hokitikawriter

When we arrived in Baker City, Oregon, we managed to get a ‘parlour suite’ at the Geiser Grand Hotel. This fantastic old hotel, which was built in 1889 during a gold-mining boom, was going to be demolished to make room for a carpark but was rescued, restored and re-opened in 1993. The view in the photo is looking down to the dining room from the second floor (where our room was) and at the top you see the amazing stained glass ceiling which is the largest in the northwest. The hotel is very ornate with lots of crystal chandeliers and we loved it! So do lots of other people as the hotel is booked out despite the very slow tourist season that is being experienced in America.

After a shower to wash off all the dust we had a very civilised dinner in the restaurant before enjoying the luxury of a bed wider than 1.2m. Next morning we headed out to the National Historic Oregon Trail Interpretation Centre. I knew that settlers headed west to Oregon to find land but otherwise I’m pretty vague about the story and significance of the trail. The Centre turned out to be a great way to rectify my ignorance. We can tell that the day was going to be hot so we started with a walk down to see a section of the actual trail and some historic wheel ruts. The heat, the dust and the tiny wagon certainly made us start thinking about the travellers’ trials – it turns out that we were visiting at pretty much the same time that they passed this spot, if all had gone well during their journey.

Inside the centre we followed a kind of time-line of the trip which started with some marvellous stuffed oxen and then moved on to details of the dust, deaths and experiences of those who made the trip. It seems that the trip wasn’t so bad for men who experienced quite a lot of freedom and camaraderie during the trip (and might have occasionally had a good time) while for the women it looked like an unending nightmare as they worked endlessly to maintain standards, trying (hopelessly) to keep everything clean, cooking meals on fires fueled with ox dung and sage bush, mending, sewing, caring for children and walking about 20 kms per day – the wagons were only for carrying their worldly goods.

The journey from the east took about six months and by the time they reached this point in Oregon they had nearly made it. About 400,000 people made the 3,200 km journey from the Missouri River from the 1830s to 1869 (when a railroad was completed) and the death rate was about four per cent. Especially poignant was the interactive next to a child’s musical instrument which invited you to consider whether you should take it with you on your trip. Initially it was a good idea because your child had something to amuse themselves with and could join in any musical evenings but it was no longer useful after the nine year old girl who owned it died on the journey.

After enjoying the luxuries of the Geiser Grand for another night we headed further West into Oregon. But first we had to fuel up and you can’t pump your own gas in Oregon. This is a state law aimed at preserving jobs and at Baker City it was fine, they filled the car, cleaned the wind-screen and you paid inside but at other places it was a bit farcical. At most gas stations you can card-pay at the pump and in a couple of cases you’d get out of the car, open the fuel cap, put in your card, punch in the numbers and then wait for the attendant to come and put the nozzle into the tank, then you’d wait for them to take it out before you could drive away. The good attendants (as in NZ) were ambassadors for their town, providing great information. Perhaps their wages should be subsidised by the local promotion association rather than through the higher price for gas – not that the price worried us, petrol was cheap!

Next stop was the Sumpter Valley Dredge, one of the largest in the USA. The dredge has been beautifully restored (see the after and before photos below) and was pretty cool – especially being able to walk around the machinery on what I can only think of calling the ground floor. No doubt someone will be able to tell me the proper term.

After Sumpter we drove along more forested roads before coming to the ranchlands near Prairie City. Here a sign informed us that ranchers helped ‘feed the nation, preserve open spaces and provide a habitat for wildlife’ although I think by wildlife they don’t mean anything that would eat their stock, such as wolves, cougars or bears. We were most impressed with the nearby Strawberry Mountain (an old volcano) and vowed to return.

Our next destination was the Kam Wah Chung State Heritage Site which is a one of a kind place which features the stone building that housed the ‘Golden Flower of Prosperity’. The stone and wood building was built in about 1870, before the town which now surrounds it, by a Chinese businessman and was later owned for many years by Lung On (an urbane businessman) and Doc Hay (a medical man). After their deaths the building was closed up and ‘rediscovered’ in the mid-1970s when it was opened prior to being demolished. Locals were astonished to find the place still looked as if the proprietors had just popped out and visiting the building is a truly OMG experience – especially for me. I have never seen such an intact view of the day to day life of Chinese businessmen. The store, the apothecary, the kitchen with its enormous wok and piped running water, the smoke scarred ceilings, it really is an exceptional site.

The nearby interpretation centre is really great too with information on the two remarkable men whose building it was. Naturally they were leaders of the local Chinese community (although they stayed longer than any of them) and acted as interpreters, bankers etc. I found the display (below) of a letter found in store and never sent very moving. I imagine that wife thought her husband had forgotten her.

We stayed the night at Clyde Holliday State Park which is a great spot, lots of tree, grass (very rare in the desert) and cheap firewood. Eddie couldn’t resist buying some and from then on he was hooked and we had a fire most nights.

Our last stop in this part of Oregon was the John Day Fossil Beds, one of the richest fossil beds on Earth. The Thomas Condon Paleontology Centre (named after the young minister who drew attention to the fossils in the 1860s) is brilliant, taking you through the 40 million years of the age of mammals using fossils and fantastic diaramas that show the different time zones and the wierd and wonderful creatures that lived during those times.

As we drove west we called in to the Painted Hills Unit of John Day Fossil Beds which are described as ‘a gently contoured theater of geological change’. It was really the wrong time of day to visit (evening is best) but the hills were still pretty stunning. They are the result of volcanic ash settling over the area about 33 million years ago and eventually turning to clay and rock. Geological forces lifted and faulted the strata and erosion by rain has exposed the different layers. The different colours are the result of different soil formation; the red is rusty iron minerals oxidised by long exposure, the yellow is a mix of oxidised magnesium and iron and the black marks are rich with manganese. All errors in this interpretation are mine! However they were formed exactly, they are rather fantastic.

Unfortunately this is where our 5 month old Canon S100 powershot camera decided to stop working – which was very sad. We still had our waterproof Pentax but we were going to miss the versatility of the Canon. Despite our period of mourning we still needed to keep heading west for our next geology lessons in Oregon’s Cascade Mountains.

After Yellowstone National Park we headed down to Craters of the Moon National Monument in Idado which is described as the strangest 75 square miles in the US. When we arrived, after quite a long drive through land used by the Idaho National Laboratory (no admittance anywhere), it was hot and windy. It was also really hazy but more about that later. The lava beds were created by an eruption 2,000 years ago and are really fantastic. Folds of cooled lava (see photo below), cinder cones and splatter cones cover the landscape for as far as the eye can see (especially at the moment). Most of the area is rough and sharp and would be impassable without the roads and tracks that have been built.

The campground was pretty stark but walls of lava have been built up around the various sites to create some privacy. We camped next to a gnarly limber pine which despite the lack of any other nearby vegetation still had the ubiqitous squirrels and chipmunks. It is a relatively small park but obviously well loved by the staff, the (flush) toilets were spotless and the toilet paper had even been perked!

We did a couple of short hikes (Eddie’s broken toe is doing well) which had some thought provoking interpretation – at some of the sites we have been to there has been a real problem with theft and damage. The ethos of the American National Park system is to make visiting really easy (you can usually drive to all the best sites/views) but this obviously has repercussions.

By the time it got really hot we were on the road north to Sawtooth National Recreation Area. We stopped in Ketchum (a winter ski resort town) where we struck the rudest Americans we have come across – fellow shoppers in the grocery store. This was a surprise as so far almost without exception people have been amazingly polite and helpful. I have several times wondered how they cope with the service in NZ.

As we drove north the ever present haze turned into serious smoke and at one stage I it was so bad that I didn’t think we’d see the Sawtooth Mountains at all. Thankfully it cleared a bit by the time we reached Little Redfish Lake and I got a glimpse before we settled into our streamside campsite.

We did a nature walk in the morning (and saw some kokanee salmon) before heading up to the lake for a view, only to be told that we had to pay $5 to enter the day use (picnic) area. Despite being in a national forest (which we have a pass for) the concessionaire was adamant that we had to pay the fee even though we only wanted to stay for a few minutes. Indignation at having to pay to view public land kicked in and we returned the offered envelope and drove back to the visitor centre and walked (sneaked) back to the lake for a view.

We headed further north and passed through the town of Stanley and saw one of the sources of the haze. Just north of the town a wildfire was raging. It had already been burning for two weeks (burning 19,000 acres a day) and was uncontainable. It was moving so fast that it was too dangerous to drop in the smoke-jumpers who work to try and cut off the fire. All that is possible is to try and protect any structures in the fire’s path. There are at least two more fires like this burning in Idaho and many others in the surrounding states.

Just outside of Stanley was a temporary fire fighters camp for at least 1,100 firefighters. They don’t expect to have the fire contained until the beginning of October when the first rain/snow comes. It amazes us that despite the extreme fire risk you are still allowed fires in the campgrounds.

We carried on to Stanley Lake which we instantly liked and so camped there for the night. In the photo below our campsite is at the right. We had a thunder and lightning storm just before dark and we heard later that lightning had started a few more fires near the Sawtooth Mountains which fire crews were working to put out before they took hold. The Forest Ranger that we talked to was worn down but philosophical. People in the towns were mostly concerned about protecting human life and property but we felt sad for the wildlife too. The losses must be huge.

I was reluctant to leave Stanley Lake but was placated with the plan to return someday with our inflatable kayaks. As we travelled the scenic byway towards Boise (pronounced boysee) we passed multitudes of camping areas – it is a great area. We had lunch in Idaho City (population about 500), a goldfields town which has a delightful blend of heritage and run-downness. Idaho is known for its potatoes and we’ve bought Idaho potatoes from the supermarket but with our lunch (at Calamity Jayne’s) we had the most amazing ‘fries’ and I don’t even like chips. Long hand-cut well-fried potatoes, yum!

We finished off our day with a visit to the World Centre for Birds of Prey (near Boise). Great exhibits, a breeding programme for the endangered American condor and we met a rare Kenyan falcon – much smaller than ours, totally human imprinted and fascinating. We also saw an Arctic falcon (the world’s largest), a Panama eagle and Wally, a great horned owl – the only owl with orange eyes. Wally is a big bird and was hand-reared. Staff didn’t know that he could fly until during one of the ‘meet a raptor’ shows he suddenly flew into audience, crash landing into a woman’s lap!

After the birds it was time to get onto the interstate, (Eddie loves these because the speed limit is 75 mph/120 kph) navigate the rather diabolical traffic around Boise and head to Baker City in Oregon where we were planning to stay in the town’s heritage hotel, the Geiser Grand. 🙂

Yellowstone National Park was on our must-see list for this trip. We knew that it was going to be busy (it gets 3 million visitors a year) so we had a couple of cruisey days at Grand Teton National Park, which is just to the south. We cooked pancakes, used the laundromat and watched the squirrel near our campsite work from dawn to dusk stocking its nest with cones. We eventually roused ourselves enough to do a ranger-led walk to some small lakes nearby. When we turned up there was about forty people and I was wondering whether we should do it or not. I was wondering right up until the moment when Ranger Jamie told us that a grizzly bear had taken down a male elk (wapiti) near the walk and would be guarding the carcass. As usual we learned heaps from the Ranger although the pace was torturously slow and Eddie & I had to go for a brisk walk afterwards (with our bearspray!)

Yellowstone (America’s first national park in 1872) has the world’s highest concentration of geysers and we were amazed by how extensive the area of geothermal activity was – you drive through miles of it. First up was the West Thumb Geyser Basin which is on the edge of Lake Yellowstone so that makes it very picturesque. Unfortunately the ever present haze from the millions of acres of forest burning in various states meant that we couldn’t see the full extent of this enormous lake.

We saw quite a bit of wildlife; a coyote, yellow-bellied marmot, bald eagle, golden eagle, osprey, elk, loads of chipmunks and squirrels but the thing that we got closest to was bison – specifically some lone males who were plodding down the road at a couple of locations. They are totally unfazed by the traffic (which is considerable) and you have to slowly ease past them. Another one (that I didn’t get a good photo of) was walking right down the centre line.

We spent several hours walking around the geyser basin near “Old Faithful”. We started with Old Faithfull which erupted at nearly exactly the predicted time (hence the name) which its been doing for over 150 years. There were mud pools, bubbling springs, spurting springs, geysers and lots of people but it was definitely worth seeing.

Next up was the much photographed Grand Prismatic Pool. The signage at Yellowstone wasn’t that great and we ended up in the wrong carpark but it turned out to be a wonderful mistake. While we didn’t get close to the pool we were able to walk up a hill and get a fantastic view. Another couple had done the same thing and took our photo – nice!

The next day we went to Mammoth Hot Springs. On the way we stopped at Roaring Mountain which was an unexpected delight. The side of the mountain is coated in white and vents are gushing steam. What is really amazing is that, because the steam is coming out under pressure, you can hear it roaring. Brilliant and hardly any people bothered stopping.

Mammoth Hot Springs include a series of terraces (smaller versions of NZ’s famous, and sadly gone, pink and white terraces). Along with the boardwalks there was a driving loop that we thought would be easier to walk – I think some people found us stranger than the springs.

After Mammoth we looped back to Canyon Campground (there is a lot of driving to do in Yellowstone) and the next day explored the Grand Canyon of Yellowstone. We walked to lots of viewpoints on both sides of the river and did the metal staircase which takes you down about 300 steps to a viewpoint. It is actually quite a haul back up and we felt the altitude though not as much as some. A family of Mormons, who all looked very fit, scampered up in front of us. I heard a woman on the way down saying to her son, “If a bunch of girls in dresses can do it then you can” and smiled to myself as I expect that the girls were way fitter than the boy and the dresses didn’t seem to slow them down at all.

The Grand Canyon was simply stunning – such amazing colours. The crowds were a bit tiresome but occasionally we would briefly have a viewpoint to ourselves. The view seems more profound when it is quiet.

We had an action packed drive out of Yellowstone with another road-walking bison to navigate, a bison near the Museum of the Park Rangers (not much money being spent there), a golden eagle on a rock by the river and a bald eagle on a tree further down the road – too far away to get a decent photo of but great to see.

We spent the night in Montana, our sixth state, before heading our next geologic adventure, Craters of the Moon – “the strangest 75 square miles on the North American continent”.

So far we’d seen lots of nature and some farming but between Colorado National Monument and our next destination Dinosaur National Monument we were very definitely in mining country. It wasn’t clear what was being mined – we think natural gas in some places and we also saw oil pumps along with miles of pipes and powerlines. When we got to the ‘Welcome Centre’ near the park we were told that we had better book accommodation straight away as everything was very busy with “all the oil work that is going on”.

The visitor centre at the park was okay but the main event is a cliff face of dinosaur bones which are still in-situ and protected by a large glass building. Due to traffic congestion you can only get there by taking a short shuttle ride. I wasn’t expecting to be that excited about the exhibit but you walk in (after a long walk up a wheelchair accessible ramp) and are suddenly facing an huge wall of enormous bones – it is breathtaking. After gazing in wonder at this massive collection of fossils, which are the result of a large number of dinosaurs who died in a riverbed during a drought and were later washed up here (like a log jam of bones), you go down to the bottom of the cliff where you are allowed to touch quite a few of the bones – which is pretty special.

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We walked back from the exhibit via the fossil discovery trail and saw fossils, petrogylphs and a striped whipsnake! We did a bit more exploring and stayed in a ‘Kabin’ at a campground in Vernal which was a nice break from sleeping in the van. Next day we were off to Flaming Gorge where we saw an otter – very cool! We stayed at Dripping Springs campground which is in 19,000 acres of park that was burnt in 2002. The amount of damage caused by fires here is astonishing. There are fires raging in about 5 nearby states and the air is very hazy with smoke.

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Oh dear… Next stop Yellowstone and Grand Teton National Parks – bear country!

From Silverton we drove over Black Bear Pass, past the Red Mountain mine, through Ouray, another historic town which is lovely but more touristy than Silverton, and on to Black Canyon of the Gunnison (river) National Park. We are now in bear country and you have to pack away all of your food if you are going ‘more than an arm’s length away’ from it. We didn’t see a bear but were startled by a young mule deer running right through our camp.

The next morning we got up early and walked down to Oak Flat for a quiet view of the canyon before it got too hot. It was great to be able to sit quietly for as long as we wanted and soak up the granduer. While it is not as deep as Grand Canyon, Black Canyon is a spectacular combination of depth, narrowness and sheerness and it is a magical place.

Another great stop (though somewhat busier) on the scenic drive was Painted Wall, which at 700m is the highest cliff in Colorado. We next walked to Warner Point (v. hot) which is above the canyon’s deepest point of 844 metres.

There was quite a bit of birdlife here and we had a great view of a peregrine falcon (they look slightly larger than ours) and also a hummingbird.

From Black Canyon we drove over Douglas Pass and we saw our first black bear – nice and safely from the comfort of our car. It crossed the road in front of us and paused to look at us as we oggled it. They can move uphill really fast and are big!

After descending from Douglas Pass we were back in what looked like desert to us and went past various types of mining activity before we got to Colorado National Monument – which is a scenic drive (with overlooks and short hikes) through more spectacular rock country with areas of Utah Juniper trees, which are small but over 500 years old. Once again it was hot, hot, hot so we didn’t do too much walking. We had dinner once the sun went down and things got a little cooler.

Lots of eroded landscape! Next stop dinosaurland….

From Arches National Park we headed south and crossed the border from Utah to Colorado. The Colorado Plateau is an enormous upland with towns at 5,000 to 6,000 feet (1500-1800m).

It is still dry country, though large scale irrigation schemes for crops of alfalfa and pinto beans mean that the area looks pretty green.  While we are driving there was a sudden thunder and lightning storm with hail so heavy that we have to pull over.  We are on our way to Mesa Verde National Park to see the remains of the Puebloan people who lived on this ‘green table’ several thousand feet above the plateau (at about, 2,400m). People have lived on the plateau for about 12,000 years (the prey of the early hunter gatherers included woolly mammoth) and started settling at Mesa Verde in about 600 AD. They grew corn and squash (and beans after they developed pottery which meant that the could cook beans) and lived initially in pit dwellings which evolved into above ground villages. In about 900 AD they began building cliff dwellings and while there is evidence of all the different building types on the mesa it is the cliff dwellings that are the main draw-card.

To see the best ones you need to go on park ranger led tours which are really good. What was apparent from the two tours that we did (Balony House with Ranger Bill and Long House with Ranger Jo) was what amazing crafts-people the Puebloans were, the stone work is incredible and the pottery shows great skill and is beautiful as well as functional.

We loved Mesa Verde though it was hard to sit and quietly contemplate because of the large number of people. A highlight of our tour of Long House was Ranger Jo telling us that at weddings mud balls were thrown for good luck – mud being a combination of two very important things – water and soil. We could see the splats made by the mud balls and then Ranger Jo invited us to look up and there was a hand print which had been made high up on the rock wall – breathtaking!

Next we headed north over 10,000 & 11,000ft mountain passes to the old mining town of Silverton. We had intended to camp at Molas Lake nearby but when we arrived we saw a sign saying ‘no alcohol in the campground’ which, of course, wasn’t going to suit us. It wasn’t a great campground anyway and the showers were an additional $5 per person. Silverton (popn 600) is a national historic area and is amazingly well preserved. The main road is sealed but none of the side streets are. Gold was discovered in the 1860s and the area opened up for mining in 1874 after negotiations with the resident Utes. I can’t imagine that the outcome was favourable to the Utes and about ten years later they were expelled from Colorado altogether.

Quite a few old movies scenes were filmed in Silverton (Run for Cover, Maverick Queen, Ticket to Tomahawk with Marilyn Monroe) and Wyatt Earp dealt cards at the Arlington Saloon. We splashed out and got a suite at the Grand Imperial Hotel which was built in 1882 and still has the original pressed tin ceilings.

We had a bad mexican meal and then a lazy morning before setting off to see more rocks – the Black Canyon of Gunnison & Colorado National Monument.

After leaving US50 (which was pretty dry) it got really dry. Interstate 70 was an unexpected pleasure. We’d thought it was simply the quickest was to get to our next destination but it travels through some amazing scenery – including the San Rafael Swell, an eroded anti-cline (hope my geologist parents are impressed) with fantastically coloured layers of rock.

Thunder clouds had been gathering all afternoon and we could see lightning and rain the distance so when we got to the Green River State Park campground Eddie asked the camp host if it might be going to rain. The man looked at Eddie in disbelief, “It don’t rain in Green River – it’s the desert”. “Ever?” asked Eddie. “No.”

Eddie’s conversation-opening gambit of making an observation about the weather isn’t working here. A comment like “What a great day” is met with blank looks and several times a surprised laugh. The weather is pretty much the same from one day to the next so Eddie is going to have to come up with another tactic to get people talking.

When we arrived at the Green River campground the temperature was 105 F, way too hot to do anything, although I got wilting down to a fine art. We couldn’t even start cooking dinner until after it went dark. It was pretty cosy in the van that night. An unexpected pleasure the next day was the John Wesley Powell Museum. Green River is only a small town so I wasn’t expecting much (how often do people think this about Hokitika Museum?) but it was excellent. Powell was a one-armed civil war veteren who in 1869, with a party of tough men, explored the previously unknown and uncharted Green and Colorado Rivers in 16ft long wooden boats. The journey from Wyoming to downstream of Grand Canyon took months and included many terrifying rapids. Three men, who thought that carrying on was suicide, left the party to try and walk out but were killed by the local tribe. The rest made it but most of the men never wanted to see the river again. Except Powell, who went back in 1871. It is a great story told really well through an audio-visual which recreates the journey with men paddling replica wooden boats through the rapids – frightening to watch!

From the museum we drove to Canyonlands National Park. I was worried about how hot it was going to be but thankfully it was cloudy and the temperature didn’t get much above 90 F. We loved this park, lots of great rocks and it was cool enough to do a few walks though basically it is like a long scenic drive with overlooks (lookouts) and interpretation panels.

Late in the afternoon we drove to neighbouring Arches National Park which was quite different considering they are close. We drove into the Devil’s Garden Campground and were initially a bit disappointed with our site – it was opposite the toilets and not flat – but we sorted that out and had a good night.

Next day we checked out some of the arches themselves. The light wasn’t that great but we took lots of photos anyway, along with everyone else. There must be many millions of photos taken of the arches each year! Next stop – the land of the ancients.

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