Ochoco Divide

 

Ponderosa - 3 feet through at chest height

up-river on the John Day from Priest's Hole

down-river on the John Day from Priest's Hole

the ill-fated but initially fine Priest's Hole on the John Day

the western traveler regards the Columbia

    Passed a strange day, expecting the opposite. 

    Left Yellow Pine early in quite a chill. Forgot to turn the heat on.

    Rambled into John Day after gassing at Prairie City. S and I ordered their Classic breakfast with the option of Polish sausage which we both chose, but in the end they only had one so we split it.

    On reaching Priest’s Hole in the early afternoon we found it nearly empty but set on a fine sweep of the river. A western looking woman emerged from the river’s edge with a half dozen smallmouth bass and there was the guy in the Prius.

    There seemed after a while that there was a strange misanthropic vibe radiating from the Prius guy: he sat in his car staring straight ahead as we first drove by, later he greeted my hello with a down turned mouth a barely visible movement of his had, later he stood and stared down the strand at us for minutes on end. Later in the afternoon Prius mans opposite number rolled in on his atv and we began a discussion which ranged from his days of stalking a giant bull elk after soaking his clothes in elk piss and rolling in an elk wallow, and imitating the sounds of another bull to his long ago conversation with a mortally wounded male elk that left him shaken, finally to his happy admission that he would most certainly die out here one day among numerous other bits; he was gregarious as a puppy.

    But as Prius man had spooked us both we packed up and left. It did not help that the little harmless but annoying miniature house flies had prompted us to hang sticky no-pest strips around the interior of the van which we both got stuck on several times causing another dip in the river John Day.

    And so we took the wrong turn on the long, narrow and steep gravel road back to Hwy 26, but it ran through a profoundly beautiful canyon and we soom found a regular camp called Ochoco Divide off highway 26 and thus rolled home for the evening. 

    $6ºº a night. Perfumed outhouses and trash service. The same stupendous Ponderosas as yesterday at Yellow Pine. The pioneers are said to have described these trees as nuisances.