Outdoors
Rec
B
Saturday, July 16, 2022
The Observer & Baker City Herald
Familiar Peaks, Fresh Perspectives
M
ountains are boring.
JAYSON
JACOBY
They just stand
Van Patten Butte seen from a
road on the east slopes of Gorham
Butte on July 9, 2022.
there, after all,
insensate as the stones of which
ON THE TRAIL
they are constructed.
But for the occasional volcanic
eruption or landslide, mountains
can hardly be said to move.
People, on the other hand, tend to get
around.
We scurry about, hither and yon,
even when our every detour into a gas
station leaves us feeling as though we
ought to have received an escrow state-
ment in addition to a receipt.
Our itinerant nature does quite a lot, I
think, to enrich the reputation of moun-
tains. It also has much to do with our
fascination and affi nity for high places.
Certainly our mobility, which allows
us to see mountains from every con-
ceivable vantage point, infuses them
with a compelling personality
they otherwise would lack.
This is not to suggest, of
course, that mountains never
change.
Nature can remake a
peak’s visage rapidly,
needing just a few min-
utes of waning sunlight
to transform the dull
white of a snow slope
into the brilliant pink
of alpenglow.
It is of course
an optical illu-
sion, but the Wal-
lowas, which I can
see well from my
driveway, sometimes appear to my
eyes something like half again as large,
and as near, depending on the quality
of the light, the absence or presence of
clouds and snow cover, and probably
other physical factors I can’t name and
don’t understand.
Other alterations are less immediate
but equally entrancing.
When the tamaracks turn in late fall
their yellowing needles, even from many
miles away, paint swathes that didn’t
exist in spring or summer.
The eff ect is even more vivid in
places such as Steens Mountain with its
broad groves of quaking aspens.
But those accoutrements, the snow
and the glow and the colorful leaves
or needles, are temporary — seasonal
shifts akin to a man who cultivates a
beard only in winter.
To fully appreciate mountains, it
seems to me, requires that you see them
from a variety of directions — or at least
from the four cardinal points.
The diff erences can be dramatic.
Take, for instance, Mount Jeff erson,
Oregon’s second-tallest summit at
10,495 feet. This dormant volcano in the
central Cascades, when seen from, say,
Redmond to the east, hardly seems to
be the same peak that I grew up gazing
at from my hometown of Stayton, well
west of the mountain, near where the
Willamette Valley gives way to the Cas-
cade foothills.
From Redmond, Jeff erson’s ridges
and faces converge at the summit in
what appears to be a single spire — a
classic pyramidal shape.
But from the west, the great gouge
that glaciers have cleaved from the moun-
tains’ midsection is conspicuous, and Jef-
ferson’s summit ridge culminates in two
pinnacles which seem, from a great dis-
tance, to be about the same height.
Jeff erson’s more ancient, and heavily
eroded, volcanic neighbor to the south
of Santiam Pass — Mount Washington,
which geologists believe almost surely
is dead rather than dormant — boasts an
even greater variety of visages.
From Santiam Pass the peak has
something of the Matterhorn in is dart-
like shape, albeit with a summit more
akin to a thumb than the tip of a knife as
with the Alpine eminence.
But seen from the east, near Sisters,
Mount Washington is a dome with a
sharp tip in its center.
The diff erences aren’t so distinct
from the west or south, but from both
directions the mountain could be taken
for a diff erent peak altogether.
I had occasion to ponder this matter
of mountains, and their many faces,
while hiking on Saturday, July 9.
The subject in this case, though,
wasn’t a single mountain but rather a
range — the Elkhorns. My backyard
mountains, both fi guratively, in that they
are the ones I visit most often, and liter-
ally, as I can see a sec-
tion of the range from
my own yard.
The site was the
eastern side of Gorham
Butte, a modest
summit — it tops
out at 6,176 feet — a
couple miles north of
the Anthony Lakes
Highway.
Gorham Butte,
despite its singular
name, is actually
a spine of high
ground with a few
separate summits,
two on the south
end and a third
at the north,
with a saddle
between.
See, Mountains/
Page B2
Lisa Britton photos/Baker City Herald
Twin Mountain, at left, seen from a road on Gorham Butte, north of the Anthony Lakes Highway, on July 9, 2022.
Trailhead Stewardship Project’s second summer of
clearing trails is underway in Wallowas and Elkhorns
By JAYSON JACOBY
Baker City Herald
To start with, Victoria
Mitts had to contend with
snow.
The summer sunshine
eventually eliminated that
obstacle.
But not even a scorching
July day can get rid of a
tamarack or lodgepole tree
that’s fallen across a hiking
trail.
Dealing with that
demands sweat.
And a deft touch with a
chain saw or hand saw.
Mitts and other members
of the Trailhead Steward-
ship Project have removed
dozens of logs blocking
trails in the Elkhorns and
Wallowas.
The project, now in its
Meagan Keating/Contributed Photos
LEFT: Multiple logs across the Killamacue Lake trail in the Elkhorn Mountains prior to the trail being cleared by staff with the Trailhead
Stewardship Project in early July 2022. RIGHT: A freshly cut log along the Killamacue Lake trail in the Elkhorn Mountains west of Haines.
second summer, is a part-
nership between The Trail-
head in Baker City and the
VOLUNTEERS TACKLING EAGLE
CAP WILDERNESS TRAILS
While the Trailhead Stewardship Project focuses on
the Elkhorn Mountains, along with forays into the Wal-
lowas, the Wallowa Mountains Hells Canyon Trails Associ-
ation concentrates its eff orts, as its name implies, on Hells
Canyon and the Wallowas.
During the summer, the association spends most of its
time in the Wallowas, and in particular within the 365,000-
acre Eagle Cap Wilderness, which takes in much of the
range and is Oregon’s largest federal wilderness.
Wallowa-Whitman National
Forest.
The Trailhead, a bike,
Mike Hansen, the group’s project director, said volun-
teers have been busy this month, with plenty of neglected
trails to tackle even though lingering snowdrifts, and in
some places swollen streams, have forced adjustments to
the summer work schedule.
The group’s top priorities are so-called “deferred main-
tenance” trails, Hansen said — meaning paths that hav-
en’t been maintained for at least three years.
The chief task for trail workers is cutting logs that have
fallen across the trail. Even relatively small-diameter logs
can pose a major obstacle — and potentially hazard,
for horse riders and packers — if they’re very far off the
ski and outdoors shop
in downtown Baker
City, is owned by the
Anthony Lakes Out-
door Recreation Associ-
ation, the nonprofit cor-
ground.
Hansen said a recent project highlighted how downfall
can all but obliterate a trail over time.
The trail in question leads from the Twin Lakes area,
near Fish Lake north of Halfway, down to the Imnaha River
near the Blue Hole. Hansen said the trail probably hadn’t
been cleared in about 20 years, during which a major
wildfi re killed many trees, making them more likely to fall.
Volunteers cut 83 logs from a section of trail just a mile
and a quarter long, he said.
And because all but one-third of a mile of the trail is
inside the wilderness, where internal combustion engines
poration that operates
the Anthony Lakes ski
area and manages sev-
eral campgrounds on the
Wallowa-Whitman.
Mitts is the Trailhead
Stewardship Project’s paid
seasonal employee, but
other Trailhead staff help
with trail work at times,
said Megan Keating, oper-
ations coordinator at The
Trailhead.
Last year the crew,
including Mitts and four
volunteers, worked 251.25
hours.
Mitts started by cutting
more than 70 trees across
the Cunningham Cove
trail on the west side of
the Elkhorns, southwest of
Anthony Lakes.
See, Trails/Page B2
aren’t allowed, workers had to use crosscut saws to get
through most of the logs, Hansen said.
On Saturday, July 16, Hansen said he and other volun-
teers were slated to start an eight-day project covering
40 miles of trails in the South Catherine Creek, Sand Pass,
China Ridge and Moss Springs areas at the southwest
corner of the Eagle Cap Wilderness.
More information about the association, including its
tentative work schedules and a photo gallery, is available
at wmhcta.org.
— Jayson Jacoby