[RidgeRunner]

Owyhee Expedition
Day One, Friday, May 23, 2008
Narrated By Jerry

Friday morning in Malheur County, Oregon came early for us folks hailing from points west. Most of the county, including Ontario, is on Mountain Time so our 5:00 AM breakfast at Denny's Restaurant felt an awful lot like four-o'-clock in the morning to us.

Friday "Early Birds" were Dick from Beaverton driving his Nissan Xterra, Tom & Jen from Bellingham in their Chevy Astro Van, Linner & Keegan from Pendleton in a Dodge 2500 pickup, Ryan from Lake Oswego in his Jeep Cherokee, Paul from Tacoma in his Ford Explorer Sport, Casey from Lake Oswego driving a Toyota Tacoma pickup and Randy from Meacham riding with me, Jerry from Yakima, in my Ford F-150 pickup. All were four-wheel drive vehicles with sufficient ground clearance for the Owyhee tour. This day, however, we would cover a variety of easier paved and gravel county roads taking us about 350 miles across a diversified Eastern Oregon landscape and later meet up with the rest of the Owyhee Expedition members in Jordan Valley.

Our wide-awake cadre of adventurers (zzzzzzz) drove west on Highway 26 to the quiet setting of Harper
Junction where we headed southwesterly on the Crowley Road. We drove into the shrub-steppe; sagebrush; scrub; or desert to many coastal dwellers, looking forward to experiencing some new backroads. The road was in pretty good shape despite recent rains in the area. We encountered a little surface mud and some of our drivers did a bit of fishtailing at times, but we
all faired well.

The first rest stop was to get a closer look at steel hulled sailboat quietly rusting in the desert dew. It was "moored" within a fenced compound of cowboy yard art in the middle of nowhere; no house or ranch within sight. Strange! But, it was fun for us easily entertained backroaders.

The weather was holding to mostly cloudy with occasional raindrops, but there wasn't enough moisture to bother us much. We found a few slippery spots, but pit run and crushed rock bolstered up most the road where it met hills and wetlands. We had expected the road to be straight as an arrow allowing for some speed, but in actuality it twisted between rolling hills holding us to under 20 mph.

The scenery was territorial and not spectacular, but interesting none-the-less. We passed a few dilapidated wood and stone buildings and eventually reached the site marked as Crowley on most Oregon maps. It was a ranch house and some outbuildings, small by today's standards, nothing like the Ponderosa; more like a small story-and-a-half house in the older part of most towns. The more famous Crowley Ranch was located down the road and behind a foothill out of our site and it marked the halfway point on our first stretch of road.

Beyond Crowley the road widened and smoothed out just a little. We picked up speed and soon passed neat horse ranches, ponds and even had to open a few gates across the county road. The Crowley Road ended with a sweeping and scenic downhill curve to Oregon Highway 78.

The scenic part of the intersection was attributable to the mountains across the highway. Almost straight across from the Crowley Road was the entrance to the East Steens Road (AKA Fields-Denio Road), our next leg of the trip. Immediately, in the snap of the fingers, the scenery turned from, ah… interesting to beautiful. Mountains rose from both sides of the road. There were rocky cliffs climbing into the clouds on our right with a variety of rounded and pointy-topped mountains reaching almost to the clouds on our left. The right-hand mountains were the lower slopes of the Steens.

Not far down the road we passed the Mann Lake Ranch, a neat-as-a-pin layout. The paved road turned to gravel shortly after. It was a good gravel road, plenty wide and we made good time. Clouds still blocked Steens Mountain and that was too bad because the Steens view was one of our main objectives. But, at least it wasn't raining!

We passed the Alvord Ranch, an older community consisting of ranch house, bunkhouses, barns and other out buildings and soon arrived at the Alvord Desert and Hot Springs. Our gutsy explorers ventured onto the dry lakebed and drove their SUV's and pickups to breath-taking speeds exceeding 60 mph. Not bad for a bunch a tough, hardened and highly experienced guys, huh? Well, not to burst anybody's bubble, but back in 1976 a gal by the name of Kitty Hambleton screamed across the flat Alvord playas at a speed of 524 miles per hour in a rocket-powered vehicle. Heh, heh, heh. Oh, who cares about fast women anyway?

We were running late, as usual, and lunch was on the agenda. Our next stop was Fields, Oregon on Highway 202 where we took on gas at the slowest gas pump in the west. We also downed some pretty darned good hamburgers and shakes. The folks at Fields Station were great. They were really nice people and fun to be around. It was a very pleasant stop and personally I'm glad the gas pump was so slow.

Our next leg was the Whitehorse Ranch Road that runs northeast from Highway 202 to US 95. The road did some twisting between mountains, but it soon straightened out and was in good enough condition to up our speed and reach Jordan Valley by late afternoon.

Waiting for us in Jordan Valley were Mick from Fairview (Portland area) in his Toyota 4Runner and Bill from Ellensburg and Ed from Clarkston in Bill's Early Ford Bronco. Shortly after we arrived came Eric from Boring in his Jeep Wrangler Rubicon Unlimited. After making arrangements for lodging we all gathered for a nice dinner and getting acquainted conversation at the Old Basque Inn.

Here is a short narrative of Day One by Mick

On my way to Jordan Valley I ventured through Succor Creek Canyon. It is a high-walled rock canyon with very unusual rock formations. It reminded me of High Rock Canyon on the Applegate Trail in northern Nevada. Note pic of arch in Succor Creek Canyon below.

Just south of Succor Creek is Leslie Gulch which runs down to Lake Owyhee with camping and beautiful scenery all the way down. Don't miss either of these if you're in the area.

Day Two & Day Three will follow.