Lake County, Oregon, Day 4: Warner Peak

Into each early season Eastern Oregon backpacking trip must fall some rain, and on my trip the rain started in earnest on this day:

After getting back to the car from Poker Jim Ridge, I drove to the Hart Mtn. Hot Springs campground.  At this point, I decided that I should go for a dayhike and return to the car and spend the night in my car in the campground.  (I just can't get interested in spending the night out under a tarp after a full day of pea soup and constant blowing rain- when it rains a little bit during the day, that's not too bad, but this all day stuff doesn't appeal to me).

From this area, the hike I planned was to walk up Rock Creek to a sheepherder's cabin, then bushwhack up Hart Mountain to DeGarmo Notch (a high pass), from whence I'd continue cross country to Warner Peak, which is the highest point on Hart Mountain.  I'd return partly by finding an old road and walking down the mountain on dirt roads.  This is William Sullivan's route (he writes the guidebooks for Oregon).  I think if I do this climb again, I'll just go up on the roads for the most part.  Easier walking that way.

Starting off in the rain, I had my camera in a waterproof container- an old peanut jar!  The first part of te route is a bushwhack up brush choked Rock Creek.  I felt
I was really happy when the rain stopped for a while and I was able to take a few photos of aspen trees and corn lilies next to Rock Creek.  The aspens on this side of the mountain are just beginning to leaf out, while on the other side, which is lower in elevation, the trees are already fully leafed.

As the small canyon of Rock Creek opens up into large Barnhardi Basin, the creek snakes around:

Just after taking this photo, the rain started up again, so I put the camera away.  Then, just after putting the peanut jar back in the bag, two adult pronghorn trotted up, within 100 feet of me!  They pranced around.  One of them started running up the ridge to the left, making a heroic silhouette on the skyline.  The other just stared.  They would have stayed put for pictures, but I decided that the photos wouldn't be worth the replacement cost of a waterlogged camera.  Oh well. . .

I came up to Barnhardi Cabin and took shelter inside, during spells of rain that were sometimes fairly strong.  It was nice to be inside, though the cabin is falling apart and leaking from most of the roof.  It stopped raining for good, while I waited in the cabin.

From here I slowly bushwhacked up the DeGarmo Notch.  I had originally planned on camping here, but I was glad I hadn't tried to do that after all- the whole area is a marsh, and I would have had to search for dry ground elsewhere.  Here I decided to go on ahead to the peak, rather than turn around and get back to the car for an evening of relaxation.  That would just have to wait, because the weather had really turned for the better, and the light was going to be nice.  Walking the two miles from the notch took a full hour.  I think that's pretty good, considering I was between 7,000 and 8,000 feet above sea level, and not walking on a trail.  I was happy to make the top.

There's a radio tower at the summit:

Here's a grove of mountain mahogany trees that I walked through on the way up to the summit:

Here's the broad summit plateau of Hart Mt. to the south:

I decided that, though the light was nice, I wasn't getting very dynamic images from the top.  That's often the case, because the summit of a mountain is usually just too distant from everything else.  Most things look just really far away, no matter the light.  I wanted to photograph the trees I'd walked through, so I started heading down.  I turned around to make sure I hadn't forgotten anything, and saw a rainbow!  It was way down in the valley to the east.  I spent the next five minutes making sure I got a photo.  Halfway through, I saw that a secondary rainbow had formed, outside the primary.  Here's a photo:

It's distant, but I was still happy to get to photograph it!  I headed down through the trees, taking pictures of a live tree, a snag, and the summit framed in a partly dead tree:

There was some snow walking, and some post-holing that made me wish I had snowshoes, but it was merely inconvenient.  Snowshoes wouldn't have been nearly worth the effort of carrying them up this far.  Looking back to DeGarmo Notch:

A cloud to the east:

One last shot of nice color came when I noticed light in the distance.  This is a hill in the refuge, and beyond it is Catlow Valley, which was settled by dry land farmers in the early 20th century, and abandoned soon after.

Walking down the mountainside after the sun had set, I was ecstatic.  I'd had such a good time, and was so glad I'd taken a chance on the weather.  A more reasonable person would have enjoyed a nice evening reading in the car in the rain, and gone for a walk after the rain let up.  After getting hit, I no longer automatically think "I can do that next time."  Instead I find myself thinking "I'd better do this now, while I can." 

The following is a 15 second hand held exposure (they don't say you can do that in photo class, do they?), showing the road I walked down on.  The weather was warm, the blue glow coming from the clouds was light enough to walk by, and I had just climbed a mountain.  Heaven.

Hope you enjoyed.