUES B ECKON By JAYSON JACOBY Baker City Herald Renee Patrick started her epic walk through the Blue Mountains in the sweaty heat of July, and she fi nished it amid the nostril-freezing chill of an alpine autumn. Along the 566 miles of hiking in between, Patrick was at turns chal- lenged, enlightened and even awed by the eclectic landscapes of Northeast Oregon. She also made history. And now, a few months after she fi nished her trek, Patrick is helping to promote the Blue Mountains Trail, a route she and other proponents hope will join the ranks of America’s other long-distance wilderness paths. “It’s fun to be at the beginning of an effort like this that people are excited about,” Patrick said in a Jan. 14 phone interview. “It’s exciting for the eastern half of the state Patrick to have more recre- ational opportunities. Northeast Oregon is not well-known, even by a lot of Oregonians.” Although the current version of the Blue Mountains Trail is new, the concept dates back more than half a century. Loren Hughes, a longtime La Grande jeweler who died on Jan. 29, 2016, envisioned a long hiking route through the Blue Mountains as far back as 1960. Later, Hughes and Dick Hentze, who taught elementary school in Baker City from 1970 to 2000, con- jured the idea of the Blue Mountain Heritage Trail. Hentze, who moved from Baker City to the Eugene area in 2014, died on Aug. 8, 2020. Mike Higgins of Halfway said in a Jan. 14 interview that he became involved with planning the trail in the 1990s along with Greg Dyson, direc- tor of the Hells Canyon Preservation Council. (The organization, based in La Grande, was renamed as the Greater Hells Canyon Council in 2017, its 50th anniversary.) “The route was much different then,” said Higgins, an advisory board member for the Greater Hells Canyon Council. The previously proposed trail was a loop that covered about 870 miles. Among the notable differences, the current route — the one that Patrick helped pioneer with her hike in the summer and fall of 2020 — is point to point rather than a loop, with Wal- lowa Lake State Park at the northern end and John Day at the southern. “The current route to me is a lot more attractive,” Higgins said. Renee Patrick/Contributed Photo Sumac had turned its seasonal shade of dark red when Renee Patrick hiked in Hells Canyon in October 2020 as part of the fi rst solo thru-hike of the 566-mile Blue Mountains Trail. ated the route, Kennedy said he has a much better idea of the trail’s attributes — and its problems. Although it’s called a trail the route does include several sections on Forest Service roads, although most of those are little-traveled roads in remote areas, Kennedy said. There are no plans to propose the construction of any new trail, he said. With so much new data to digest — including GPS waypoints and other digital details — Kennedy is striving this winter to make the trail’s website more informative. His goal is to have an online guide for hiker-ready sections of the Blue Mountains Trail, including maps, by spring, in time for the prime hiking season. Solo hiker’s experiences Approaching Strawberry Mountain on the Blue Mountains Trail. “Prime” not necessarily being a syn- onym for “perfect” in this case. Kennedy points out that the In particular, he appreciates that scapes of the Blues,” Kennedy said in the Blue Mountains Trail passes a Jan. 14 interview. “It really ties the window for hiking the entire Blue Mountains Trail is a relative small through all seven of the federal region together.” wilderness areas in Northeast Oregon But when it comes to connections, one, although he acknowledges that — Eagle Cap, Hells Canyon, Wenaha- no amount of conceptual planning or the vast majority of hikers will only attempt sections rather than trying to Tucannon, North Fork Umatilla, pondering of maps can replace the North Fork John Day, Monument actual experience of hiking the route, cover all 566 miles in a single trip or even a single year. Rock and Strawberry Mountain. Kennedy said. The reason is elevation. Higgins said he believes this con- That’s why the efforts of Patrick The trail samples each of the cept, so long in the making, fi nally has and a separate group of three hikers higher ranges of the Blues, including momentum. were so vital. the Strawberrys, Elkhorns, Green- “I think it’s going to go this time,” That trio — Whitney La Ruffa, horns and Wallowas. Sections of the he said. “Jared is going to make sure Naomi Hudetz and Mike Unger — it goes.” hiked the entire Blue Mountains Trail trail in those areas climb well above 7,000 feet, and in places are reliably Jared in this case is Jared Kennedy. during September. free of snow only during August and He’s the Blue Mountains Trail Patrick said she exchanged infor- September. project leader for the Greater Hells mation with the three other hikers Yet the trail also descends into Canyon Council, a task that includes about their experiences, particularly maintaining the trail’s website, any problems they encountered with Hells Canyon, where summer https://www.hellscanyon.org/blue- navigation, distances between water temperatures regularly exceed 100 mountains-trail sources and other matters important degrees. Given that even an experienced “This is an opportunity for people to to future hikers. get a much better idea of the land- Now that four people have negoti- long-distance hiker is likely to need 30 Renee Patrick/Contributed Photo to 45 days to complete the entire trail, a start in July or early August would be the most plausible, both to avoid deep lingering snowdrifts from the previous winter, and the fi rst storms of the next. But a midsummer start has its own potential challenges, as Patrick discovered. She began her journey at John Day in August. The temperature was 99 degrees. And the fi rst day included a stint on a freshly blacktopped road (a rare paved section) and a 4,000-foot climb over 7 miles, among the more diffi cult ascents of the entire route. Patrick said she took a break dur- ing the hottest part of that day and fi nished the climb in the comparative cool of the evening. Her schedule allowed her to hike for only a week in August. She covered the 110-mile section from John Day to Austin Junction, where Highways 26 and 7 meet, about 50 miles southwest of Baker City. Although that’s a longer trek than most hikers will ever attempt in a single trip, it’s little more than a jaunt by Patrick’s standards. Few people can match her hiking resumé. Patrick has thru-hiked — com- pleting an entire trail in one year — America’s “triple crown” of long- distance routes, the Pacifi c Crest, Appalachian and Continental Divide trails. The cumulative mileage of that trio of epic trails is about 7,800 miles — 3,100 miles for the Continental Divide Trail, 2,610 for the Pacifi c Crest, and 2,100 for the Appalachian. Patrick also helped to pioneer the Oregon Desert Trail in the state’s re- mote, sagebrush-dominated southeast corner. She hiked the 750-mile route in 2016, the year after she was hired as Oregon Desert Trail coordinator for the Oregon Natural Desert Associa- tion in Bend, where she lives. At 566 miles, the Blue Mountains Trail isn’t terribly daunting for a hiker with as many miles on her boots as Patrick. But she said every route, regardless of distance, brings its unique chal- lenges. The Blue Mountains Trail, unlike the well-known and generally well- maintained Pacifi c Crest and Appala- chian trails, includes several stretches that require hikers to “bushwhack” — fi nd their own way across trailless (and roadless) stretches. And although many of the trails and roads that comprise the Blue Mountains Trail are individually signed, there are no markers for this new trail itself. See Trail/Page 2B
