Rome Station to Iron Point and Back
As I was showing Sofie and Lara through Eastern Oregon and the Owyhee country, I was already planning a solo trip that would overlap with Glenn Fretwell’s Jordan Valley atlatl event. Glenn, Maria and Hazel had been so kind and generous that I wanted to show support. Additionally, Mike Hanley had told me that now he was retiring from ranching, he was ready to donate his wagons and other artifacts as well as some land to an entity that would use them for an interpretive center. Though the proposal was still vague, it nonetheless came as a surprise. Those wagons (and a Model T and ‘60 Chevy Biscayne) had always struck me as more important to Mike than his ranch! I wanted to hear more. But I shall set that aside for the moment. Meantime I have photos and article sitting on the desk of the editor of the Owyhee Avalanche, a weekly published just across the border in Homedale, Idaho. And Mike is in Tennessee for a family reunion, and I want to talk to him a bit more about his idea. (Since I wrote this, the article has been published and Mike is in Pendleton for the Roundup.)
Mike Hanley IV and his Wheels
Be that as it may, if I were honest with myself, I’d have to admit that Glenn and Mike’s activities were also a rationalization for an opportunity to explore further portions of the Owyhee country that I hadn’t been able to reach before. I've been particularly interested in the area on the right bank of the river from Rome Station down to Birch Creek and beyond. Part of that I had seen around the mouth of Bogus Creek with Tim Davis and up along Owyhee Butte on Elias Eiguren’s guided tour of his rangeland. I had also seen that stretch of the river from a raft when I floated it back in 2009. So, the first day I took off from Rome Station, drove up the west side of the river and crossed a narrow old iron bridge that looks ready to plunge into the water. From there, I took Airstrip Road (!), which climbed northward and paralleled the river. At the top of the rise, I stopped to look back at the Pillars of Rome, the eroded volcanic tuff cliffs that give the place its name. That took me past Owyhee Butte and the grazing land Elias had shown us a few weeks earlier. How quickly things change in the semi-arid landscape of the high desert! Earlier the native grasses had been green and the landscape attractive; now it was covered by sere invasive cheat grass that seemed to be all that one could see among the sage brush. There were scattered cattle and every mile or so, a watering tank fashioned from a large tractor laid on its side and filled with water could be seen. Elias had explained to Sofie that by using the tires in this way, they were being repurposed, saving the cost of new steel tanks that might eventually rust out and need to be replaced. Bouncing along a two-track, I followed Airstrip Road about 17.5 miles to Bogus Creek. In the interests of time, I decided not to drive down to the Bogus Creek ranch, which Tim Davis and I had visited earlier. Chesley Blake claimed the ranch was once owned owned by Frank Davis, who made moonshine there. Whether that is true, I am uncertain. But there is a spot close by known as the “Frank Davis Cow Pasture” where, several people have told me, he kept his stolen livestock. Bearing to the right at Bogus Creek, a couple of miles up from the ranch house I headed north on Mud Lake Reservoir Road.
Pillars of Rome
About 4.2 miles from Bogus Creek I came to an intersection with a road that the Delorme Atlas identifies as Miller Lane but which the onboard navigation system and BLM maps say is Packer Road. There are, of course, no street signs to identify anything, but I grabbed a left and headed for the canyon rim a little over five miles away. The view from the rim–upstream, downstream and straight down–is stunning. At that point, the depth of the canyon is about 1000 feet and the width less than a half mile. Directly opposite me on the other side was Iron Point. Standing there I recalled that ten years earlier I’d the gazed at that stone pinnacle as I’d floated through Green Dragon Canyon. I once asked Mike Hanley if he’d ever floated the canyon. “No, but I’ve seen it from the rim on horseback.” This struck me as a metaphor for the distance between the points of view of the environmentalists/recreationists and the cattlemen in understanding one another’s concerns. The floaters see the beauty of the river and its canyon walls close up but are prevented in that moment from seeing the generations of hard work invested and the pride earned in creating the possibility of life for families and community on such arid land. On the other hand, ranchers and buckaroos view the river and its canyon from high above where it is difficult to fully appreciate the aesthetic and physical thrill of being on the river as well the concern over the threats to the well-being of the Owyhee watershed and all it supports. This is a broad brush that paints a symbolic picture of a complex and nuanced problem. But it serves to bring into relief the responsibility of all to help one another understand their concerns and why they are important. The concerns of one side have unappreciated implications for the other.
Iron Point and Green Dragon Canyon (river flows left to right)
I took a few pictures of Iron Point and, being mindful of the cliff’s edge, a selfie or two and then drove back out to Mud Lake Reservoir Road and turned north. That took me past Mud Creek Reservoir, which displayed a surprising amount of greenery in the form of cattails. It really didn’t look much like the usual high desert reservoir. From there it was a bit over 3.5 miles to Morcom Road, which put me back on the road to town and a late lunch and nap.