Five Feet and Six Inches

The creek is dry and the pathway inviting.

The maw of the red canyon gapes: I enter. How can I not?

It is fall, cool and dry in the Owyhee high desert. I am alert for cougars and snakes… but the beauty of the canyon distracts me. Stuns me to muteness. I've hiked the upper part; I've walked along the rim; years ago I discovered eagles nests on one of the canyon's cliff walls. But I've never hiked through this lower part, with the dragon walls and monster monoliths and cathedral towers.

My sense of wonder is so overwhelmed that my other senses suffer, and when a willow bush explodes beside me, I explode too, in adrenaline. Five feet was all that separated me from a great horned owl, and I hadn't seen it. Good thing it was only an owl! But I am disappointed I didn't get a close-up shot of it.

I vow more alertness, checking ledges and overhanging walls, where cougars might lie observing, or where more owls might be perching, as I creep up the gorge.

The canyon in places squeezes together, twists in mazes, and widens into a massive garden oasis. Pretty autumn-colored poison oak decorates the passages. 

The walls become a funnel in places when water runs swiftly in the spring, carving chutes and caves and leaving miniature sand beaches where detritus washes up.

In a hole in the wall 12 feet above the creek bed, 

I spy feathers. It's an old owl nest! 

But as I approach closer, and climb up to peer in it, I see it's pieces of a whole owl - this is the dining room of an owl-eater. Perhaps one of the golden eagles who rules this territory has ripped this great horned owl apart in this dining cave-with-a-view.

Ahead through the canyon walls, I hear and see an angry swooping and diving prairie falcon. I can't see what she's after but I'll bet it's the great horned owl that I disturbed. I try to tread quietly in the creek bed, (which is impossible for a human), try to creep around the corner to see the owl, when it's suddenly had enough of the falcon, and enough of the approaching crashing thrashing human, and it flies over my head back down the canyon, with the prairie falcon in pursuit. As I turn my gaze back up-canyon, a chimney cleft in the opposite wall catches my eye - and I see another great horned owl, staring down at me. He is perfectly camouflaged - I'm not sure how I even noticed him.

I continue on up the canyon, where it becomes very brushy. I could crawl through a tunnel of brush in the creek bed, but I think better of it. I don't sense the presence of cougars, but - what do I know? An owl almost had me for lunch. I opt to crawl up and around where I'm out in the open. 

I see the eagle nest cliff ahead, and there comes a point where I have to either climb or cross the brushy creek bed - and I'm no climber. I pick my way carefully through the 6-foot-high sagebrush and willows, eyes and ears scanning everywhere. There is a sea of poison oak beneath the cliff, but if I pick my way carefully through, I should emerge the other side of the eagle cliff, and continue up the rest of the canyon that I've traversed before.

Still scanning cliff walls and brush, I study my path, carefully taking one step at a time through the tall and pretty red-leafed poison oak. Nearing the edge I say The Heck With It, and I sort of leap and run the last few steps to get it over with.

My mistake.

My last footfall lands in the golden sea of cheatgrass, six inches from one unsuspecting and suddenly very pissed off six-inch rattlesnake. She is golden, barely visible in the matching golden grass, and soundless, because she is too young to have even one rattle. 

can you see it retreating?? me neither!

 (I read later: "Rattler babies have venom, short fangs and are dangerous from birth. In fact, they are more pugnacious than the adults. Although unable to make a rattling sound, the youngsters throw themselves into a defensive pose and strike repeatedly when disturbed."*)

It is only - what? - fate? luck? - that this newborn rattler has not struck me. Again and again. We both leap back, the rattler rising tall and coiling and writhing and rattling a rattle-less tail, me recoiling and cursing, adrenaline raging, stepping back but not too far back without looking, because where there is one rattlesnake baby there could be more babies ("The female rattler may carry from four to 25 eggs, from which an average of nine or ten young are born live"*), not to mention the big rattlesnakes that created them.

The little rattlesnake slowly retreats - while still coiled and ready to strike - into taller grass, and I realize that with its perfect golden camouflage, I'll likely not see the next one, either.

I find my that nerve to continue up this canyon has suddenly vanished. I choose to retreat - back through the poison oak and golden grass (very carefully!) through the tall brush (cautiously!) and to climb up out of the canyon, and leave the rest of the canyon for another day. 

Like a cold day in winter when rattlesnakes should be hibernating.

*from Desertusa.com

Good Medicine

Tuesday September 25 2012

If you're feeling blah, or deflated, or out of sorts, and you really can't be motivated to be impassioned because you can't ride your favorite horse because he has an ill-timed allergy attack, the best thing that can happen is that your friend talks you into climbing aboard one of her extra lovely horses, who gets you out on another spectacular Owyhee trail, like 50 miles on Day 1 of the Owyhee Canyonlands.

When your horse takes you up to the mouth of Brown's Creek Canyon

then climbs above it

so you can look down in it

then he takes you to the Spivey Ranch on Castle Creek for lunch

then he takes you further up Castle Creek

then he climbs up out of Castle Creek

and he carries you back toward home across the Brown's Creek drainage

and across and up the steep hill out of Alder Creek 

and across and up the very steep hill out of Hart Creek

and back home,

you know that if it doesn't cure what ails ya, riding in Owyhee is at least good medicine.

Thanks Judy and Milon!

More photos and stories:

http://www.endurance.net/international/USA/2012OwyheeCanyonlands/

Close Encounters of the Jackass Kind

Saturday May 19 2012

I touched the horny jackass!

Remember the incidents with the Jackass last year?

He's a semi-wild brash donkey who hooked up with two wild horses out in the Brown's Creek drainage.

A few horseback riders have had unfortunate encounters with him (see the above link). The virile donkey appears to prefer geldings to mares in his amorous advances. Rushcreek Mac and John were disconcerted by him enough during our September Owyhee Canyonlands ride that they missed a turn on the trail for trying to outdistance the 4-legged Lothario.

Last year I encountered him on foot while hanging ribbons for an endurance ride, but he didn't want anything to do with me.

Today I was out on foot again, marking the trail past the rock corral in Buckaroo crick and up onto the flats, when I spied the two wild horses. 

"Hey guys!" I yelled. Their heads snapped up over the sagebrush and they stared at me. Shortly another shorter head appeared - the horny jackass. I kept talking to them, and the jackass started moving toward me, rather nonchalantly - almost friendly-like, as if he were happy to finally see a human after a long winter of 4-legged companionship.

Last year when I saw him, he gave me a wide berth in the trail; I couldn't have gotten closer than 50 yards if I'd tried. As for the mustangs, they were now 50 yards away which is closer than I've ever gotten to them, but they started - rather animatedly - following the donkey toward me. 

I kept talking to the donkey, and he kept coming closer, unafraid, and he stopped two feet away from me. 

I lifted up my hand and stuck my finger out. He stretched out his neck… further… and I touched the jackass!

He then took two steps toward me, into my space, and I suddenly remembered he is a horny jackass, towards some horses anyway, and, while he was the size of a pony, he still had 4 feet that could kick, some teeth that could bite, a big honking head he could swing like a club, and the body strength of a mule. Just in case, I swung my backpack off my shoulder onto my arm… and he took a step back. In this country I always carry a plastic garbage bag - something I can open up to flap around and make a lot of scary noise - and I put it in my hand… just in case.

The two wild horses were on high alert and were now within 30 yards of me. Fine looking pair they are.

The donkey just stood and looked at me, and I stuck out my finger again, and he sniffed it and touched it, then I stepped back, and turned and headed on my way.

They watched me, and the donkey followed a ways behind, almost as if he didn't want me to go. It must have been a boring winter out there, no other horses to harass, and no humans to listen to.

Some local cowboys have talked of going out there and catching him and those horses, but I kind of like seeing them out there. It's as if I know a special secret - a couple of special friends out in those canyons and washes.

Cathedral Canyon

Saturday January 28 2012

One of the best things about being an Explorer without a map is that you get to name places whatever you want. 

In the Brown's Creek drainage below the Owyhee Mountains, I'd gotten a brief glimpse of this canyon one day when I explored the lower cliffs, and then stopped for a brief look into this upper canyon, where I thought I'd found a golden eagle nest with babies (which turned out to be red-tailed hawks, duh!). 

And I've ridden by this little canyon a couple of times in some of the Owyhee Canyonlands endurance rides, but I never thought to explore it.

Until now.

It starts as a gradual wash in the desert hills, which suddenly slices down through red rhyolite, and drops four feet over a water-less waterfall, into a high-walled chamber. The passage twists and turns and squeezes 

until it comes to another water-less waterfall, which drops 10 feet into another chamber. We scrambled around the side of the fall down into this chamber - higher walls and more twisting and turning - until we are blocked by another 15-foot drop! 

We're not climbers, so we scramble back up and out the way we came, and follow the edge of the cliffs above the canyon, which is now so deep we can't see the bottom. But there is some kind of magnetic force down there, because we can't help but look for a way to get down to the bottom.

We find a steep side channel and we slip down, over mini-falls (dry), over thick layers of padded moss, into the overgrown brush that lines this canyon. Here it is wide and sheltered and the grass is high and the willows thick. 

We creep through the creek bed, keeping our eyes peeled for cougars, heading upstream. We find small bird feathers - the meal of a larger bird, then we find feathers of a long-eared owl - the meal of an even larger bird.

A big hole in the middle of the cliff walls looks inviting, but no way for us earth-bound humans to get there.

Our way upstream is blocked by a 10-foot (dry) waterfall cliff, above and behind which is a Cathedral chamber. At the far side of that, a 30 foot (dry) waterfall leads up into a channel so narrow you could touch both sides of the canyon. If only we could climb up in there! We debate building steps with rocks, but it will take a long time to fetch enough rocks. The Cathedral will keep its secrets a while longer.

We backtrack and follow a side canyon up the other side, finding a large cave (a large pack rat cave, which we don't venture too far inside) 

and, near the top of the canyon, startling a long-eared owl, whooo flies back down into the canyon. We spy red-tailed hawk nests on the cliff walls, and a shed snake skin up on the flats. We follow the rim of the canyon to the downstream entrance, where we drop down and cross a (scary) swampy spot in the creek, and abandon our hike back upstream because the brush is too thick and gnarly, and the cliff walls squeeze in, erasing an old game trail. 

Climbing back up to the road that we ride over during the endurance ride, we look back at the deep (newly named) Cathedral canyon, which gives no clue of its hidden chambers and kept secrets. But I'll never look at this piece of road from horseback the same way again.

[slide show here]

The World's Worst Amateur Wanna-Be Birder

Thursday May 6 2010

I headed out to chip away at a piece of my Mission of hiking the whole of Brown's Creek, from mouth near the Snake River to source in the Owyhee mountains.

The seed of this idea was the Two-horse Mystery and Cats day where I discovered and detoured to another Homestead on Brown's Creek - instead of hiking along the Second Cliffs like I'd originally planned.

Today, I was aiming for those Second Brown's Creek cliffs. First, I stopped to check on the First Cliffs eagle nest. I did see a golden eagle flying in the air, but, when I came to where I could view the nest - no eagle! And nothing on the nest! Oh no, the nest must have failed! There appeared to be a lot more whitewash on the cliffs, around one of the old nests and some nice eagle perches in the cliff, and in fact a lot of little whitewashes on the walls around the nest, but the nest itself looked a bit caved in beneath, and there looked like there was actually some snow in the nest. Snow? It snowed yesterday - maybe the eagles just recently abandoned the nest?

Well, no sign of eagles, so onward with my hike.

I thought I'd make a loop out of hiking a mile up Brown's Creek to the Second Cliffs, turn south towards the Dam Wash, and hike back along the Dam Cliffs and back down the Dam Wash to where it ran into Brown's Creek at my starting point.

I had to backtrack a long way just to get down into a side wash that ran into the Dam Wash... and by the time I got down into the Dam Wash, I was fascinated by it, and instead followed it down to where it ran into Brown's Creek.

Water didn't run in the Dam Wash often, but when it did, it was obviously powerful. Evidence of plant debris was several feet up the sides at places, and there were some drops over boulders where brief waterfalls had carved out deep holes. One drop-off was 4 feet high. I didn't want to be in here in a flash flood (and there were scattered showers around).

I kept stuffing my pockets and my backpack with cool rocks - round ones polished by water, sandstone-colored pink ones, obsidian nuggets. The echoes of canyon wrens (very cool calls) and chukkars echoed off the high red cliffs. A frog hopped around a little puddle of water. I watched over my shoulders for cougars.




When I reached flowing Brown's Creek, my plans changed. Why not hike down through the narrow canyon, below the eagles' nest, since it was abandoned, and see what I could find?


The creek was swift, but narrow enough to rock-hop over. I worked my way downstream beneath the cliffs, watching for cougars, keeping my eyes on the rocks and caves.



A prairie falcon was incensed at my presence and screeched his outrage, perching on the top of a cliff to glare down at me as I passed far below him.

Below the old eagle nests,








I found little bones (eagle meals) and a couple of (probably) eagle feathers. Further along the cliff, somewhat below the abandoned nest, I found more little bones of eagle meals, another feather or two, and 2 broken eggs. (Couldn't be eagle eggs - too small, and they would have shattered if they ever made it this far down the cliff). But no signs of baby eagles, lumps or carcasses or piles of feathers.

I was going to work my way downstream and on out past the cliffs... and stopped myself right before I stepped into a collection of poison oak. The stinging nettle caught my eye, then I realized those pretty 3-leaved sprouts hanging out with the stinging nettle were not friendly. If they hadn't had some red on their leaves I wouldn't have noticed them, and I'd be in quite an itchy state now.

Instead, I thought I'd call it a day, and I crossed the creek and scrambled among the cliffs back up to the top. I decided to have one more look at the eagle nest. I hiked back toward it, popped out around a rock - and a golden eagle flew off the nest!

Oh. My. God. What an Idiot. I am the World's Worst Amateur Wanna-Be Birder. That 'snow' on the nest - was a pile of baby eagles! Had I figured that out, I never would have hiked through the canyon. At this stage of development, the babies are not able to thermoregulate, and if the adults abandoned the babies, they'd die. Great to know I could have really eagally screwed things up.

As it was, I must not have disturbed the adult on the nest while I was puttering around snooping far below the nest, and as I climbed up the other side, until I walked back to where I could see the nest. Nevertheless, after a quick look through my good Nikon binoculars (I couldn't tell how many baby eagles were in the nest) I did some golden eagle penance and got out of there quickly. (Idiot!) (What did I THINK baby golden eagles would look like, fuzzy nuggets of gold?)

Here is a picture of golden eaglets by Carol McIntyre.

Before heading home, I wanted to scout out a better starting point for the Dam Wash Cliffs (I'll have to cross the Dam Wash to get to the Second Brown's Creek Cliffs) next time. I drove another mile up the road, and found a side road that led me closer to the cliffs. I got out and hiked the half mile down to the cliffs and - almost stepped on a baby rattlesnake.

At this time of year?? I know it's May, but it SNOWED yesterday, for Petes sake. It's too cold yet for rattlesnakes! The high buzz of his rattles were so - unexpected, I first registered it as a cicada, until I realized we don't have those here, and I leaped away in fright, somewhat belatedly. The buzzing stopped, but I couldn't stop myself from turning back and creeping back, ever so carefully... to make sure... and there it was, a beautiful, little, maybe 7 inch long rattler. The babies are supposed to be the most deadly because they inject all their venom in a bite. It curled and started rattling again (I figured I was out of range, but I backed up more), and it slithered into a crevice in a rock.

Cougars, schmougars, I was extremely jumpy about rattlesnakes now. If I squatted down to look at the pieces of natural obsidian littering the ground, and my boot squeaked, I jumped. My eyeballs and ears were on hyper-alert and I was nervous and jumpy as a spooky Arabian horse.

Crossing a 2-track road (which I wouldn't drive on) that you've ridden on, if you've done the Castle Creek loop on one of the Owyhee rides, I made my way to the cliffs - and right where I hit the rim - right there in front of me across the deep canyon - was another golden eagle nest, with several white lumps on it. With my binos I still couldn't determine how many eaglets were laying in a row, but I thought i saw 5 or 6. Endurance riding bird biologist friend Karen S told me later 6 was impossible; 4 young have only once been recorded in the history of the world, and three is unusual (the normal is 1 or 2). So either I found a hawk nest, or there were just 2 or 3 biiiiiiiiiiiiiig white lumps of golden eaglets there. I have a feeling it was eagles, but when we return in a couple of weeks to check it out, we'll know for sure.

And I still have my boots set on hiking to the Second Browns Creek cliffs. I am sure there could be another eagle territory there, too. Fascinating, this Brown's Creek drainage!

Photos of the canyon hike here.