Cruising Timber (Dial-up Warning - Photos)

Actually, I was just cruising through timber (and high desert).
"Timber cruising" is a forestry term that basically means taking a
sample measurement of a stand that is used to determine an estimate of
the amount of standing timber that the forest contains. That was not
what I did yesterday. I was just joyriding in the wonderful desert
wilderness.


Lava outcropping in a sea of pumice along a fire road.


The road less traveled.


This "thing" would look great in my front yard back east!


I went down a remote fire road looking for the site of the oldest Juniper tree in Oregon (I missed it by a quarter of a mile), and was very surprised to find a cattle operation in this desert wilderness. They bring in water for the livestock on 18-wheel tankers and transfer it to smaller tank trailers that can be pulled behind a tractor.


This is open range and Bossy has the right-of-way.


One of these days I want to look for the old rail-bed.


Did I mention the dust?


Nick and I visited Fort Rock. Fort Rock is a maar volcano. A maar is a broad, low-relief volcanic crater that is caused by a phreatomagmatic eruption, an explosion caused by groundwater coming into contact with hot lava or magma (Wikipedia).


Nick in the crater floor at Fort Rock.


My lookout is on the second butte to the right of Fort Rock, 25 miles away.

Wow, it looks hot. Nick looks hot too...

High desert is like that, in the summer...

I lived for 4 years in Richland, Washington, when I was a pre-teen..I remember the heat, and the little bit of snow we got...Just enough to sled!

Great pics!

Thanks for sharing...

:hi:

Your pictures always make me yearn to be there.... wherever you are..

Nick is looking good.

Handsome boy. Give him an extra bellyrub for me, please.

Thanks for the posts.

They look like postcards! K&R

Makes me desire a trip west. Going south instead for family things.

I've always enjoyed the high desert...so much beauty and solitude.

From your photos, it looks like you can hear time...

:hi:

..

Amazing photos! As someone who also lives in the high desert (Mojave Desert of California) you have to experience it up close to see the beauty.

Thanks for yet another great post.

thanks for the post, i am a shooter also, love to see where you go! Nick looks like a very good boy indeed! i googled the bs tanks and think this website needs your shots! oh, and finally...what the heck is that on the roof, I am assuming it is a boat of some type??

eastern oregon looks pretty rugged and rural.


http://www.waymarking.com/gallery/default.aspx?f=1&guid=69adc484-8343-4227-a644-d0a1f5b07928&lat=43.355867&lon=-121.0584&t=4&id=Fort%20Rock%20Homestead%20Village&gid=2&st=2

another link:

http://www.trainweb.org/highdesertrails/shlco.html

Like this, only 18 years old.

Thanks for the links!

:hi:

to go out in the boat! that is really cool, btw I have a couple of boats myself....a Hobie 16 that turned 30 years old this summer...we just went sailing out on Lake Erie Saturday! oh, and I have an Old Towne Canoe and a Sailboard too!

I will keep a lookout for your posts, there are really interesting.

BTW again, do you shoot panoramas?? I have been shooting them my whole career, and photomerge works great in photoshop CS3 and above, you have to try it, if you haven't already.

I so much enjoy them.

Interesting info too about the logging operations. What a job that must have been to build RR tracks in there! Here in Maine they'd just drive the logs down the river up until 73. Stopping that cleaned up our rivers but those 100k pound logging trucks makes a mess of our roads. But I digress...

I also saw the thread about Nick and his VIP status at that hotel. That's so funny! Thanks again for posting. Really great stuff! :hi:

I wondered how long before somebody picked up on that.

Your photos of the stark beauty and the wide open spaces of the Far West are awesome!!

As a nature lover, who is now disabled on a fixed income, and unable to travel much anymore, I really look forward to seeing them!!


:yourock:

up your way:

http://www.trainmountain.org

This guy has a huge chunk of land all developed with scale model rails for live steamer events up near Chiloquin(30 miles north of Klamath Falls). Worth seeing just for the scenery on the dates over the summer when they book events and people bring their engines from all over the world.

There is a contact us button to click on to ask about the old rails out of Bend.

For others who like the scenery, lots of pics.

You're getting very good at shooting your photographs. I love the composition in every one. The observer gets a very good feel of the high desert and the heat and the geology. Thanks so much!

DemoTex,

Fort Rock actually used to lie in a lakebed. The prominent notching near the base of the crater walls is due to the friction from lapping waves. (It's visible in your excellent photographs.)

About a mile from Fort Rock, there is a smaller butte ( on private land -- so not accessible ) with a cave. In 1938, an archeologist discovered a cache of sandals woven from sagebrush bark in that cave. They carbon-dated to 9000 years old. For many decades, those sandals were oldest known dated artifacts of human habitation in north america.

I don't know how far you can -- or want to -- roam in your off-duty time, but I can recommend the John Day Fossil Beds as an excellent place to visit. The entire Eastern Oregon area was repeatedly buried in volcanic ash from the Cascades over the last 60 million years. Because of this, the whole area from Bend eastward has a very unique fossil record: virtually entire evolution of mammals, from 65 million years ago down to the present day, is captured in one place. Of course there are fossil beds all over the world, but the others just show a "snapshot" of a specific time. Here in eastern Oregon lie fossils from the entire period of mammalian life. Paleontologists come from all over the world to study mammalian evolution at the John Day beds. (It's also a favorite haunt of Paleobotanists, who are trying to understand the evolution of plant life.)

The John Day beds are open to public visits. There are three: the Sheep Rock Unit and the Painted Hills Unit, which are "near" Mitchell, and the Clarno Unit, which is "near" Fossil. I say "near" because out there "near" means it is within the same county :-) As a photographer you would probably find the Painted Hills Unit very interesting. At the Clarno Unit there is a trail that leads in a blue-clay badlands (Islands of Time trail). Visually quite interesting! There is a museum at the Sheep Rock Unit with many of the fossils found in the area. Best of all, you can actually dig for fossils in an exposed bank of earth behind the high school in Fossil. I think they charge $5 for a visit, and you can take away all the fossils you can carry in both of your hands. Just walk up to the earth bank behind the footballfield and start poking through the scree at the bottom, move slowly up hill. You will find a fossil within a minute!

Warm regards,

J.

Obligatory disclaimer to non-Oregonians:
The unemployment rate in Oregon is sky high!
It rains 700 days a year!
Lon Mabon! Lon Mabon!
:-)

What a beautiful landscape you have the pleasure of watching over. :hi: Nick looks like he is loving is "assignment" as much as you.

...as eastern California!

Seriously, you're giving me a major jones for a road trip!

Those pictures sure take me back.

Thanks.