Oregon and Nevada

 We left Corvallis on June 15 for Page Springs Campground at the base of the Steens Mountains.  It is a beautiful spot, though full of mosquitos at this time of year.  We decided to take a short walk up the Donner and Blitzen (Thunder and Lightning) River to where we found this old dam.  There were lots of people fly fishing (successfully) for trout.  For the first time ever, due to the lack of precipitation, the road to the top of the Steens Mountain was open, so we decided to stay another day.



 We drove up to Steens Mountain, 20 miles gradually climbing from about 5,000' to 9,300'.  It is a fault/block mountain with a gradual rise on the west and a steep 1 mile face on the east.  You can drive to within 200' of Steens Mountain (the 9th tallest mountain in Oregon).  We quickly climbed to the top and then decided to walk down to Wildhorse Lake, seen below in this photo.






 The trail description included a description of going overland from the radio towers down to the lake.  We walked down a steep slope towards a waterfall.  You can barely see the radio towers in this photo.  The wildflowers were blooming and there were lots of rivulets.














                    We were the first people down at the lake this year and we ate our lunch after Bob took an extremely quick dip in the lake (there were snow banks on the edges).  We returned via the trail up this valley towards the headwall in the distance.  When we got to the headwall we discovered that the trail was covered with a snow bank and a very steep drop off, so we scrambled up a scree slope on the far right.





On the way back to Page Springs we stopped at all the look outs.  The Alvord Desert on the east gets only 6" rain each year due to the rain shadow created by the Steens Mountain.  There is a lake in the Alvord Desert and a wonderful hot springs we visited three years ago.  The Kiger Gorge (in the photo at the left) is clearly a glacial valley created in the last ice age.  From Page Springs we headed south through Fields, OR (home of the Fields Station and famous chocolate malts), Winnemucca, I-70 to Battle Mountain and south to Austin, NV and US 50, the Loneliest Road in America.  We stopped at Spencer Hot Springs just east of Austin.  It is a fabulous hot springs at the base of some mining facilities which has a lovely deck, bench, and carpet to keep one's wet feet from getting muddy.  It was almost too hot to enjoy in the hot weather.  

We continued on to Hickison Petroglyph BLM campsite just over the summit of one of the ranges in this basin and range country.  The petroglyphs here are quite interesting and included this zoomorphic (animal-type) petroglyph.  This campsite was really quiet and although there were quite a few campers, it was a lovely place to spend the night.  There was no water, though we can camp for many days without either water or electricity.




Sunset at Hickison Petroglyphs.