Ninemile Ridge Overnighter; June 2010

After fulfilling my pedagogical duties in Wallowa Lake, I hustled (as fast as one can hustle on miserable backcountry Forest Service roads that are not even graveled) back over to the North Fork Umatilla Wilderness.  I'd camped there on the way out, and planned on walking another short route on the way back  to Portland.  I arrived a little late (as always) and hurried up the trail.  I had to carry about two liters of water, as this ridge walk passed no springs or flowing water.

Lorain wrote that this ridge has one of the best flower displays in the state.  Starting out, I walked up slopes with scattered ponderosa.

Along the way, I spotted this lizard, eyeing me nervously:

Finally, I reached higher ground and started to get some views up the ridge:

Switchbacks up the side of the ridge had me walking into the sun:

At this side spur of the ridge, there is a small colony of a rare variety of sagebrush, the only sagebrush I saw in the area:

As well as this probably un-rare grass:

Ridge walking is my favorite sport.  Valleys are pleasant for camping, and mountains pleasant for a high viewpoint, but walking a ridge provides ever expanding and ever changing views of sights both up close and far away.  Ridges have a more human scale and more accessible photographic variety than mountaintops, while often allowing the same access to beautiful evening light that is lost in many valleys and canyons.  Having gained the ridgeline, I could see off into both canyons, as well as the top of the ridge.

As the sun set, I stood in a rocky meadow with great wildflowers- here there are indian paintbrush, clarkia, desert parsley, and a little bit of that sagebrush.

Walking up after sunset, I noticed quite a bit of what looked like sign of a bear- the trailside was dug up and dirt was spread downhill.  I know that they like to vigorously dig up routes, and also that they like to follow a trail just like people do (given that no one is around to bother them).  And still great views and light and flowers.  Here are some yellow lupine:

My navigational goal that night was a high point on the ridge, a cairn on the ridge at 4,568 feet.  Upon reaching the cairn, I used its height over the grass to set up my mini tripod to take photos of the distant light.  To my great and everlasting surprise, I discovered that I could see clear to Mt. Adams and Mt. Rainier, in Washington.  The horizontal distance to Mt. Rainier is 189 miles.  I've never seen that far in my life, and it's only possible because of the great relief of those mountains and the clear air of this dry, unpopulated (unpolluted) place.  Otherwise, they'd be lost in haze.  Mt. Adams is on the left, Mt. Rainier on the right.

I wondered, after this, what the true limit would be; I wondered how far one could possibly be from Mt. Rainier, and still see it.  I still can't quite believe it.

I made camp, stretched out, and observed the moon coming up across the canyon of Buck Creek.  This is a handheld photo at a high ISO, and even though it's not technically adequate in a fine art landscape idiom, I think it does say something interesting:

I didn't bother to set up a tarp, and enjoyed seeing the moonlight bathe the ridge.  Remembering the bear sign earlier, I strung up my bear bag on a scraggly alpine tree.  Though I always string up a bear bag, sometimes the devil in me says "I'm too tired, and I don't feel like getting up out of the bag to do that."  The self-preserving part of me wins out, imagining a midnight visit by a curious bear that happens to share my love of chocolate bars and couscous.

I woke up at about 5 a.m. and saw the moon setting, just as the sun was rising and turning floating particles in the sky a nice purple.

From my vantage point at the cairn, I also spotted the bear that had been digging up the hillside in search of nice bulbs and roots:

This juvenile wasn't interested in me, though it certainly knew I had spent the night there.  The nose of a bear is more powerful even than a bloodhound's, and cooking dinner would have immediately tipped it off.  When I stood up and started taking photos of it, though, it got a little wary, and ambled down the hill to the trees.

I walked over the ridge a little, taking in the sights.  Here's a field of wild onion:

Here they are close up:

I walked back to the cairn, where light was beginning to hit the lupines:

I also saw the bear again, as it had gotten back to its feeding on the open slopes:

Walking back down the ridge in fields of purple and blue lupine:

Here's an up close view of one flower that might be unfamiliar to my folks back east- Clarkia, named after Captain Clark, Lewis's friend and co-explorer.

Heaven on earth?  One of many such places I've found.  Time to kick up the feet, lean back on a small tree, and enjoy life:

Thanks for reading!