Along Oregon's Lewis and Clark Trail

2 July 2019

Days 25 - 26 - Bend, Oregon
We headed north from Crater Lake to visit the High Desert Museum in Bend.  It was quite interesting, and we finally found out how and why this part of the country is considered desert.

Basically, any arid region is a desert.  Antarctica could be considered a desert because it gets so little rain.  

So, central to eastern Oregon and Washington are part of the Columbia Plateau, roughly 4,000 feet (1,200 m) above sea level.  The Cascade Mountains to the west create a barrier to that the Columbia Plateau is in a rain shadow, creating the desert conditions. 

The High Desert includes all of Idaho and the western parts of Montana and Wyoming (the Snake River Basin and the Wyoming Basin), and most of Nevada and Colorado (the Great Basin and the Colorado Plateau).  The region between the Sierra Nevada mountains in California and the Rocky Mountains in Montana and Wyoming is referred to as the Great Basin, and again, is in a rain shadow between these two mountain ranges.

The museum is divided into various topics that highlight features of the high desert.  I started with the animals and plants, because, well, animals, right?  The flora and fauna of this region adapted to the desert conditions, so there's plenty of cactus, sagebrush, and trees like Ponderosa pine.  Animals include snakes, lizards, tortoises, jack rabbits, bobcats.  The museum has a "desertarium" which houses some of these animals in glass enclosures.  (Because no one really wants a rattlesnake or tarantula escaping its enclosure.)  

The birds of prey and the mammals were outside along the walking trail, because they need more space.  And it's more difficult to replicate their natural environment indoors.

But the two areas that I found most interesting were the Hall of the Plateau Nations, and the "Spirit of the West Gallery."  

On entering the exhibit of the Native American nations of the high desert, the first object was a huge tipi (or teepee) made of pine poles and woven marsh reeds.  These tipis were easily portable, so that people could follow animals for hunting, change locations based on seasons, or travel for various celebrations.  

This traditional tipi was contrasted with a modern tipi made of canvas, still used today during family gatherings and tribal events.  Much easier than finding a hotel or campground all the time!  

There was also a fascinating sculpture of donated blankets with attached tags; different people contributed their traditional quilts and blankets for this piece of art, and wrote the history of this particular textile on the tag.  What a compilation of history in this one sculpture!!!

The exhibit focused on the history of the Native American nations within what is now the USA, as people were confined to reservations and were no longer able to live the way they traditionally had for centuries.  These various nations adapted with the changing times.  "This is the story of how the Plateau people maintained their cultural identity by blending ancient and modern ways."

The basket hat, shown in a mosaic and also in a beaded bag, is a distinctive part of the Plateau culture.  Women still wear these woven hats at ceremonial events such as the first root gathering, and traditional celebrations.  The basket hats are handed down from mother to daughter as family heirlooms, carrying on this traditional craft.

The traditional boat was made from another marsh reed, hundreds lashed together to forms something between a raft and a kayak.  These Plateau boats are similar to those used on Lake Titicaca in Peru - no idea which came first.  But interesting how various cultures come up with similar solutions to universal problems such as how to transport people and goods along rivers and lakes.

The gallery for the Spirit of the West featured gorgeous beadwork by Native American artists, as well as the ceramic pots that are so well known.  Silver and turquoise jewelry, leather goods, wool blankets - all the items made by the Plateau nations, and sold or traded with the European American settlers moving west.

As the exhibit talked about the westward ho movement, Conestoga wagons and stage coaches were featured.  Really, full size wagons/coaches in the museum!!!  This was pretty amazing!!!  (And fortunately for me, no horses were attached.)

I especially liked the inclusion of the hat on the stage coach.  Just happy to know that other people travelled with hats and included them in scenes!!!

Day 27 - Redmond, Oregon
We drove from Bend to Mitchell to see the Painted Hills, and then drove back to Redmond for the night.  Yeah, we drove about 200 miles (322 km) during this day, for a net gain of distance northward of maybe 17 or 18 miles (27 or so km).  

What can I say, the Painted Hills were pretty incredible.  We drove through lovely pastoral country side with open range grazing and the occasional cow or bull by the side of the road.  Up and down hills, through forests of stunted pines, and then the Painted Hills magically appeared.

The Painted Hills are a series of rather low and rounded hills that are striped and scalloped reds, whites, browns, yellows, beiges, purples, greens, and almost black sediments.  They look like those colored sand in bottle art scenes rather than something that formed naturally!  Really, they look like Nature's art project!

Okay, the science about these fancy hills according to the information placards:

"Clues exposed at the surface help the nearby hills tell their story.  Most were formed from abundant volcanic ash-falls and floods of lava over many millions of years.  About five million years ago the land-building slowed and erosion cut down into the previous layers, resulting in the landscape we see today.

"Now only hilly remnants to the west, the ancestral Cascade Range of volcanoes once erupted cloud after cloud of ash that landed here.  These beds of ash-fall make up the John Day formations [the name of the national monuments here] . . . each revealing ancient changes in regional geology and live forms.

"Further clues reveal that the John Day formations were later subjected to massive forces that tilted the layers downward to the east.  Then, floods of lava poured out across the surface, forming flat molten lakes.  This series of basalt floods hardened and protected much of the softer layers underneath from the forces of erosion."  

In simpler terms, the volcanoes of the Cascade mountains to the west erupted over a long period of time, sending different colors of volcanic ash as well as molten lava over this part of the plateau.  The ash and lava built up layers of rock and soil.  Later on, earthquakes caused some of the land to rise and other sections to collapse.  Rain, floods, rivers, and even glaciers carved away softer parts of the land, creating the multi-colored hills we see today.

They really were gorgeous.  There were trails, but we were pressed for time and getting hungry.  We headed in to the town of Mitchell, where we had a tasty lunch at the tiny town's former stage coach stop.  Really, the whole history was written up on the menu!  I think there are something like 125 residents in this town right to this day.  Tiny!

So we turned around and drove back to Redmond.  The hills were worth the drive - it really was an incredible site.  I think my favorite was the first hill, where the varying colors create almost a scalloped or draped effect on the hill!  It almost doesn't look real, even though I walked through the sagebrush to get close for my photos.

Days 28 - 29 - Madras, Oregon 
We then drove vaguely north from Redmond, stopping to sightsee along the way.  There are always unexpected interesting national monuments, state parks, and points of interest.  And that's the beauty of a road trip - there's time to stop and see all of these interesting little places that we never knew even existed!

So we followed signs to the Cove Palisades.  A palisade is defined as a tall wall used for defense.  However, geologists use the term "palisades" to describe tall vertical cliffs that form the sides of a river gorge.  (And a gorge is similar to a canyon, but canyons are wider than gorges.)  

Gorges and canyons can be U shaped, with sheer cliffs, or V shaped, with sloping sides.  The U shaped gorges with those very tall vertical cliffs have been dubbed palisades.

Three rivers (the Metolius River, the Deschutes River, and the Crooked River - really, that's its name!) carved a zigzagging path through the rock, forming the Cove Palisades.  Part of the river widens off to one side, forming almost a lake.  This has become a recreational area, and the whole area is now a state park.

It really is a beautiful sight, these very straight cliffs plunging down to the almost turquoise green water.  A few areas had ledges, but most of the cliffs were a sheer drop.

The rock is igneous rock, meaning it's volcanic rock.  Much of it is basalt, a rock formed of cooled lava.  Basalt tends to form in columns, which helped create the very vertical palisades of this river gorge.

Just in case the scenery wasn't gorgeous enough, Mount Hood dominated the background.  Off to the southeast of Hood were the Three Sisters, a series of several volcanic peaks in the Cascades.  All snow capped and blue in the distance, these mountains made the perfect backdrop.

We stopped at several of the scenic overlooks and wandered around, watching people boating in the lake and rivers, and just generally taking in this incredible view.

We also visited the casino in Warm Springs, run by the Confederated Tribes of the Warm Springs.  The nations include the Wasco, the Warm Springs bands, and the Paiute.  While these nations traditionally spoke very different languages, in more modern times they have formed a confederation to be able to form an autonomous government and to preserve their traditional cultures.  

Along the way back from the casino, we followed signs for a wildlife refuge overlook.  I didn't see any animals, but the view over the river was lovely, and very peaceful.

The following day, we once again headed north.  But we opted for a route that wound around the base of Mount Hood, so that we had some great up close views.  However, between the mountain playing hide and seek through the clouds, and the somewhat precipitous and curving mountain roads, we didn't stop for any photos until we came out the other side.  

So, these views are of the north side of Mount Hood, looking south.  Gorgeous gorgeous mountain that really dominates the landscape.  Hood is the tallest point in Oregon, rising 11,250 feet above sea level (over 2 miles, or 3.43 km!).  

Mount Hood is a stratovolcano, also known as a composite volcano.  The previous eruptions build up layers or strata of lava that hardens into igneous rock, creating a taller and taller volcanic cone.  

Mount Hood is considered potentially active, as in definitely not extinct and probably dormant.  But it is considered the most likely to erupt of all of Oregon's volcanoes.  The last time it erupted was 1907, so that isn't really all that long ago.

But it was looking quite peaceful, and almost smiling in the sunlight as we drove by.

As always, I'm including a map of the route we took.  We deliberately focused on smaller highways and the less travelled route.  It definitely made for a more interesting trip!