Frenchglen and Home

Position: 42°49’36″N 118°54’51″W

Thirty-five years ago, Nevada’s section of US Route 50 was deemed by Life Magazine as the “loneliest road in America”. Life’s editors clearly never travelled route 140/205, from Winnemucca, NV, to Frenchglen, OR. Woodsmoke from the raging Bootleg fires 200 miles to the west clouded our view of this wide basin and its surrounding hills. Raised a foot or two above the desert, the road ran straight for hours and it felt like we were crossing 173 miles of paved seabed. Eventually, we dropped off the plateau and into Frenchglen, the gateway to the Steens Wilderness.

Like Paititi or Nibiru, for city dwellers to the west the Steens are a place of mystery and legend. Further from Portland than even the Wallowas, this corner of Oregon is ‘way out there’ and deemed the realm of professional guides. On the ground it is mostly BLM lands used by local ranchers and reachable by nicely paved roads.

Frenchglen’s eponymous hotel is rustic and open seasonally from March to November. Breakfast was hearty and once sated we nursed ambitions of viewing wild mustangs from one of the overlooks along the Steens Mountain Loop. Only, the fun begins where the pavement ends out here and our (borrowed) Prius’s ground clearance was all of five and a half inches (140mm), empty. Given the tickling her undercarriage received in the car park earlier that morning, we decided to stick to the hardtop and see the ponies another day.

malheureuse

Overnight the skies had cleared a bit, leaving indifferent high clouds to flatten the sunlight. Exploring the edges of the Malheur Wildlife Refuge took us towards Diamond, but only as far as the blacktop allowed. Open, cultivated hay fields surrounding the village are crosscut with dykes and fed by canals. Along the watercourses hedgerows thrive, supported by swaying cottonwoods. Birds flitted about noisily. It reminded me a bit of Lincolnshire.

Low, rolling hills border the flood plain to the east. To the west, alongside the main road, runs a long cliff. It is as though the valley simply dropped one day leaving a sharp rim behind. The Donner and Blitzen River finds its source at the southern end of the depression. From there it flows north towards Malheur Lake. Wetlands extend for miles and over 300 species of birds make their home here. This rich habitat is a twitcher’s paradise. It is a very odd place for an insurrection, but the occupation of the refuge back in 2016 was, perhaps, a foreshadowing of things to come.

Fossils

Passing through Burns we continued north through the charred remains of the Malheur National Forest until we found Route 26 and turned west. If you want to understand a fascinating piece of Oregon’s pre-history, then stop at the Thomas Condon Paleontology and Visitor Center. Some of the world’s richest fossil fields are here. Nicely constructed exhibits provide a general idea of how the land evolved over the millennia, and how seashells found their way to the tops of mountains. Years ago, I travelled through this section of Oregon on my motorcycle (click here!). And, since Carol had never been, it was important we also visited the John Day Painted Hills. Modest by southern Utah’s standards, these layered hills are nonetheless beautiful and accessible. If you live in Oregon there is no excuse for not visiting them.

Home

Continuing west across Mount Hood we found solid evidence of shifting demographics. Trump/Pence banners started yielding to Bernie bumper stickers and Black Lives Matter yard signs. At the outskirts of Portland more changes. Homeless encampments sprung up by the highway. Tent communities, often surrounded by cars and trucks in various stages of dilapidation, are commonplace these days. Especially in the city centre. Graffiti has bloomed, as has the disorderly strewing of humankind’s waste.

Unsheltered homelessness has increased significantly across the United States in the past 18 months, but most acutely in the major cities along the west coast. Portland is moving cautiously, and the town council is starting to slowly break up the camps. It’s a far cry from 90 years ago when depression-era Hoovervilles were routinely burned to the ground. Still, it took WWII and full employment to draw a (temporary) close to that chapter of America’s economic history. For now, Portland’s central business district remains largely boarded up and parking downtown is a breeze. It is still a place we call home.