Oregon high desert museum and battle mountain and lakeview and doherty pass and doherty summit and oregon and winnemucca

After about 10 days of memorable events, from visiting the Hagerman Fossil Fields to the Fossil Butte National Monument, to the Spelling Bee, to the museums at the U of WY, to the Renovare Conference in Denver, to the visit with Lance and Dana Woodbury in Garden City, KS and the two days with Denny and Carole Storer in their Rockies hideaway, to the Dinosaur National Monument, I was ready to return home. The journey from Vernal UT to Winnemucca NV on Saturday June 25 was uneventful, even though I am constantly amazed by the stark beauty of the Great Salt Lake Desert and the majestic Pilot Butte of Eastern Nevada. I decided to get off the highway in Battle Mountain, NV, a town of about 1000 which the Washington Post dubbed "The Armpit of the Nation" about a decade ago. My family (mom and dad, three brothers and I) also stayed there late in August 1967 when we moved West after more than three centuries of Connecticut life. I looked around, and quickly got back on I-80. And so I arrived in Winnemucca, the Basque capital of Nevada, a town of about 6,500 located at the northernmost point of I-80 in NV. I stayed there because I thought it would be an easy drive (about 500 miles) back home to Oregon on the next day.

The hotel at which I stayed had a fairly large casino on the ground floor. As an enticement to participate, they offered me 50 cents in free nickles and a free beer. I took them up on neither and only spent a few minutes watching the people who were lazily putting coins in machines or playing blackjack. The casino floor was ringed by fast food restaurants (Taco Bell) and ice cream shops (Baskin-Robbins) and so the place was also swarming with kids. A security guard vainly tried to make sure the kids didn't step on the carpet--a sign that you were officially "in" the casino. I wonder if he was in the running for the most satisfying job in Winnemucca. When I ran into a security guard in the elevator the next morning, he told me that things "calmed down" about 3:00 a.m. in the hotel but then "started up" again at 5:00 a.m. JFK might have written Profiles in Courage, but I think that a day in Winnemucca might give an imaginative writer ample fodder for Profiles in Desperation. Can you hear someone tell the kids that the highlight of their vacation was gambling in Winnemucca? You get the idea.

Back to Oregon

So I arose early on Sunday, June 26 to head back to Oregon. I went the only way I could have gone--up Highway 95, from which one could go either to Boise or to the thriving Oregon towns of Burns or Lakeview. About 31 miles north of Winnemucca, Highway 140 branched to the NW. That is the route I would follow for the next 170 miles. As I turned onto 140 to head for Denio Junction, I was greeted by a sign--no services for 69 miles. Shortly thereafter was a sign, riddled with bullets, that told people to report shootings. At Denio Junction, you could refuel or simply keep going NW. I decided on the latter, and arrived in Oregon by about 11:00 a.m. One of the most scary parts of the drive is descending the "Doherty Slide" after hitting the Doherty Summit (about 6,200) feet and then going down about 2,000 to the valley floor. You drop that distance in about 6 miles, and three of it is down a narrow, sinuous road. The road is about 30' wide, and then there must be a five or seven foot grassy shoulder before the road plunges at least 1,000 feet to the floor. I couldn't help wondering if anyone had inadvertendly or by choice driven off the highway at that point. Those in the know, know that Lakeview, OR is the "hang gliding capital of the West," and at one time someone who glided down the Doherty Slide held the world's record for the longest glide--more than 13 miles.

And so on I went. I decided to go to Bend via Oregon 31, a 120-mile road skirting Summer Lake and then heading north into the Ponderosa pine forests which was a sign of re-entry into Central Oregon. Along the way I noted the stunning beauty of the Abert Rim, which rises 2500 feet to the East. I also saw that the BLM had mapped out some real backroads driving, through what they called their "Back Country Byways Program." This drive would have taken you near some lava fields in the vicinity of Christmas Valley. As Robert Frost said in "The Road not Taken," I saved this route for another day. Finally, I reached Highway 97, and sped towards Bend, where I would visit the Oregon High Desert Museum before enjoying a special dinner on the shimmering banks of the McKenzie River and then coming home.

The Oregon High Desert Museum

Launched with great fanfare in 1982, and generously funded (at the time) by Oregon's traditional monied elite, the High Desert Museum (HDM) has loads of volunteers, lots of glimpses into "high desert life" of earlier days and lots of nature exhibits, both in the main lodge and the paved trails throughout the grounds. An exhibit on 100 years of the US Forest Service in Oregon was both instructive and entertaining. The high point of my trip was happening upon a presentation by author Jane Kirkpatrick (no, I don't mean Jean Kirkpatrick), an Oregon author whose most recent book, A Land of Sheltered Promises, takes a look at the famous Big Muddy Ranch outside of Antelope, OR and three women who played major roles either in the development or life around the ranch over the past century. Since one of the women was Ma Anand Sheela, the power behind the throne in the Rajneesh community in the mid-1980s, before attempts to assassinate the US Attorney for Oregon and a local county commissioner and to poison the residents of the Dalles by introducing salmonella into 11 restaurants in The Dalles led to the arrest of the Bhagwan and the summary end to the commune, I was quite interested.

But I could not say the same thing about the museum itself. Though it is lavishly appointed with a pioneer sawmill, an Indian village, an otter exhibit (ottertorium?), a birds of prey display and several little instructive placards about fire and forests, I had the feeling that the museum was a little out of step with the times. I wouldn't be surprised if it is having some financial difficulties, though I have nothing to back this up. What I mean by being out of step is that there is absolutely no educational center there. The web site is bland, and there is no real presentation with lots of content about the high desert. There should be computers all over the place, a sort of "intranet" which would have pictures of all the things that are portrayed throughout the museum, with ample descriptions, Latin names, etc. There should be scads of information, a library, charts of the various birds or insects or soils or rock formations, etc. that one might encounter in the High Desert. I think the museum tries to aim at kids by and large, and the parents who take the kids, but I don't think that it has much to offer a person who seriously wants to study and understand the life of the high desert. In that regard, I think the entrance fee ($12.00) was too much. I am not as proud of it as I could be...

Conclusion

It was a strange feeling to sink into my bed that night about 1:00 a.m. I didn't sleep particularly well. Perhaps my brain was going 1000 miles an hour as it tried to synthesize so many things from the previous two weeks. I awoke refreshed, however, and ready to embrace the Oregon summer.

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