Outdoors
Rec
B
Saturday, June 25, 2022
The Observer & Baker City Herald
BACKYARD BEAUTY
Relishing the proximity of the Mount Emily Recreation Area
PLANTS OF
MOUNT EMILY
RECREATION
AREA
near
La Grande
Photos by Lisa Britton,
Baker City Herald
JAYSON
JACOBY
ON THE TRAIL
f you live in La Grande,
I
I’m jealous.
And if you live in a
northern neighborhood, say
Columbine blooms
beside a trail.
around Greenwood Elementary
or Riverside Park, I’m really
jealous.
The source of my geographic
envy is Mount Emily.
Not the mountain itself, although it
does make an iconic backdrop not only
for the city but for the Grande Ronde
Valley.
I’m referring here rather to the
Mount Emily Recreation Area
— MERA.
This network of trails — 45 miles
each of nonmotorized and motorized
routes wending among the ponderosa
pines and wildfl ower meadows on the
mountain’s southeast shoulder — would
be a treasure no matter its location.
But its proximity to La Grande
lends MERA a level of accessibility
that seems almost unfairly generous
to people whose addresses aren’t so
accommodating.
Mine, for instance.
I don’t mean to imply that Baker
City, where I live, is some urban
wasteland.
Quite the opposite, of course.
Baker City is nearly as close to the
Elkhorn Mountains as La Grande is
Jayson Jacoby/Baker City Herald
Views from the Mount Emily Recreation Area extend east across the Grande Ronde Valley to
Mount Fanny, Point Prominence and other high points in the western Wallowas.
to Mount Emily. And the Elkhorns,
which top out at 9,106 on the sedimen-
tary summit of Rock Creek Butte, are
notably more imposing than Mount
Emily’s 6,063-foot apex.
The view of the Wallowa Moun-
tains from Baker City is expansive,
too, compared with La Grande’s vista
of that range, which takes in just a few
prominent summits including Mule
Peak and China Cap.
Yet even though I can see the tri-
angular tip of Elkhorn Peak, sec-
ond-tallest in the range, from my
living room — and better than a dozen
of the Wallowas’ eminences from
my driveway — there’s nothing like
MERA nearby.
I had hiked at MERA a couple times
before, but the last time was probably
at least fi ve years ago.
I got reacquainted with the area this
month because my daughter, Olivia,
was playing summer volleyball at La
Grande High School on a few evenings.
While Olivia was spiking and
bumping on June 20, the day before the
solstice, my wife, Lisa, and I took our
son, Max, up to MERA to see what the
soggy spring had done for this year’s
crop of lupine and paintbrush and
camas.
(Quite a lot, it turned out, as all
the foliage was lush and healthy.
So, unfortunately, were the mosqui-
toes, although the insect population at
MERA was modest compared with the
veritable swarms that infest places in
the Wallowas and Elkhorns during the
unpleasant period soon after the snow
has melted.)
I knew, of course, that MERA was
no great journey.
But it wasn’t until I saw the pizza
delivery car that I realized just how
near the place is — almost literally in
some backyards, as the saying goes.
We followed the car up Owsley
Canyon Road for a mile or so. As
I watched the delivery driver start
down a lengthy driveway bearing an
undoubtedly delectable cargo, it struck
me that MERA is close enough to town
that probably you could even cajole
Domino’s into bringing a large pep-
peroni right to the trailhead parking
lot, which was little more than a mile
farther.
Redstem ceanothus
is in bloom in June.
Camas blooms in a
meadow.
See, Backyard/Page B2
Ninebark blooms
in June.
Yellow lupine in
bloom beside a
trail.
A bridge on a trail at the Mount
Emily Recreation Area near La
Grande on June 22, 2022.
Jayson Jacoby/Baker City Herald
Everyone benefi ts from a healthier Klamath Basin
trout fi shery could be in the
very near future if we don’t rap-
idly curtail habitat degradation
upstream.
LUKE
OVGARD
CAUGHT OVGARD
Documentary
t’s probably selfi sh of me to
complain about the wettest
April in Portland history and
one of the wettest in Oregon’s his-
tory — especially in light of the
perennial drought that’s plagued
us for much of my adult life. OK,
it’s defi nitely selfi sh of me.
Still, the constant barometric
upheaval, unrelenting fl ow of
chilled precipitation and clari-
ty-destroying windstorms abso-
lutely killed the trout fi shing this
spring. In the very short term,
it’s benefi cial for all aff ected
fi shes, including the popular red-
band trout that usually capture
my every spare moment in May,
but it’s also benefi cial for all three
endemic suckers in the Upper
Klamath Basin and the salmon
populations downstream. Long-
term, much less so.
Unlike snowpack, rainfall is a
short-lived benefi t to the water-
shed. It can wash out built up bac-
teria, algae and reduce parasite
loads, but as temperatures heat up
I
Luke Ovgard/Contributed Photo
The author had to work harder to catch a fi sh in May 2022 than ever before, but in
the eleventh hour, he managed to land nine about this size.
and the rains slow or stop entirely,
we’ll fi nd ourselves in the same
position we’ve seen every summer
in recent years and be forced to
watch the slow death of what is
still, despite little eff ort to keep
it in this position, the best wild
native rainbow trout fi shery on
earth.
Foreshadowing
It wasn’t until Monday, May 30
that I fi nally caught a big redband.
It was the slowest May I’ve had
in the lake since I began fi shing
it as a kid. In a normal year, I’ll
catch 25 to 50 big fi sh each May.
If not for a last-minute trip with
my friends Tim Cleland (Redband
Becoming Guide Service) and
Nick Mitchell where I landed nine
fi sh in an afternoon, I would’ve
been skunked in the month of May
for the fi rst time in my entire life.
It was a chilling look at what
the future of the Klamath Basin
Though it was released almost
a year ago, I just watched the
“Killing the Klamath” documen-
tary for the fi rst time. It was hard
for me to watch because I’d seen
exactly what was shown through
my own eyes: the slow decline of
my favorite fi shery on earth.
As a lifelong advocate for the
Basin and someone obsessed
with fi shing its waters, I care
deeply about this place. When I
tell people this, they automati-
cally assume it’s just for the trout.
Don’t get me wrong, trout are
my favorite fi sh here. Like most
local anglers, I spend more time
fi shing for trout (everywhere) and
perch (Rocky Point and a few
other places) and crappie (Topsy)
than anything else, but it’s safe
to say I’m probably one of the
only people who also routinely
fi shes for our endemic blue chubs,
slender and marbled sculpins as
well as the native tui chubs. With
the exception of the Klamath Lake
sculpin, I’ve caught every fi sh
found in Klamath County (careful
to release those protected fi shes
caught incidentally), and I appre-
ciate the breadth of diversity here.
I feel privileged every time I
hook into a pre-spawn buck dark
and fat en route to spawning
grounds in the Sprague River
or Sevenmile Creek. I marvel
at shortnose suckers grazing on
algae-coated rocks in their pris-
tine spring habitats or see the bril-
liant blue of a Lost River sucker
in the Williamson River while
drifting jigs or streamers for trout.
And despite their diminutive size,
I still love grabbing a headlamp
and catching sculpins at the mar-
gins of the lake.
Nonetheless, I am terrifi ed of
the day when our native fi sh are
gone. Suckers might not have the
sporting appeal of trout. Though
I fi nd them uniquely charismatic,
they are not beautiful and struggle
to gain the following I think they
deserve, but they are dying out
rapidly, and they are an integral
part of the ecosystem. They keep
algae at bay, clean the water and
provide food for trout, eagles,
otters and historically, people.
When suckers go, water quality
will decline even further, and it’s
See, Klamath/Page B2