My night at Birch Creek Ranch ended as peacefully as it began - there was no wind through the night, and while outside temperatures were cold, I was as warm as could be in the tent. Of course, being near the river, there was plenty of dew, and it was frozen to both the inside and outside of the rain fly when I awoke. Even the little mud clumps on the Tacoma were frozen. Rather than wait for everything to dry out - I was at the bottom of the canyon after all, and waiting for the sun would have…
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By some stroke of luck, our hope - that it wouldn't rain any more after we climbed into our tents - was realized and then some. A strong breeze blew all night, not only keeping the tents free of any dew, but also helping to dry out the roads - at least a smidge. This morning in camp was a reunion of sorts. For all of us obviously, since it was our first real group trip of the year (though I'd seen Ben and Kirsten in Death Valley for a single day a few months earlier) - but mainly for…
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It was nearing 9:00am when we pulled out of our sheltered camp spot on the southern edge of the Jordan Craters lava flow. As we started back on the windy road to the south, @mrs.turbodb suggested an addition to the day's itinerary - a visit to a small ghost town in the Idaho uplands: Silver City. It'd mean adding a few hours to our day, but with our only plan being the southernly drive to Three Forks Hot Springs, I figured it was totally achievable. So, instead of south, we headed east - back into the Owyhee Uplands, though along…
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Refueled and windows cleaned, we left Jordan Valley, Oregon - heading west on on Highway 95. Our destination was Jordan Craters - a 3,200 year young lava flow - one of the youngest on the continent. We'd visited Coffeepot Crater - a large, breached cinder cone that is the source of the most recent flows - nearly four years earlier on our very first trip to the Owyhee Canyonlands, and this time we were headed for the opposite side of the 29 square mile flow. There were a couple places along the south side of the flow that I'd spotted…
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May 2016 The whole of Owyhee Canyonlands are composed of various volcanic activity. Jordan Craters is the most recent of that activity (parts of which are only ~100 years old) and are a crazy sight to see. Looking at the area when approaching via car, and even more when viewing it via satellite, it looks like a huge lake. In reality, it's a huge (~25 square mile) lava flow, with basically nothing growing in the area at all. At the very northwest corner is the place we were heading - Coffeepot Crater. We made great time, passing a slow moving…
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