OUTDOORS & REC
SATURDAY, MAY 23, 2020
GEOCACHING
Continued from Page 1B
Max, as many boys do who are
years away from being able to drive,
has a sense of curiosity that’s both
catholic and intense. Just lately his
two obsessions — or at least the
two that occupy most of his (and his
parents’) time — are geocaching and
microscopes.
He recently acquired a portable
microscope that allows him to pur-
sue both interests simultaneously.
There is of course an app for
geocaching.
Actually there are probably doz-
ens of geocaching apps, but the one
Max downloaded onto his mother’s
phone is the one we employed on the
Saturday we drove to Stump Spring
Butte.
My initial plan was to hike the
road that follows the spine of Windy
Ridge toward the Burnt River.
But Max insisted that I check the
app for nearby geocaches, and sure
enough there was a bright green
icon on Stump Spring Butte, less
than a mile from Windy Ridge.
Much too close, and convenient, to
bypass, in other words.
We headed to the butte fi rst.
I had climbed to the top, where
a fi re lookout once stood, but that
was years before the Cornet-Windy
Ridge fi re swept through in August
2015.
The fi re, and subsequent salvage
logging, had so changed the land-
scape that I scarcely recognized the
area. Or at least that was my excuse
when I drove past an important
junction and Lisa had to set me
straight by consulting the geocache
app, which also has a detailed map
showing roads.
A road gets to within a half-mile
or so of the summit, so it didn’t take
us long to reach the boulders and
start looking for what the geocache’s
Olivia Jacoby /For the EO Media Group
Larkspur
sort that, when you’ve wedged most
of your upper body into them, can
induce claustrophobia. It’s all too
easy to imagine one stone shifting a
creator described as a “camo lock-
few inches, leaving you in a painful
box.”
and precarious position and ponder-
I was a trifl e worried by the
ing how easy it might be to amputate
“camo” part, what with the purpose your arm with a pocketknife.
of camoufl age being to make sure
All four of us combed the plateau,
something is not found.
fanning out from the spot where
Nor was I encouraged by the lack Lisa’s phone said the cache ought to
of specifi city in the ostensible loca-
be.
tion of the geocache.
Max’s disappointment was degrad-
It was described as being “near”
ing into despondency. I tried to con-
the site of the lookout but that
sole him, noting that we had made a
was no help at all because there’s
thorough search and anyhow maybe
nothing — no crumbling foundation somebody stole the cache.
blocks, no weathered boards — to
He didn’t seem mollifi ed but he did
indicate where the building stood.
take the lead on the hike back to the
Ray Kresek, who wrote a fi ne book rig, stomping through the woods.
about fi re lookouts in Oregon and
Within a half hour or so Max’s
Washington, determined through
mood had improved — a 9-year-old’s
his research that the 32-foot tower
attitude being as unpredictable as
on the butte was built in 1934 and
the waves in an unsettled sea.
“destroyed” in 1963.
It helped that he had the foresight
I can’t say how thorough those
to step outside the car before twist-
assigned the destruction were in
ing the cap on his bottle of Sprite,
their efforts, but it appears that any which, agitated by the decrepit roads,
recognizable remnants which might fountained a fan of lemon-lime foam.
have survived the 1963 purge were
His sister, however, uncapped her
done for by the fl ames of 2015.
bottle while we were driving, with
(The geocache, according to the
predictably sticky results and the
app, had been placed since the
sort of gloating opportunity that
blaze.)
younger brothers crave.
The rock formations that comprise
We had a nice hike out Windy
the butte’s high point, although
Ridge for a couple miles, reveling in
interesting to look at, are lousy with the expansive views of the Burnt
cunning hiding places.
River Canyon and exclaiming with
Some of these crevices are the
delight when Max spotted the
Lisa Britton /For the EO Media Group
Heartleaf arnica’s blossoms
brighten fi re-blackened forests.
THE OBSERVER & BAKER CITY HERALD — 3B
distinct and beautiful blossom of the
bitterroot.
The next day we drove out to
Sumpter Valley and then up into the
Elkhorns, our destination the lime
quarry along Baboon Creek.
This is a fascinating place to visit
even when you’re not looking for a
geocache.
The Blue Mountain Lime Compa-
ny gouged the slopes between 1963
and 1971, according to a report from
the Oregon Department of Geology
and Mineral Industries on the state’s
limestone deposits.
The Baboon Creek quarry was the
second the company mined in the
Elkhorns. The fi rst site, on Marble
Creek on the east side of the raange,
opened in 1958.
The rock was processed into
industrial lime at a plant about 5
miles north of Baker City, south of
Wingville Lane and just west of the
railroad tracks. The plant closed
more than 40 years ago but snowy-
white piles of lime remain — they’re
quite distinctive even from the
summit of Elkhorn Peak, more than
5,500 feet above.
Although limestone mining
ceased long ago, the benefi ts of Blue
Mountain Lime’s operation remain.
The company was responsible for
building the road that crosses the
Elkhorns at Marble Creek Pass, the
southern terminus of the Elkhorn
Crest National Recreation Trail and
one of just two roads — the other be-
ing the Elkhorn Drive Scenic Byway
— that cross the spine of the range.
The road was a haul route for
limestone trucks bringing rock from
the Baboon Creek quarry over the
Elkhorns and down Marble Creek to
the processing plant.
I’m not sure Max cared much
about this history.
But he was awfully interested in
the geocache that the app told us was
located near the top of the quarry.
Lisa and I were leery, fearing a
repeat of the previous day’s failure.
We needn’t have worried.
The cache — a plastic container —
was conspicuously placed against the
base of a fi r.
Max dug into the contents, an
eclectic mix that included a couple
of granola bars, a handwarmer and
a candy ring pop that Olivia dearly
wanted to take.
We poked around on the wide, fl at
terraces the miners hacked into the
hillside. The quarry, never patented,
is public land.
It’s an intriguing part of Baker
County’s mining history — in part
because it’s comparatively recent.
And because the nature of mining
limestone is quite different from tun-
neling into the ground to intercept
a vein of gold that might be only a
foot wide the quarry, which extends
for several hundred vertical feet and
even more width, is considerably
more prominent than a lode mine,
many of which have caved in at the
entrance anyway. Mining limestone
economically requires both quantity
as well as quality.
The Baboon Creek quarry is vis-
ible from miles away, a blatant patch
among the dark green forests, some-
times gray and sometimes nearly
white depending on the perspective
and the angle of the sunlight.
We’ll likely be out this weekend,
chasing the snow as it recedes up the
mountains.
(Although the storm earlier this
week at least temporarily reversed
that seasonal shift — about a foot
of snow fell in parts of the Wallowas
and Elkhorns.)
Wherever we go I’m certain of one
thing.
Max will make sure the app is up
and running, luring us to another
green icon on the word of someone
we’ve never met and probably never
will.
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