Hiking Light at the Painted Hills

Hikers know all about traveling light. We look for the lightest gear that serves multiple purposes, and study ways to cut ounces without sacrificing comfort, safety, or durability. But there’s more than one way to travel light, and hiking the Painted Hills is one of them.

I’d planned this trip for months, but something always got in the way. Then, in July, I found a short window of time and loaded my truck for two days of driving, hiking, and camping in the central Oregon desert. I left Portland in the morning, drove over Mt. Hood, and continued on through the Ochocos, a beautiful range of ponderosa and deep grass. By early afternoon, close to the small town of Mitchell, I turned off the highway towards the Painted Hills National Monument.

I hadn’t done much desert hiking previously, and didn’t know what to expect. I ate lunch at the small park near the visitor’s entrance and studied a map of the monument’s short trails. On paper, exploring looked deceptively easy, but I knew that this would be more than the sum of miles and elevation gain. And it was.

If a deer leaps in front of your car when you’re driving, you react immediately – a jolt of adrenaline, a little fear, an instant decision between swerving and braking – followed, afterwards, by a little rush. When you first see the Painted Hills, it’s a bit like that.

I didn’t drive far before encountering the star of the show – a huge, exposed hillside of volcanic ash millions of years old, compressed into layers of bright red, yellow, gold, brown, and black. The hill rose above a dry sage-brush flat, and stretched beneath a deep blue sky over distant hills full of summer grass and juniper.

For the rest of the afternoon, I wandered in splendor. At the Painted Hills Overlook I walked up the short trail for close-up views. Colors shifted in scales, growing in intensity in the sun, or falling mute in the shadows of clouds. The hills were an orchestra playing a unique symphony, with measure upon measure of light built up and reflected from the banded ash. Strange scars from rock-fall led like lyrics through the gradations of color, and the longer I watched, the more I felt the hills were unbearably old, unfathomably subtle, wearing wisdom as a spectrum of ever-changing light.

Eventually I returned to my truck and drove on to the Painted Cove, where a short boardwalk winds around a single red painted hill. As the afternoon grew long, the depth of the color grew deeper, contrasting wonderfully with dark green junipers and bright yellow blossoms of rabbit-brush.

After soaking in Painted Cove, I walked around Leaf Hill, an outcrop full of fossil leaves, then returned to the Overlook and hiked to the top of Carroll Rim for expansive views of the Painted Hills. The steep trail soon crested the ridge-top, passing through rim-rock and odd basalt formations.

The views changed constantly along the length of the rim, with patterns of evening light and shadow dancing on the hills. Basalt speckled with ancient lichen lent a timeless feel to the scenery. This was once a volcanically active region, with lavas pouring across the land and ash falling into tropical waters. I’d catch a glimpse of the inhabitants of this dynamic landscape later, but on top of Carroll Rim, in the sun, with the Painted Hills below, I felt part of something very old still moving towards some unknown purpose.

T.S. Eliot may have felt the same when he penned “I should have been a pair of ragged claws / scuttling across the floors of silent seas.”

It was time to go – if I wanted to make camp, I couldn’t watch the sunset. I hiked back down the trail and left the Painted Hills. It wasn’t a sad moment. In fact, it was exciting. I was on my way to the John Day river, where I’d sit at a fire, stare at the stars, drink bourbon, write in my journal, and remember the hills. I especially looked forward to remembering the girl.

If the Painted Hills were ancient and filled with light, the girl was youth incarnate and made of light. As I made my way through the Painted Hills, she and her family leapfrogged viewpoints with me. At the Overlook, she burst from the car and ran up the trail ahead of her family; she was eager and strong in the sun, with long black hair streaming from under a straw hat, and smooth tanned limbs flowing from a blue country dress. In her late twenties, she was beautiful, and if anything were more beautiful than the light on the hills, it was her.

It was like a doe had leapt in front of my truck.

We have immense capacity for love. Many of us will fall in love many times. In all those different times, we carry an ideal in our hearts – a type, a perfect representation of all that we seek in love. That true life never mirrors this ideal hardly matters; what matters here is that this young woman was emblematic of my ideal. And as a symbol – because I never exchanged more than a few words with her – she remains that ideal, unobjectified but unknown, and still pure. I did not fall in love with her – I fell in love with the idea of her.

When I returned to the parking lot at the overlook, a Native American man with a long braid and strong features sat on a bench in the shade. As I approached, he asked, “Have you seen my tribe?” His family (I learned his daughter’s name) had passed me on the trail, and Donny (not his real name) and I began a long conversation. He was taking his family traveling and camping, getting back to the natural world. It was a healing trip. He’d flown his daughter home from a bad spot on the east coast. He told me all about her, about how when she was young, she’d wake him in the mornings, begging to go fishing on the Sandy and the Clackamas. Naming those rivers – for naming is a powerful spell – led to the discovery that Donny and I live near each other in the same city. It’s a small world.

Later we met again at Leaf Hill, and Donny introduced me to his family. His daughter was shy, her eyes dark and guarded, yet she moved with confidence, in her element. In contrast, his younger sons displayed outward annoyance and the look of wanting a television and a video game. I wished them all a good trip, and drove on to Carroll Rim for that wider perspective.

None of this is a good explanation of how I felt at the Painted Hills, nor is it a good description of Donny’s daughter and why she stood out in such relief. As I said, I don’t love her. I can’t; I don’t even know her. And I can’t exaggerate or make this complicated, because it’s surprisingly simple. Donny’s daughter moved as if she belonged there, as if her presence was necessary. She was just one more beautiful aspect of a beautiful landscape. She was all-to-human, frail, and fleeting – and the world she moved through was stark, elemental and enduring. And there was power in that.

Later, in the BLM campground at Spray Creek, by the shores of the John Day river, I watched the sun set and the stars come out, and I tried to express my thoughts and feelings in writing. I still haven’t succeeded. I’m working as slow as the Painted Hills, and the light isn’t done with me yet.

Cooper Spur Journal

October 17th, 2011

Cooper Spur shelter. Went almost to the top, turned back just shy of last ¼ when wind gusted cold, cold, cold. Otherwise warm, should be wearing shorts – sunny, not a cloud in the sky except north over snow peaks [Snyder’s term]. Late start, northeast face and Eliot Glacier in shadow at 2:30pm – these short days…

A lot of hover-bees… And green tea with ginger. Snowfall a few days ago, patches on trail – icy snow mixed with rock. Not much to worry about, more a fun challenge.

The Eliot looks incredible from the edge of the spur. Footprints lead up snow slopes between huge piles of rock, which tower over splintering crevasses and ripples of fallen stone. Along the moraine, fluted edges, patterns of rock-fall – can hear it, sometimes see it, stones clattering down the face from high.

I forget until it’s over the initiation – long approach roads, time, weather, then climbing, breathing, sore legs – how can I be so out of shape? – must quit smoking.

In minutes the sun will sink below Crater Rock. This whole side of the mountain shaded and cool.
Will go out again tomorrow, maybe the last hurrah on the mtn. If this be it, it is a beautiful day. What a weekend to end the season – maybe now I can accept the rain, muddy trails, dark forests, full streams, salmon, slugs, moss, fern, the world reduced to green and gray detail.

But not yet – I will sit on this rock for another 15 minutes or so – massive block of dacite speckled with lichen – how old the lichen, how old the stone? – what weather has this high alpine plain weathered?

There are long passages of time beyond reckoning, beyond the seasons and the rock-fall, the cycle of snow and snow-melt. The shadows grow long.

Down in Tilly Jane it will be dark soon – active canyon, heather, hemlock, tiny streams – things move faster there.

Spiderwebs catch the last light, drifting in the long afternoon. Boulders. White bark. Also drifting.
Amazing how silent it is up here.

The sun is about to go behind the mtn. Time to go – for now.

More Photos Here

Returning to Earth: Elk at Bayocean Spit

I've had some memorable encounters with elk. In 2005 I woke in Eden Park in September when the stream was frozen and my hands were numb, and before the sun rose I watched elk pound up a steep talus on the side of Mt. Hood. In 2006 my friend and I paused while hiking in Enchanted Valley to watch a herd pass through the riparian forest, sun-dappled and brown. In 2010, another friend wrapped herself in firelight at the foggy coast and stirred the ashes shaman-like with an elk bone she found while scavenging firewood.

And last April, at the coast with my brother, we crept up to a herd of elk grazing on the dune-grass plain at Bayocean Spit.

The morning was bright and cool from recent rain, with a fresh wind off the ocean. I was surprised to see elk in such open territory and so close to the beach. A forest of shore-pine and Douglas fir lies further north, and that’s where I’d expect to find elk, not out in the dune-grass.

But there they were, twelve or fifteen cows in the sandy dunes to the south. In the sun, their tan backs and sepia heads blended perfectly with the landscape, looking at a distance just like tussocks of grass. Only when they moved could we see them well, well-muscled and tawny-rumped, with long dark hair hanging from thick necks.

We walked the beach south for several hundred yards and cut back inland behind the herd, so that we faced north, away from the sun. The herd knew we were there and slowly moved away while my brother crept closer with his camera. Eric and the elk slipped quietly through the grassy hollows, Eric with his finger on the shutter and the elk with cautious movements interrupted by grazing or the cast of a critical eye.

I watched from a tall dune: Eric, the elk, waves of heat above the grass, a patchwork of logged hills and billowing clouds across the bay. The elk disappeared into the land like ghosts returning to the earth, and Eric slowly headed back. I heard the sound of surf. I heard the cry of gulls. Taken together, it became a blessing.

South Sister Thunderstorms

In late August I drove up the Cascades Lakes Highway from Bend and the weather turned from fire-ban hot and dry to lightning-strike thunder and rain. I barely had my tent set up at Soda Creek campground when rain began to fall, huge drops that pelted the ground and splashed mud over the base of everything. Lightning strobed through the trees and thunder exploded like a marching band of heavy metal drums. Soon my tent was staked above a puddle, and I was huddled under a tree, trying to stay somewhat dry as thunderstorms broke over Mt. Bachelor and rumbled overhead.

Soda Creek campground is a beautiful place, on the edge of a meadow between Sparks Lake and South Sister. The creek runs clear and strong through the meadow, and from its edge, there are superb views of South Sister and Broken Top, as well lava flows, stars, deer, and storms. The storms didn’t let up – even after I went to bed, my tent lit up with lightning, and I’d count the seconds for the thunder.

When I arrived, I didn’t know that the storms would last all night. I kept a tidy camp and lit a small fire, but kept it hot enough to burn through the rain and cook dinner. The storms passed in waves. One moment the air would be clear, with no rain, and I could wander to the meadow to watch the cells collide over the peaks. At those times, the sun shone through cloud-breaks with rich warmth, drenching the grass and trees with light. The next moment, lightning would flash behind me and I’d retreat to the camp before the next bruising thunderhead raced overhead, bringing rain, darkness, and probing lightning strikes.

Flash. Boom. No time between them – and no sense of security huddled under a tree. At one point I sat inside my truck, but my wet clothes turned the cab into a sauna within minutes, and I went back out in the storm. I thought about the backpackers who were camped up on the mountain at Green Lakes Basin and Moraine Lake, and how it must feel to experience this trapped in a tent in alpine country. I thought about how people throughout time have been inspired by thunder and lightning storms, how those elements have passed into myth, how they’ve inspired gods. I thought about the possible weather the next day, and questioned my plans to hike high on South Sister.

Back in the meadow, the sun set in spectacular fashion. Nature was on display, modeling everything she had. Cells continued to roll through, from Bachelor to South Sister, from Bachelor to Broken Top. Between the storms, light poured through the gap where the highway turned south at Devil’s Lake. The meadows grew golden in the low angled light, then fell into shadow as the peaks hoarded the last sun on their snowy flanks. Behind South Sister, sunset fires burned.

Whiskey burned, too. If you’re standing in a storm you might as well drink right from the bottle. I didn’t have that much, but that’s because I also had beer. And a little liquid courage goes a long way in a liquid downpour. After nightfall I realized that as challenging as the storms had been mentally, they had pushed me to remain positive and to be accepting of the circumstances. And when the storms decreased in intensity, in duration, and in proximity, I started to miss them. I threw more wood on the fire.

The clouds began to thin, the storms became more isolated and infrequent. As night grew deeper, a few stars spackled the breaks between clouds. The Big Dipper, Ursa Major, ploughed through the clouds and poured some sort of cosmic energy onto South Sister. But lightning still flashed on the slopes of Mt. Bachelor, and far behind the jagged summit of Broken Top. I crawled into my tent, shed wet layers, laid out my dry clothes and slipped into my sleeping bag. This would turn out to be a very different trip than I envisioned if the storms kept up through the next evening.

Hikes Past: Memaloose Hills

I’m looking at the weather forecast and for the first time in a while, it’s supposed to rain throughout my weekend, all across the state. I’m sure I’ll go hiking, but it won’t be the clear, brisk fall weather I hoped for. Feeling nostalgic, I’ve been thinking about a warm, sunny hike from back in May. At the time, the Memaloose Hills near Mosier were in full bloom, with acres of balsamroot, lupine, and paintbrush splashing the spring grass with color.

Sadly, Russ Jolley, author of the incomparable Wildflowers of the Columbia River Gorge, recently passed away. Along with Friends of the Columbia Gorge founder Nancy Russell, Jolley successfully fought to preserve the Memaloose Hills within the Columbia River Gorge Scenic Area, and open the land to public access. Today the hills are owned by the Forest Service and yet remain little known, despite a superlative wildflower display without the crowds drawn to nearby Rowena Plateau or McCall Point.

I hiked the Hills for the first time this year, and the wildflowers were incredible. The trail leaves the old Columbia River Highway and meanders through oak to a stream crossing. A side trail leads to an open meadow filled with balsamroot and a view from McCall Point in the east to the cliffs of the Gorge in the west. Back on the main trail, the path approaches private land before heading uphill through flowers to the summit of the southern-most hill.

The air was filled with the scents of spring, the hum of bees, and the shadows of raptors gliding above the fields. Mt. Hood stood on the horizon, mantled in snow. The sky was a dome of deep blue. And the wildflowers were as thick as I’ve ever seen.

When I hiked in, just before the creek, I spotted movement ahead of me. Five deer wandered a nearby meadow, unconcerned with my presence. I watched them for a while, then continued on. On the way back, I walked quietly towards the meadow to see if the deer were still there. They were: four healthy-looking blacktail does, sleek with brown coats and big eyes and ears turned towards me. The fifth doe was sickly and thin with a matted coat, and traumatic eyes. It must’ve been a hell of a winter for that one.

I spent a few hours among the deer and flowers and then jumped in the truck to head to an afternoon hike at Stacker Butte farther east. The weather stayed clear all day – not at all like the gathering clouds this evening. It feels like autumn now, with today’s rain, but though autumn is probably my favorite season, I’m not ready to give up the sun. Fall is a time for ritual and celebration, remembering and reflection. But I’d like a few more nice days in the mountains. There’s nothing quite like hiking Cooper Spur or Indian Heaven when the air is clear and crisp, there’s frost in the shade, and the meadows and alpine trails are lined with amber and scarlet huckleberries and mountain ash. Something to hope for, I guess - though, if it keeps raining, I can always go back to Memaloose, and hoist a beer for Russ.

Trail Info:

Distance: 3 miles

Elevation Gain: 450ft
Region: Columbia River Gorge - East
Information: No fees, no facilities. Watch for poison oak.

Recommended Guidebooks: Curious Gorge, 3^rd ed., by Scott Cook; Wildflowers of the Columbia River Gorge, by Russ Jolley.

Directions: Drive I84 to Mosier (exit 69) and continue west on the old Columbia River Highway. After 3 miles, park in the Memaloose Overlook pullout. The unsigned trail begins across the road.

More Photos Here!