Camp Sherman and Steens Mountain/Frenchglen

Sunday morning, July 5, we are off eastward on Highway 84 to Biggs and then south on 97 to a lunch stop in Shaniko.


(Joe and Barbara heading down hwy 84)

Shaniko was a sheep herding town doing reasonably well at one time but is now pretty much bust. A local gent was trying to revive the town but passed away and the little town is really struggling. But it is an interesting ghost town to explore, which we did. Had root beer floats with lunch which was amusing to watch. When they popped the ice cream in the root beer it started a catalytic reaction that wouldn’t stop. The root beer foamed like crazy and as fast as you could suck it up it kept coming and coming. Joe ran out of breath and we had root beer foam all over the table, which really didn’t bother the restaurant as they were prepared and also appropriately amused. I think it is one of the town’s big amusements!

Shaniko church and wedding chapel
Lots of old cars and trucks around, here is an old fire truck .

Shelle's Shaniko buddy, why I wear cowboy boots and hat.

We continued onto Redmond then cut over to Sisters. What a neat little town and how spectacular the view of the 3 magnificent mountains that make up the Sisters. The traffic is pretty bad in Sisters so we slowly plodded through taking in all the sights. Continue on highway 20 about 10 miles to the cut off to Camp Sherman. The drive in is neat through a heavy forest past farms and lodges and all of a sudden, there is camp. The trip from Stevenson Wa. To Camp Sherman was 227 miles at an average driving speed of 49 MPH. Longer drive than normal but a very nice, relatively easy drive.

Metolious River from the bridge "in town".





O.K., more Hitchhiker stuff. We met Stacy and Sharon wise before the Vacaville get together, albeit on the way. They met us in Bakersfield (along with the Collingwood’s) before the Vacaville event and we went to the Three Rivers (by Sequoia) Jazz affair. We had an excellent time and became good friends even before the Vacaville event (as we did also with the Collingwood’s). We had agreed to meet them at Camp Sherman, so we were excited to see them again. Of course as always Stacy had to be there before us, we have never seen him back his trailer, we suspect he hires it out! Nevertheless, it was another great reunion.

Wise's and McDole's Hitchhikers at Camp Sherman RV park.

The camp is small and the rigs are very close together but it is very acceptable and the setting is awesome. A short walk takes you into “town” crossing over the Metolious River. The Metolious is an awesome river. What is interesting is that the headlands are only about 2 miles away and yet the river is mighty with plenty of water. It comes right out of the ground and is immediately a good sized river. Maybe an average width of 20 to 30 feet and a pretty decent current, it is just a quintessential mountain river. Also very popular for trout fly fishing (flies only and catch and release only). The general store ought to be out of a book, it is just classical. It is the town meeting place, the grocery store and the bait/tackle/fishing store.

Typical Metoaliuos River view around Camp Sherman

Just one of the lovely flowers along the river.

Looking down the Metolious.


Down the bike trail.

Here is a shot of Wizard Falls, at the fish Hatchery. Basically, if you have seen one fish hatchery, you have seen almost all of them. But Wizard falls is pretty unique. The water color is indescribable.









You just can't do this phenomena justice, but I think I caught some of the aqua and other colors.










Very unique spot.

Here is part of our expedition, making sure the bridge is still sound, hands out to calibrate the wind effect on the bridge. The daring daredevils are almost right over the feared Wizard Falls.

We did visit the head waters of the Metolious. We took Roxy, sort of an educational thing. Remember in one of Jimmy Buffet’s songs (Pencil Thin Mustache) there is a line “they send you off to college, to gain a little knowledge, and all you want to do is learn how to score”. The only knowledge Roxy wanted is to learn is how to catch those dang chipmunks!

Roxy on her "How to catch Chipmunks better" training.

The clasic shot of the headlands , Mt. Jefferson in the background (we all take this shot, it is better in the early am, I know someone who woke their wife up at oh five hundred, oh yes early, to get the "best" shot). But it still looks O.K., don't cha think (Sharon?)

After dinner we had a rousing game of Rally Ho. Rally Ho is a version of Trivial Pursuit for RVer’s. Stacy and Sharon had been practicing as had Murray and Shelle, so this was a big deal (well sort of, maybe a little deal…but it was a deal!) The guys took on the gals. I won’t tell you who won 2 out of 3 but it wasn’t Stacy or Murray. End of this story is the guys won the next evenings match and the final tournament match came down to the last game, both teams within reach of victory, when the girls got an easy question and sneaked into victory (remember, it’s my story!).

After dinner we took Roxy out into the forest and let her run. What joy! I remember when I was a little kid and had to take ball room dancing lessons when I got out of class I would run and run to be free, it must feel something like that for Roxy!

Next day we went into town for some shopping including a restock for liquor. If you don’t know this Oregon only sells liquor in State liquor stores and even though Oregon does not charge tax, they charge dearly for liquor. A bottle that I would pay $26 for at home, including tax, was $45 here!

We checked out Suttle Lake, a natural mountain lake near Camp Sherman. Roxy got to go swimming and chased some ducks all over the lake, no easier to catch than a chipmunk.

Lake Suttle

The Rox saving a stick from drowning! After safely clearing the lake of all ducks and geese. Wonder Dog!

Lilies around the lake.

Too many other adventures to mention, some of which included friends of Joe and Barbara, Stu and Rosemary from Bend visited, great night of camp fire singing (me on uke, Stu on guitar), s’more'a’s, Stacy got his guitar out, trip to fish hatchery and the introduction of “Duck Farts” (story some other time).

Next stop; Frenchglen. Frenchglen is in the south eastern high desert area of Oregon. Totally different from anything we had experienced yet. Back to Bend then east on highway 20 and into nowhere land. Pretty barren and very sparsely populated. We reached Burns and hung a left down 205. 205 gets to be an interesting drive. Through Malhheur Lake, which is basically dry most of the year, but you still drive up on a levy. Then the country gets real butte-ey, you can almost see the Indian look outs staring down at you. Then you get to the Malheur Refuge area and it is all swamp, grass, reeds and water. Frenchglen and the area are full of history, old cattle barons and all that.

The town of Frenchglen is one small hotel, a general store, and a school. Then the fun starts, the camp is 3 miles away over a very wahsboardy dirt road. It took us over 20 minutes to go 3 miles (we found out later the drive is somewhat smoother at 35 mph and less painful because quicker). We arrive at Steens Mountain Resort (where in the heck they came up with “resort” we’ll never figure) and our first sight is Star. Star is an adopted wild Kiger Mustang for which this area is famous. The Kiger mustang is one of the last herds of pure Spanish Wild Mustangs anywhere in the world.

Star, the Kiger Mustang.

This is Star, she is a beautiful animal, very sweet and very mild. One kind of wishes she was still wild. (The herds are very well and very efficiently controlled and when they get too large for their environment they are mercifully culled and sold for adoption.)

Anyway, this place is not what I would call a “resort” but it is pretty cool. Rustic, yes but that is what we expected. Marvelous view of the valley and surrounding mountains, one of our books gave it a 9 out of 10 scenic rating. Aside from a little dirt and washboard road, there was only one thing wrong with this place: MOSQUITOES! Yikes! No problem during the day, say after 9am, but at night they were fierce. Good test for our 100% DEET.

Star out in her field getting ready for dinner.

The Rox getting to meet Star and the Mur saying a big hello. Star was pretty mellow with the Rox, but Rox is an alpha dog and a predator, so even though she liked Star, she had to give her a little nip on the nose, just to keep things even.

There is a loop that goes up to Steens Mountain with spectacular views but all the road is dirt and 8 miles of it are very bad (8 miles is a long way on a very bad road) so we did only parts of the loop. We were able to find one of the herds of wild mustangs, although they were pretty far away. We could see them with our binocs, but unfortunately they were out of camera range. It was still very exciting for us.

Driving from camp just into Frenchglen we saw several Ibis, other ducks, quail, dove, red winged black birds, night hawks, and a fox (actually had to stop for the fox, he just kept running slightly ahead of us, though I might wear him out!)

On the north loop we saw deer, tons of great wild flowers, Fish Lake, a small remote trout lake, and the Kiger Gorge. The Kiger gorge just makes your whole body go “WOW” and drops your jaw. Spectacular, very deep U shaped gorge, reminded us of Waimea canyon in Kauai (except much more green). We were standing at almost 9000 feet to view the canyon and it wasn’t just the altitude that took our breath away! Impossible to capture in a picture, but one is compelled to try.

wild flowers along the road.

Moma deer ready to leap away from us.

More wild flowers along the way

Barn Swallow Mom feeding her little baby under the eves of the general store in Frenchglen.

This is a Night Hawk. There were several around camp and they would come out about 4 pm and in the morning. A new bird for me, pretty cool.

Overlooking the Malheur Refuge area, and Roxy wanting to be sure she could see what we saw!

Part of the reserve

We also did the Diamond City loop stopping at the Round Barn built by Peter French (the huge land baron, also Frenchglen name sake, who was shot for being a horse’s patoot). He built 3 of these at great expense so he could exercise his work horses through the winter.

We also ventured out to the Kiber Mustang lookout, an 11 mile rough, awful dirt road. Oh my God, what a ride. At 5 miles Shelle was begging for a turn back but at five miles we figured we were almost half way of the 11 mile trip. Wrong! The road just kept getting worse. Narrow, rutty, rocky, slippery at points, dusty, scary at points. One stretch takes you up hill, hill/mountain on one side, big drop off cliff on other side. The truck is fish tailing as it slips on the rocks but you have to keep going or loose traction. My mind vividly saw us fish tailing over the cliff. Anyway we made it, of course only to realize we were only half way because we had to go out the same way we came in. We did see a couple horses but a long way off. It was in fact a very pretty drive and there is something special about knowing and feeling that there are no other human beings within an 11 mile radius. I wanted to buy a shirt that said we survived the Kiber Mustang Lookout road!

Best the camera would get these Kibers. Family of Pronghorn Antelope.

Mr. French's round barn.