Southern Oregon Backcountry - July 2020

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Independence

It was time for us to disappear. It was time to be completely alone. It was Fourth of July weekend. Would we be up to the challenge?

We turned off the pavement and headed down a dirt road, surprised it had a name posted at the turn off.  The Lady navigated and estimated we had around 30 miles before our turn onto a smaller primitive road. The topo indicated "jeep trail" with a single dotted line.

"Our turn is coming up," the Lady announced. The two track headed up hill across broad open slopes. A few miles later it entered a narrow gully with high rock walls that were hard to see because of the big sage that was higher than our truck's cab and scraped both sides of the truck as we squeezed through. The Lady was ecstatic.

"I love the smell of sage!" she beamed.

The land opened up after the rough gully and we found our turn that climbed to the small cabin that sat below the spring.

There was a nice flat area a few hundred yards below the cabin where we set up camp.

This looked like a cattle operation, an old line shack. The spring was used as a water source for cows but had recently been fenced off to protect it. The water was clear and cold.

The cabin was open.

The woodstove in the corner of the kitchen was an exceptional surprise.

We climbed behind the cabin up to the spring. The Lady wanted to continue.

A great Horned Owl flew from its nest and landed across the narrow canyon to watch us. We quickly moved past to disturb it as little as possible.

We reached the crest of the ridge. A large stacked rock monument marked a high point.

The Lady discovered an old coffee pot and announced, "This is Coffee Pot Point!"

The road in the distance would be our evening walk.

We retraced our climb up but traversed over to look at a smooth panel of rock on the cliff above the cabin. We found cowboy glyphs from 1916 and 1926. Mr. Paxton must have had a ladder.

Thanks to geologyjohn for this information -
 
"I believe that your cowboys were most likely:

Franklin Davis “Frank” Paxton, born March 15, 1879 in Oregon.
Died June 18, 1955.
Buried in Lakeview, Oregon.

Gordon Seth DeVore, born October 12, 1888 in Higginsport, Ohio.
Died February 3, 1969 and buried in Portland, Oregon."


We worked our way down from the panel.

The full moon rose as we walked after dinner and into the night.

This was one of the best nights of our trip. We returned to camp and sat out as darkness settled over us. Well, as dark as a full moon in the backcountry would allow.

We joked about how we would react if a ghost turned on a light in the cabin above us. The joke carried us into a restful night's sleep.

The Fourth of July dawned clear and cool and without another soul within miles. Could we keep that up through another day and night?

We had three possible routes into our next destination. It would be a long drive and success would depend on how the roads worked out and how many times we'd need to back track.

The Lady navigated and kept us found.

"Look here!" The Lady's eyes were glued to the map program. I stopped the truck so she could show me. "A few hundred yards off the road ahead the map has a tiny cross and the word grave. Let's see if we can find it!" The search was on. Who is buried out here in a lonely grave?

We found not a trace of a grave - no headstone, no cross, no rock mound - and felt bad that this person's final rest is now long forgotten except for a small mark on a map.

Hours later we reached the destination for our Independence Day celebration. The last three miles of road had not a hint of tire tracks except ours. It was very possible it was a long long time since anyone had ventured out here.

This was the kind of place worth hours of research and driving to finally find. This was our kind of special place.

The site is hidden down slope.

After dinner and showers, the Lady relaxed and put her see mores to work.

The evening light was fantastic across this vast open landscape.

We walked well into the night. Coyotes erupted in song all around us. The Lady tried to spot them with her see mores with no success.

It was an extraordinary night in a very special place.

First light was a great time to capture more detail of the petroglyph panels. We tried to come up with an idea as to what made this a special place for the ancient ones. Depictions of the sun were predominate. Perhaps dawn was a sacred time. It felt so and we were humbled to be here among all these stories on the rock.

This petroglyph was by far our favorite. It was so old the desert varnish had reclaimed it. It was only visible with the low sun angle of early morning.

This place had been a center for ancient artists for centuries.

In this arid land there was also sign of water here in the past. This tiny drainage was shaped by flowing water.

We packed up and dropped the top of the camper, it was time to move on. We consulted our map to decide on a route. If we didn't need to backtrack, it would help with our desired direction of travel for our next adventure. But would it go? Only one way to find out. After passing over one mountain range and crossing another broad valley, the map indicated a high pass over the next range. The roads improved markedly and the pass was fine for our small truck. We stopped for a break after the descent of the east side of Domingo Pass.

What was next for us on this continuing adventure? A milkshake of course.