First 24 hours in the Middle Fork John Day

Drove over several mountain passes and along many of Oregon's incredible rivers yesterday to make our way out to the Middle Fork John Day.

The "we" that I am traveling/working with is myself and professor Pat McDowell -- my primary graduate adviser and geomorphologist extraordinare'.

One of the best views of the day was of the Strawberry Mountains.........still holding patches of snow.

Arrived at dusk at our base camp on Warm Springs Tribal land. Boulder Granite Creek runs along the property and lulled me to sleep last night with the song of water falling over rock. One of my favorite songs.
MFJD - view from camp last night.
The moon is waxing..........I am watching her --- and the stars.

Today we organized camp and recon-ed the entire upper portion of the Middle Fork John Day valley. This means we drove up to the upper valley were headwaters springs (Phipps Meadow) bubble up through the earth in roiling pools of sand and CO2 gas bubbles. Then we headed down stream on the available road closest to the river -- the cab of the pick-up a mess of maps, notes, camera, atlases, bottles of water, and our muddy sandals. All the while Pat McD (my professor) is downloading copias amounts of information and history that I attempt to retain while also trying to absorb the landscape (more on the landscape later). Basically getting a "lay of the land."

Crazy -- There is no cell phone service anywhere out here and the nearest country store is 38 miles away. But, I am sitting in a meadow of pasture grasses and wildflowers about 200 meters from a log cabin and I can connect to the internet. Yeh -- the land manager out here has wireless. Pretty amazing! The Middle Fork John Day River is just another few hundred meters down hill from me where it winds itself over cobble/gravel/boulder through a green grassy valley edged by hills and mountains of pine.

A variety of one of my favorite flowers -- the Mariposa Lilly -- grows in the meadow that I have put my tent at the edge of. I just had to share this picture I took this morning.