Smoke and Wheels
My plan for the return to the road on two wheels was to spend three days camping and exploring on Steens Mnt. But best laid plans fall like dominoes sometimes. No matter. It was a good day all in all.
The primary reason for postponing this camping trip, which I have craved since first arriving to eastern OR, was smoke.
Lightning storms from last Sunday and Tuesday have touched off fires all up and down the entire Cascade chain. Even the Willamette Valley had a few fires from a storm. Cloud-to-ground lightening in the Valley is rare. But, apparently, they had a doozy last Sunday. A small area outside of Eugene recorded 400+ strikes within an hour!!
Here in eastern and central Oregon, where grasses are already dry and a lot of standing dead timber from pine beetle damage serves as fuel, the fires took off and ran. Near the John Day area, a large fire went rampant in the national forests, closing a major highway that runs west-east. In the Malheur and Burns area, it was just as bad if not worse.
This area is a semi-arid sagebrush and grassland steppe. Cheatgrass is a major invasive species and is highly flammable. One spark can set a fire that travels at considerable speed, especially with winds fanning it. And it did near the Refuge.
To the near east and NE, three small fires converged into one large fire by Wednesday. Here is a map of the active fires as of last Tuesday morning.
As of Wednesday late afternoon, all three had converged into one large fire called the Buzzard Complex fire. It had crossed Hwy 78 several times. People were evacuated and the road was closed as of Tuesday afternoon through yesterday (talked to two guys today riding bikes down from Washington).
The governor of OR called an emergency yesterday. Too many fires and not enough resources. All hot shots have been deployed since Tuesday. Time to request help from out-of-state firefighters. I overheard the Refuge manager on many conference calls yesterday coordinating help where needed.
Fires had not touched the Refuge lands, but they were darn close (within 7 miles due east). I saw several BLM back country trucks here in the maintenance yard yesterday afternoon, along with several dirty and tired young men. We have our own Refuge fire fighting crew and two trucks. They've been on 24-hour standby the last three days. Looks like one BLM truck and their company stayed at the fire bunk house the last two nights.
Depending on the winds, the smoke here can be thick and asphyxiating. Like it was the past two mornings. After talking two a visiting couple yestrerday that had been on Steens Mnt, and a few locals, I postponed my camping trip up into the Steens to another time. The couple reported they were above the smoke for an hour. When the wind changed, they were engulfed in it. Steens Mnt is in between two major fires: the Buzzard and the one in the Pueblo Mnts just to the south of Steens. Winds can blow smoke one way, away, or another way and dump it right down on you. Seems that its a crapshoot, but I decided to postpone my camping trip this weekend.
(This morning the smoke was so thick, I had a sore throat from breathing it. Headquarters lost power last night through half the day today, and we had no water or Internet communications, which is why this didn't get posted last night. The fire boys on hand had radios since they are in contact with the fire command center 24/7. As of early afternoon the fire has burned over 300,000 acres with a high mortality of livestock.)
Meanwhile, when the winds had shifted about 1pm, I got geared up and ready to ride somewhere. I gave the gas tank a shot of Seafoam to mix with the old gas in it and some new gas. Started it up (it started right up!) and took off.
I stopped in and got gas at the Hwy. I keep forgetting that drivers have to allow a gas attendant or clerk to fill tanks. The main exception is motorcycles. The clerk hands you the nozzle and you fill your own tank. They know me now, so we chatted while I filled the tank. Noticeable difference in the gas color and smell. One can still find and buy non-ethanol gas in Oregon.
I headed south with no particular place to go. I noticed the more southerly direction, the less smoke. I was heading to the Steens Mnts area and it seemed a shame to be there and not follow through with my plans. Yet, several hours later, I knew I made the right decision.
I parked the bike in front of the historic Frenchglen Hotel, a wonderful place to stay and eat. All their meals are home cooked from their own kitchens. No microwaves, no frozen fast food. It's all 'home-style' cooking.
I missed their lunch hour, darn. So I wandered down the road to the general store, bought an ice cream and water, chatted books, fire and weather with the clerk, and sat out on the grass next to the Hotel under the shade.
Three crows in the trees above me chatted back and forth. They had distinct 'voices', which I thought was interesting. Not one crow sounds the same as the other. They might use the same 'language', but their inflections and tone are all different.
The yellow-headed blackbirds, their bright and vibrant yellow caps and capes are clowns. They chase each others, sit a spell together, then get bored and start the chase anew.
After the refreshing ice cream and half the water bottle downed, I wandered across the street to get a shot of Steens.
The gravel road access to the mountain is only a few hundred yards past the Hotel. I heard the distinctive hum of two motorcycles coming. Sure enough, two riders pulled in front of the Hotel, both from Washington state. One on a GS1200, the other a DL1000. Both loaded with camping gear. Turned out, the two were brothers on a riding vacation into Oregon.
They related that they had taken a forest road south from Hwy 26 after discovering that the road was closed due to the fire near Mitchel/John Day area. They exited onto Hwy 78 in the midst of hot shots, fire trucks and other emergency vehicles covering the road and in the parallel fields.
"Hey, didn't you guys see the 'Road Closed' sign? You aren't supposed to be here!!"
"Um, no. We saw no signs at all! At least, not where we rode!"
"Huh?"
They explained they rode SE on a forest road from Hwy 26. The crew leader nodded them on to continue south on Hwy 78. They had ridden the Steens Loop today, recounting that the smoke was really bad this morning there, too, but lifted in and out for most of the rest of the day. Now they were looking forward to a hot shower and good meal at the Hotel.
I offered to take their photos together and that's when I learned they were brothers. Although they didn't look very much alike, but there was probably at least 8 years difference between them. They wandered over to examine the DR. Apparently the older brother on the V-strom has discovered first hand that his bike is not all that terrific in real loose stuff. I nodded my head in agreement and commented the Wee-strom isn't any better. Which is why I have the DR. His brother exclaimed, "See! What have I been telling you! You really need one of those DR350's! They supposedly go everywhere!"
As the younger brother walked away, the older brother whispered, "He's not much better in the loose stuff on that Big Pig than I am on mine!"
I smiled.
After chatting with the innkeeper for several minutes (with an invite to the Frenchglen Jamboree in August), I got ready to head out.
I love this area. With it's wild and gently geology and topography. The reddish-brown basalt columns, the rims watching over the valleys below. Canyons peaking out from around curves, the yellow and blonde grasses dotted by blue-gree aromatic sagebrush and mountain juniper tree tops spiking the upper hills and mountain sides. Birds, butterflies, and dragonflies dart in and out, sweep through and above the marshes. The rushes, sedges and tall grasses wave and dance in the breezes. It's a magical area here. Where deep time and recent millions of years converge to give abundant life.
The topography here tells a story. It's right in front of you.
Although it began in the early Miocene epoch: 22-20 million years ago, the main story occurred in the middle Miocene period, starting about 17 million years ago. There was a lot of volcanic activity during this time; half of Oregon was covered with products of volcanic eruptions.
Most notably were the lava floods of basalt in the Columbia Gorge and in SE Oregon 16.6 to 15 million years ago. Lava flooded the Columbia Plateau and Oregon's Basin and Range. And they both had a common source: the Yellowstone hot spot.
At that time, the NAm continental plate was moving westward over a large plume of magma that that today powers Old Faithful in Yellowstone National Park. That hot spot is like a festering boil under the continental shelf. It is stationary and sizzles thin spots of the continental crust as it glides over this spot. As the plate moves westward above it, explosive eruptions take place and leaves a chain like breadcrumbs of where the hot spot has left its mark all the way to Wyoming. There, it is only five miles under the crust and attracts millions of people with its antics. If only they knew what they were standing on
But 16 milliion years ago the continental plate had not crept as far as it is now. And it was positioned right over that same hot spot, underneath what is now Steens Mnt, in eastern Oregon.
Tectonics again created a flurry of crustal activity 12-5 million years ago, creating what we now see. What I see when I ride north from south of Steens Mnt towards the Harney Basin: a beautiful example of the largest arid area in North America.
During the late Miocene, folding and faulting of the North American continental crust lifted mountains and dropped valleys. The Cascade and Coastal ranges crept westward along with the rest of the plate. Meanwhile the Pacific coast seashore shoved underneath the leading west edge of the plate. Consequently, the Oregon crust shifted and stretched like taffy candy between the stable portion of the continent and the moving ocean floor. And this created the topography of the Basin and Range.
But rocks don't stretch. Neither do the hundreds of feet thick basalt crust that had formed from the prior lava flows. As the crust stretched, faults developed in the broad plateau of Steens basalt. The land broke into huge blocks of this crust and some of these pieces of crust sank into the mantle below.
Mountains were created by tilting. Crustal blocks of basalt were broken apart and sank lopsidedly into the mantle. And that is what you can see as you ride on County Road 205 which runs south from Burns and along the west lower side of Steens Mnt. You can see many of these examples of faulting and dropping; the uplifts have a steep face on one side and a long slope on the other. The flat floors between the ranges that have pulled apart are the basins (grabens).
And this uplifting and down dropping is still active today.
While I was working on this post last night, sitting in the common lounge, I saw a blood red sun. In a smoke-filled sky.