Where the Wild Things Are Part XII
Happy Veterans Day, or Remembrance Day wherever you are, for those who served, thank you for your service. I had a veteran working here this summer and it was interesting to hear the ins and outs of the armed forces these days. I sure hope we find a lasting world peace at some point. It’s soggy wet, atmospheric river of a day here in Western Oregon so the parade goers should be packing galoshes and rain parkas. After the week this has been I thought I would throw out this little distraction for you, a fun filled memory of a summer trip to the high alpine and fell fields of the Wallowa Mountains.
Anya and I at the Summit of Oregon’s 9th highest mountain peak, 9,702’ Aneroid Peak.
Anya and I and one of my mountaineering buddies decided to make a last minute, mid August trip to Oregon’s Wallowa mountains. The Wallowa’s are a 40 mile range, bursting out of the Columbia Plateau, near the Idaho border. Geologically they are considered to be a displaced fragment of the insular belt, and while I’m not geologist, this suggests the rock isn’t related to the rest of North America, but was in fact from a chain of volcanic islands that were in the pacific ocean during the Paleozoic and Mesozoic eras. This superterrane collided with the North American plate, some 115 million years ago and formed some of the Pacific Northwest major mountain ranges, from the Wrangell-St. Elias to the mountains of the Haida Gwaii and Vancouver island. How a chunk of this ancient island ended up vaulting out of the plains of Eastern Oregon I don’t know that I really understand, but the Wallowas contain all sorts of cool rocks like granite, slate, quartzite, limestones and marble. What seem to be remnants of coral reefs, now thrusted 9,000’ above the barren Eastern Oregon landscape, are home to Mountain Goats, yellow bellied marmots, cougars, elk, bears and a wonderful diversity of plants, especially great for the Alpine enthusiast. Check out the gallery to see a few of the flowers that we saw on this fun little Mountain climbing expedition to the “Alps of Oregon”
With only a two day window to make this adventure happen, Anya and I beelined for the hamlet of Enterprise, hoping to make it to Terminal Gravity Brewing by dinner time and Billy Johnson, left Bend after work to meet us at the Beautiful but bustling Wallowa Lake State Park and Campground. Anya and I slept in the back of the pickup truck like a couple of true dirtbag mountain climbers, while Billy rolled in sometime after midnight. A hearty breakfast of eggs and bacon were prepared in the water pot because I forgot the frying pan, and then second guessed everything in my backpack for the wilderness experience ahead. A short drive to the Mt. Howard Tramway and we were on our way, the terrifying Tram ride, has you catapulting up 4,000 feet vertically to the terminus at 8000’ in just 15 minutes in a box not much bigger than a coffin. The views are spectacular but for those with a fear of heights this ride is a thrilling roller coaster for sure.
We set off on a good clip and before we had climbed the first ridge, we were caught and passed by an older couple that were dayhiking and asked if we had problems with the altitude, Anya had just returned from her summer archeological work in the Peruvian Andes so she was probably the best off of all of us with the thin mountain air. A short time later a group of trail runners, with fanny packs and skin tight lycra shorts hurtled past us with our lumbering packs filled with water, food and camping gear for an overnight stay above the treeline.
The lateness of the season, had most of the wildflowers in seed (as a nurseryman, I couldn’t have timed it better) but the first scree we came to was filled with Eriogonums of every shade fading from deep reds to pinks and even yellows. The east facing slopes held Monardella in full bloom and several different species of butterfly were busy gathering nectar, the smell was fantastic. Around the backside of Twin peaks, we came to a trickle of water, seeping from the rock outcropping. The moist rich soil of this seep held beautiful mats of Gentian, supposedly a mat forming form of Gentiana calycosa, although I think this may be another species, perhaps somewhat rare even. Townsendia’s, Erigerons and all manner of tiny dwarfed composites were in full seed. On the bare exposed granitic screes, Chaenactis douglasii var. alpina was just finishing up blooming and I did manage to find a few in bloom as well.
My original plan was to camp just below the final pitch of Aneroid Mountain, where the topo map indicated a small saddle held relatively flat ground, However as we were making headway up towards the saddle, Billy Johnson, a veteran backpacker of the PCT and many an alpine summit pointed to some puffy white clouds beginning to gather into tall columns off to the West and said that might be of concern with thunderstorms on such an exposed mountain side. So after some discourse we settled on a camp in a protected gully, below the saddle. We dropped our heavy laden backpacks, I grabbed a camera, a few glassine envelopes and a water bottle and some trekking poles and we made a lightened dash for the summit.
The final slog to the summit was a fascinating alpine tundra like flora of mats of Silene acualis, Alpine willows, Sedum lanceolatum and a dozen erigerons in seed. The highest growing trees in all of Oregon, hold a precipitous perch right below the summit of Aneroid, as a small patch of Whitebark Pines sit gnarled and twisted on a ledge facing east. The terrain was insanely steep although in the final push for the summit and admiring the dwarf alpine vegetation everywhere I didn’t quite notice how steep it was until the descent. At the summit we were joined by a very fit couple from the Seattle area who were completing the mountain climb we just made and then downhiking further south to a lake before completing a 20 mile loop to finish there weekend in the mountains. Along with the millions of ladybugs, we sat and enjoyed the cool mountain breeze and filled in the logbook of our adventure, which was tucked into a coffee can hidden in the dark rocks at the very peak. Anya wrote a quote from the Lord and Rings, and I penned something about a forever memory with my daughter. I ate a handful of trailmix as the Seattle couple started searching for the trail down to the lake some 5 miles and several thousand feet below us. The downhike was so much scarier than the climb up and I genuinely thought that this should probably be done with the safety of some ropes and harnesses. But we took very careful steps and occasionally grabbed the thick roots of the alpine willow to gain a better hold.
That night back at camp in the gully below we watched as a late arriving couple made the same ascent we did, and marveled as they chose a much more dangerous line around a cliff face that seemed too perilous to climb. As the sunset we saw them a few hundred feet above us on the saddle setting camp, the wind gusting to sometimes fantastic speeds and me thinking I’m glad we setup where we did and not up on the exposed moon face where that couple spent a very blustery night. The sunset was fantastic and the moonrise even better. We ate dehydrated food, and then some swedish candy fish that seemed like a million dollar desert after the days expendenture of calories.
The next day the dawn broke clear and crisp, the wind had subsided and as we packed our gear and the sun peaked over the marble faces of the distant peaks it was like spending a night in heaven and watching the sunrise. On the hike down we saw the tracks of a pack of mountain goats, we must have just missed them by an hour or two. Anya and I took a low route through some scree as Billy decided to summit one of the few peaks that make up the track to the summit of Aneroid. That gave me a bit more time to spend photographing the Gentians and Monkeyflowers in the cool mountain spring water. One of the best things about this Mountain climb is it ends at the Mt. Howard Tramway cafe, where a crisp cold IPA was waiting along with some pulled pork tacos and a plate of beneigts that tasted like heaven after dehydrated beef stroganoff. An very tourist tame Marmot ate the powdered sugar that fell from the beneigt onto my shoe. The ride down the tram topped it off in a spectacular way and we bid Billy a safe trip back to Bend and we hit the road for home.
I’ll be back to do this alpine adventure again next summer, but perhaps a bit earlier to get more pics of those glorious mountain meadows filled with flower blossoms.
I just wanted to share that little adventure with you, and don’t worry I’ll probably write much more on the events of this past week at some point, but for now, enjoy the flowers and the story. We have some years of fighting for the betterment of mankind ahead of us. When the billionaires got involved it probably should have been obvious the choice wasn’t going to be up to us.
Cheers,
Mark
“If voting made any difference, they wouldn’t let us do it”……Mark Twain
P.S. If you liked this Wildflower Adventure and you want to find out more about some of my favorite wildflower jaunts around Oregon: I will be speaking at the Willamette Valley Hardy Plant group meeting in Eugene, Tuesday November 12th. This informative talk will be on the “Wildflower Adventures around Oregon and SW Washington”, We will also be bringing a selection of plants and bulbs for sale at this event, so don’t miss out! Click here for more information