A8
SPORTS
Blue Mountain Eagle
Wednesday, July 6, 2022
Summer sports schedule released
By JUSTIN DAVIS
Blue Mountain Eagle
JOHN DAY — A part-
nership between the Blue
Mountain Hospital, Com-
munity Counseling Solu-
tions, Community Health
Improvement Coalition and
John Day/Canyon City Parks
and Recreation will be host-
ing sports events for Grant
County residents throughout
the summer.
The Go Outside Cam-
Contributed Photo
The author fi nally got his fi rst tom.
paign will be hosting the fol-
lowing events:
• Yoga in the Park @ Can-
yon City Park, every Thurs-
day at 6 p.m. from July 14 to
Sept. 29
• Walk and Dine with the
Doc @ Seventh Street Sports
Complex, Northeast Seventh
Street, John Day, every sec-
ond Tuesday in July, August
and September at 5:30 p.m.
• Family movie nights,
Saturday nights at dusk on
July 9, July 23, Aug. 6 and
Aug. 20 @ Grant Union
football fi eld, 911 S. Canyon
Blvd., John Day
• Cornhole tournament at
the Grant County Fair, Satur-
day, Aug. 13, time TBA
• Kickball Slip-n-Slide
Tournament on Saturday, July
23, time and location TBA
Parks and Rec is also host-
ing summer youth outdoor
soccer. The program starts
in August and runs for fi ve
weeks through the fi rst part
of September. Ages are kin-
dergarten through sixth grade
with co-ed teams. Teams are
are divided into three age
groups: kindergarten and
fi rst grade, second and third
grade, and fourth through
sixth grade. Practices are
held Monday through Thurs-
day with games occurring
throughout the season.
For more information,
contact the John Day/Can-
yon City Parks and Rec-
reation
Department
at
541-575-0110.
SHOOTING THE BREEZE
Perseverance pays off for
unlucky turkey hunter
Beauty, without the bugs
I
have mentioned before
I thought they would be,
that I’m not the world’s
almost. Only about 100 yards
greatest turkey hunter.
on the wrong side of the
My luck wasn’t any
fence. I tried my best
better this year, but
to sound like a love-
I fi nally managed to
starved hen, but I
wear them down.
couldn’t sweet-talk
Opening day
them into coming
found us wading
my way.
through 6 inches of
Determined to
snow. I was sure we
get it right, the next
were wasting our
day I was set up well
Rod
time until I got an
before fi rst light.
Carpenter
answer to my call
As the sky started
that was way too close. We
to turn gray, the toms started
were caught out in the open
to sound off and I realized I
with, as they say, our pants
had set up in the wrong spot.
down. Of course the hens ran I belly-crawled out to my
right up to us while the tom
decoy and repositioned as
held back. And of course the
quietly as I could.
hens busted us.
The turkeys started com-
We got permission to hunt ing down out of the roost
some private ground and had about 100 yards away and
turkeys coming to our call
at fi rst looked like they were
when a tom snuck in on us
going to ignore me altogether.
from behind without a sound. Then two toms started my
He fi gured out something
way all fanned out. It was
was up and ran off , spook-
such a cool sight to see as
ing the others we were bring- they strutted around in the
ing in.
fi eld.
We tried an ambush on
When they closed to 20
the way to a roost tree. The
yards, I slowly aimed my
turkeys walked by just out
Mossburg 12 gauge and
of shotgun range. We tried
unleashed a 3-inch No. 4,
catching them as they came
and my tom dropped on the
down from the roost. They
spot. Not really sure what had
fl ew over the ridge. I spent
happened, the other turkeys
a couple of days hunting in
milled around for a while.
some new country without so
I just sat there enjoying
much as a gobble.
the moment. I had to work
I took a break to go cut
pretty hard for my tom, but
some fi rewood and ran into
in the end, it was a great
a couple of guys out hunting. experience.
They told me their group had
Share your favorite hunts
killed seven. That was a blow with us at shootingthebree-
to my ego, for sure.
zebme@gmail.com.
One morning it was rain-
Rod Carpenter is a hus-
ing and I got a late start. The
band, father, and a huntin’
turkeys were right where
fool.
By JAYSON JACOBY
I
trust mosquitoes.
I don’t like mosquitoes,
but I trust them.
The bloodsucking bugs,
though capable of driving a
person to the verge of tempo-
rary madness with their inces-
sant insectile buzzing and bit-
ing, are nothing if not reliable.
This is particularly so in the
alpine country of Northeastern
Oregon.
Along about the time the
snow is either gone or down to
grainy drifts the approximate
consistency
of sno-cones
— gener-
ally from late
June through
early August,
depending on
the elevation
— the arrival Jayson Jacoby
of the mos-
quitoes is as predictable as the
blooming of the lupine and the
paintbrush.
I have come to accept swat-
ting and itching as the physical
toll, along with the lung-strain-
ing challenge of steep terrain,
required for entry to such spec-
tacular places.
As such, I especially trea-
sure trips when my worries
about mosquitoes turn out to be
unfounded.
So it was on June 26 when
my family trudged up the steep
road, and then the even steeper
trail, that lead to Van Patten
Lake in the Elkhorns.
Notwithstanding those pun-
ishing grades, Van Patten is
much more accessible than
most lakes in the range.
The round trip is a mere
three miles, and the trailhead
is just off the paved highway
about three miles below, and
east of, Anthony Lakes.
Yet although Van Patten is
Jayson Jacoby/Baker City Herald
This image taken by a drone shows an ice bridge across Van Patten Lake, in the Elkhorn Mountains
northwest of Baker City, on June 26, 2022.
easier to get to than, say, Rock
Creek, Summit and Red Moun-
tain lakes, it yields nothing,
in general grandeur, to those
pools, which require either a
torturous drive and a longer
walk.
Or both, in the case of Rock
Creek Lake.
In common with many lakes
in the Elkhorns and Wallowas,
Van Patten occupies a basin
gouged in the bedrock (granitic,
in this case) by an Ice Age gla-
cier. At about 16.5 acres, Van
Patten is the fi fth-largest lake
in the Elkhorns, behind Rock
Creek (24 acres), Anthony (22),
Pine Creek Reservoir (18) and
Summit (17).
Van Patten isn’t always
quite so big, however. Some of
its fl ow is diverted each sum-
mer for irrigation, and by late
summer the lake is noticeably
shrunken.
But in late June it’s about as
full as it gets.
And about as deeply blue as
water can be — that inimitable
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drone on a brief fl ight, and it
captured some intriguing pho-
tos of the ice bridge, which
was riddled on its edges with
fi ssures that reminded me of a
river delta.
It was a brilliant day, and
pleasantly warm even at 7,400
feet. There was a breeze,
though, and as always seems
to be the case in such elevated
places, it was refreshing, noth-
ing like the dog’s breath of a
summer wind on a scorching
day in the valley.
Our kids, Max and Olivia,
waded in the frigid water. I
knelt on a granitic boulder
and splashed a couple palm-
fuls of water on my forehead.
My hands went numb almost
immediately.
Lisa and I reminisced about
our previous, infested, hikes
to Van Patten. We agreed that
although today was ideal, it
almost certainly would be quite
a diff erent experience in a week
or two.
We had no doubt that even
in that sylvan setting, among
the contorted whitebark pines
and slender subalpine fi rs and
the little rock gardens that land-
scapers strive to mimic, the
bugs lurked, languid in the
moisture trickling from the
drifts.
Waiting to be roused from
their long dormancy beneath
the snow, ready to wreak havoc
in their insatiable pursuit of
blood.
Jayson Jacoby is editor of
the Baker City Herald.
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shade peculiar to cold, crystal-
line lakes at high elevations.
My experience with mos-
quitoes at Van Patten is a long
one, marked by much mutter-
ing (occasionally profane) and
frenzied fl ailing of arms more
commonly associated with
seizures.
My wife, Lisa, recalls, with
the sort of hyperacuity reserved
for especially unpleasant epi-
sodes, a visit many years ago
when the bugs seemed destined
to craft nests in her hair.
It’s a buggy place.
I had, therefore, forgotten to
put repellent in my pack.
Lisa, fortunately, had not.
I wasn’t certain that mosqui-
toes would be swarming.
My previous encounters, so
far as I can remember, all hap-
pened in July, the peak month,
generally speaking, for alpine
mosquitoes.
There was no shortage
of insects, to be sure, as we
climbed toward the lake. And
each time a tiny dark speck
whizzed past my face I winced
slightly, anticipating the telltale
dental drill whining.
It did not happen.
The DEET-enriched spray
can remained in Lisa’s pack.
We hiked a short way along
the northern shore of the lake,
which is shaped rather like a
lance, much longer than it is
across.
The ice was nearly gone
but there was a curious bridge
of white spanning the lake
near its west end. I piloted our
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