I woke early the next morning hoping to watch the sunrise. Clouds had moved in since the previous afternoon, blocking the sunrise for the most part. I instead spent my time wandering around the desert, enjoying my solitude.
Out on the desert floor, I had a descent view of Steens Mountain rising above our camp.
After the others from our group woke up, a few headed for the desert floor.
Rod
James and Ben
From camp, we headed down to the Fields store for fuel. After sitting around chatting for a while and enjoying a delicious milkshake, we decided to head out with Mick and his wife Joey, along with Richard and Jan and their granddaughter Tara. Our plan for the day was to drive to Propeller Meadow, the site of a bomber crash in the 1940's. The clouds that morning were pretty nice.
We chose to make a quick side trip to check out an old stone house. Somehow we missed to so we decided to follow the road up over Domingo Pass. Looking up hill, you can see Mick following the switchbacks up the hill.
From the top, we could see off into the distance. Down there somewhere is the stone house.
Once we crossed over the pass, we zigzaged back down the other side of the hill into Rincon Valley.
Down in the valley, we headed south, hoping to be able to circle around and come into Propeller Meadow. The road went through several low-lying areas that, in the wetter times of the year, obviously were quite moist. Those area's tended to be a bit dusty, as was this one, which also had sagebrush taller than our truck!
We noticed a number of beer cans along the road, most of which were picked up by Mick and Joey but these ones were picked up by Richard. There was actually more than he could even carry, so he kicked one along in front of him
Shortly after crossing into Nevada, we could see Blacks Mountain off in the distance
We stopped for lunch and Mick, Keegan and I walked over to an old ranch thinking there were some hot springs. We didn't find the hot springs but we did see some wildlife including these birds flying around near some small ponds.
This old fence surrounded the ranch, its been a while since anybody has been around here though.
From there, we headed on a road due north hoping to get up where we wanted. Unfortunately, after a mile or so, the road became increasingly washed out to the point where we decided to turn around. Big thanks to Joey for spotting us as we got turned around. Later, Matt was able to get up in his fully locked Land Cruiser/Lexus and reported back that there was NO WAY we would've been able to get up.
As we were headed back down the hill, we could see several of the group cruising along the valley we'd been in a short time earlier.
We met up with them at Bog Hot Springs, the springs Mick and I had been trying to find earlier. The water was pretty warm and would've been awful nice during a cooler time of year.
From there, Mick, Richard and I headed South to Denio Junction where we stopped to eat. After our meal, we turned back north, hoping to once again head in towards the crash sight. Unfortunately, the roads never panned out as we crossed back into Oregon.
We decided to try again at accessing the rock house. This time, I lead the way and chose the route less traveled which lead us into a pasture, where we parked and walked across to the house.
While we were stopped, we watched a pickup approach us. Turned out to be a local property over, from the Oregon End Table Ranch, across on the other side of Domingo Pass. His name was Jay Hughes and you could tell he was a very interesting guy. We talked to him for a bit before we headed on our way. Its always great to meet somebody like Mr. Hughes...
We headed back to Fields where we greeted some of our trip mates, who it appeared had not moved all day, just sat in front of the store and chatted... Mom, Keegan and I hopped back in the truck with the goal of visiting Mickey Hot Springs, northwest of the Alvord. On our way north, I spotted a draw opposite from the Alvord so we hiked up into to explore a bit.
The road to the hot springs cut straight across the valley north of the Alvord before turning and skirting the south side of a ridge that extended miles north.
Describing Mickey Hot Springs is somewhat difficult. It was nearly dead silent there. Just about the only sound there was the bubbling of water in a few of the pools as well as underground. For the most part, the pools were absolutely calm, no motion at all. In some areas, the ground was almost hot to the touch, definitely heat radiating from below. Such an amazing place, though the water was too hot to even touch in most pools.
We then headed back to camp but, of course, we couldn't take the same roads back. We dropped down to the very northern end of the desert and headed cross country back, allowing my GPS to guide us to camp.
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