High Desert in Winter

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C1581

"High Desert in Winter"

(Beattys Butte, Oregon High Desert)

Oil Sketch on Ampersand Gesso Panel

4" x 6"

Click here to make this your Own

I finished the Oil Sketch, “Winter Aspens” (posted last time on the blog), and drove 11 miles to the above view, startling a coyote near the Refuge HQ on the way.  The main mountain in this view is Beattys Butte, but the massif includes 3 or 4 other peaks behind, one of which is Mahogany Butte, for those of you who might be familiar with the area.  I had a bite to eat while I studied the scene.  The flat, white area in the middle distance is the dry bed of Flook Lake, and I am near the entrance to a two track road that goes down there and beyond; worth exploring in the dry season … I’m now experienced in what roads are best left for another time, thanks to the mud-fest. 

Cloud came in slowly from the southwest (off to the right in this painting), while I worked and so I reckon there will be no Geminiids visible tonight.  Just as well, since a good night’s rest is in order, now that I’m daily painting.  Beattys Butte, and its attendant massif, is about 16 miles away.  I have addressed the issue of perceived distance before, and no doubt will again, but it is so interesting to look out over great distances in landscapes such as this, and realizing how distant certain features actually are.  To the left of me, as I paint, Steens Mountain lies about 35 miles distant, with its heights lost in cloud, and behind me there are distant hills 50 miles away. 

After finishing this sketch, second of the day, I drove back to camp in the twilight, and on the Hot Springs road, after passing the HQ, a pair of coyotes came running down the road towards me, and without stopping they split and continued on both sides of my truck.  I got a good look at the one on the driver’s side; healthy, and with bushy fur … all decked out for Winter.  I stopped and inspected their footprints, as they rejoined and ran on down the road.  Yep; same footprints as I have seen before and decided were coyote tracks, at my various track sightings. The Owls were hooting closer tonight as I prepared supper, with my red light headlamp on my head, in the darkening sky and with a light snow falling as I cooked.  It doesn’t get any better than this.

Imprimatura: Venetian Red; the Pigments used the usual Rublev Blue Ridge Yellow Ochre, Italian Burnt Sienna & Lead White #2, with Winsor & Newton Venetian Red and Cobalt & Cerulean Blues.

Hart Mountain National Antelope Refuge

(Take Note: for those of you who have signed up to be notified by email of new postings to this blog, you have been receiving not just a notification, but an actual copy of the new blog posting as the email.  As this does not show the images of the paintings in the best possible light, you should click on the title of the latest blog posting at the top of the post, and not the title of the painting itself; this will open up the actual blog itself, and you may then enjoy the paintings at their best.)

C1580

"Winter Aspens"

(Hart Mountain, Oregon High Desert)

Oil Sketch on Ampersand Gesso Panel

5" x 7"

Click here to make this your Own

A further dusting of snow overnight, but when I awoke at 03:40 I glimpsed Orion blazing in the western sky through the snow covered Ponderosas, but after a couple more hours of sleep, it had clouded over, and by 08:00 there were signs of clearing seen through Warner Pass off to the northwest.  It was now Saturday, 13^th December, and I determined to get out onto the open High Desert today.  I did so after first taking a few snow photos and looking at animal tracks , including a coyote that had come through after the dusting of new snow had fallen during the night.  I could see where he had rifled through sagebrush clumps nosing for rodents; I did not detect whether he had been successful.

I studied the map trying to determine where I should go.  I had it in mind to go up to Blizzard Gap on Hwy 140, and do a painting where I had eaten my Thanksgiving ham sandwich on my way to Oklahoma two years before, but I thought I might go towards the Hart Mountain National Antelope Refuge, across the Warner Valley from the Warner Mountains, where I now was.  If I went that way I might be able to find out in Plush (a small village on the way), whether it was possible to get up there or not at this time of the year; I thought it might be possible, since the gravel road was listed as a scenic byway, and thus possibly maintained during the Winter.  If not I would have familiarized myself with the Warner Lakes area of the Warner Valley, and could return from Plush to Adel on Hwy 140 by a more easterly road than the road I was about to take to Plush, this latter being known as the Plush Cutoff Road.  Less than a mile onto the cutoff, after leaving Hwy 140, I had to stop for photos of Drake Peak and again for other vistas opening up the 20 miles or so to Plush.  There was a general store open, and the owner thought I shouldn’t have any trouble on the scenic byway through the Antelope Refuge, or a couple other gravel roads that were maintained by the county, but should stay off the two-lane tracks … thanks to my week long mud-fest I already knew that.  He seemed to know nothing about the Refuge Headquarters. 

I meandered north up the Warner Valley, with the wall of Hart Mountain rising on my right, and viewing the dry beds of the Warner Lakes, some with small ponds or puddles therein, thus giving one’s imagination a hint of what they might be like in wetter years.  Sixteen miles or so out of Plush, I passed a campground at the depression era CCC hut, determined that I could camp there at some point, and shortly thereafter, started up the face of Hart Mountain.  I followed what looked like a recent snowplow track, and by the time I reached the plateau behind, and 1500’ higher than Warner Valley, had this confirmed when I passed the snowplow coming back down the mountain.  In a few miles I arrived at the Antelope Refuge HQ, with not a soul in sight, but with signs of occupation.  I parked and began to study my map, when I noticed a sign on a door across the way … Visitor’s Center – Open 24/7 … and it was.  It was a medium sized room,  heated, and with information brochures, maps and exhibits of the Refuge, and with an indoor loo.  Here I found that there were two campgrounds nominally open all year ‘round; one I had passed by at the base of the mountain, and the other was 5 miles directly south of the HQ, at some hot springs; a proviso stated that open all year weather permitting, which I took to mean until the snow plow could get there.  I drove down to the Hot Springs CG, determined I would stay there, and also that I should spend what was left of the day to drive around and explore painting sights.  Thus … I never did get to Blizzard Gap this journey. 

I drove back to the HQ, signed the visitor’s book in the heated room, discovered in there that a lady had spent 5 days hiking and taking photos hereabouts, and had left about the time I was doing my laundry in Lakeview; the implication being that if a single woman had spent 5 days here recently it was probably at the Hot Springs, and that the CG was truly open in the Winter.  I marked that I would be staying a couple of days, and continued with my recon drive.  I drove 21 miles towards Steens Mountain, out the other side of the Refuge for a couple of miles, thus determining the state of the Winter road, and spotted several future painting possibilities, and retraced my steps past the HQ and back to the Hot Springs CG.  Although the road was plowed to the CG, I made my own road through the snow to my individual campsite.  I was alone … and happy about it.  I prepared supper in the gloaming, as the Winter stars winked on; they blazed fiercely in a crisp dark sky by supper’s end, and I caught a few meteors of the Geminiids Shower, that would reach its peak in the wee hours, and crawled into my sleeping bags, to the hooting of Great Horned Owls away by the Hot Springs. 

The next morning, 50 yards from my campsite, I painted the above Oil Sketch, in the morning light.  The tire tracks in the snow are mine from the evening before.  The snow  is about 4 inched deep, and would be 6 inches by the time I left a few days later. 

Imprimatura: Venetian Red; the Pigments used the usual Rublev Blue Ridge Yellow Ochre, Italian Burnt Sienna & Lead White #2, with Winsor & Newton Venetian Red and Cobalt Blue.

New Fallen Snow

(Take Note: for those of you who have signed up to be notified by email of new postings to this blog, you have been receiving not just a notification, but an actual copy of the new blog posting as the email.  As this does not show the images of the paintings in the best possible light, you should click on the title of the latest blog posting at the top of the post, and not the title of the painting itself; this will open up the actual blog itself, and you may then enjoy the paintings at their best.)

[Further Note: Remember that this is following on from my last posting which took place in December.]

C1579

"Ponderosa & Sagebrush beneath New Fallen Snow"

(Warner Mountains, Oregon High Desert)

Oil Sketch on Ampersand Gesso Panel

5" x 7"

SOLD

Just after I crawled into my sleeping bags, at 22:30 last night, a car went past on the road by my camp and up the mountain; where were they going at that time of night, and in the rain?!  I awoke at 01:30 … light rain … and again at 03:36 and snow, and by the time I arose and was out there were 3 or 4 inches of accumulation.  This was one of those mornings when I would use my loo seat (with legs), in a light snowfall … I did dig my hole beneath a Ponderosa Pine, but flakes nestled in on me nevertheless; I did not flinch.

At 08:30 a car came past and headed further up the mountain, and 45 minutes later came back down with a Christmas Tree strapped on top … did he poach it, since we are in a National Forest?  I wonder … I will never know.  Not another vehicle for the rest of the day.

I stayed put during the day and oil-sketched the snowy landscape.  The view in today’s sketch is slightly to the right of yesterday’s rainy scene, and continuing the Ponderosa grove to the right in that painting.  To those of us raised in the boreal forests of the Upper Great Lakes, it is always surprising to see a snowy desert landscape, but of course the High Desert is neither the Mojave nor the Sahara, and this scene is one of normality in the Pacific Northwest east of the Cascades; much more normal than a snowfall on the North Cornish Coast, where I experienced but one good one (and a couple tiddly ones) in the 23 years I resided there.  A pleasant day enjoying the snow, painting it, and strolling about looking at the various tracks that the passing animal citizenry had left during the night or morning.  The snow stopped for most of the day, save for a few flakes now and again.

No Imprimatura, just the white of the acrylic gesso priming on this sketch; the Pigments used the usual Rublev Blue Ridge Yellow Ochre, Italian Burnt Sienna & Lead White #2, with Winsor & Newton Venetian Red and Cobalt Blue.

Camas Prairie Wind & Rain

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C1578

"December Rain over Camas Prairie"

(Oregon High Desert)

Oil Sketch on Ampersand Gesso Panel

5" x 7"

Click here to make this your Own

After observing some rather large Elk footprints on the road near my overnight camp, I left the little quarry pond and the Ring-necked Duck to themselves and headed for Lakeview, stopping occasionally to take photographs of Gearhart Mountain on the way.  It was December 10^th by now, and I had been away for a while and was approaching the true open High Desert … but not just yet.  I needed to patronize the local Laundromat in Lakeview, and wash my mud stained clothes, and top up my supplies before the next, and more productive phase, painting-wise, of this foray into the Wild.  Lakeview … tallest town in Oregon … at 4796 feet above sea-level it is the highest town in Oregon; and a surprisingly pleasant little place it is, nestled below the Warner Mountains to the east.  Surprising, since it is unexpected way out here, just above Goose Lake and the extreme northeast California border and with Nevada also only a few miles away as well.  I did not expect it to be as large as it is.  I guess I also expected it to be a dusty poky little place … it is not.  Of course I’ve only been here in Winter, since I first passed through on Thanksgiving Day in 2012 on my way to Oklahoma; and now this time in December. 

The soap dispensing machine was out, and as I was steeling myself to have to buy and carry around a large bottle of soap from the local Safeway, a kindly elderly lady offered me the use of her soap bottle … very kind.  My Carhartt insulated jeans will need another washing or maybe two to get all the ingrained mud out, but at least they are clean enough for now (it actually took only one more washing).  After topping up my supplies and posting my annual membership dues to the AAA (American Automobile Association), I left town at 16:00 with cloud coming in from the southwest, after a lovely sunny day it had been thus far.  The rain and gales from the California coast were on their way, and this time I believed they would reach this far.  The rain had come in off and on since I had left the coast a couple of weeks before, and the wind had been threatening to come, but never had amounted to all that much, but it felt different this time. 

It was late in the day so I only went a few miles to just inside the National Forest boundary, and spent the rainy windy night there.  The next morning I found I had parked near a coyote kill or scavenged site (probably); only bones were left, gnawed and mostly in one spot, but with a few satellite remnants within fifty yards, or so.  This is why I believe it was the work of coyotes; I visualize one or more of a group dragging off a leg bone or other part to feed away from the main kill.  I will say I don’t know this for sure, but I file it away to compare with anything similar I may find in the future.  There was no skull to be found, but by the size of the bones, I believe it was either a young deer or possibly a calf … I found no hooves, so I did not have that bit of diagnostic to go by either … file it away, Spock.

It was still windy and rainy, so I only drove a few miles from the coyote (?) kill/scavenge site, across the valley and up into the Warner Mountains, and found a campsite overlooking Camas Prairie, from which arises Camas Creek.  Here I painted the above Oil Sketch, trying to capture the waterlogged day, over the Camas Prairie.  Evidently the weather is vicious down on the coast, 200 miles away, and once this Pacific Storm blows I look forward to getting out into the open High Desert, even though I find it pleasant here within the Ponderosa Pines.

Imprimatura was W&N Venetian Red, with the Pigments used the usual Rublev Blue Ridge Yellow Ochre, Italian Burnt Sienna & Lead White #2, with Winsor & Newton Venetian Red and Cobalt and Ultramarine Blues.

Finally Painting again … Sycan Marsh

(Take Note: for those of you who have signed up to be notified by email of new postings to this blog, you have been receiving not just a notification, but an actual copy of the new blog posting as the email.  As this does not show the images of the paintings in the best possible light, you should click on the title of the latest blog posting at the top of the post, and not the title of the painting itself; this will open up the actual blog itself, and you may then enjoy the paintings at their best.)

C1577

"Overcast Day over Sycan Marsh … Yamsay Mountain lost in Cloud"

(Oregon High Desert)

Oil Sketch on Winsor & Newton Canvas Panel

5" x 7"

Click here to make this your Own

Imprimatura: W&N Venetian Red

Pigments used were Rublev Blue Ridge Yellow Ochre, Italian Burnt Sienna & Lead White #2, with Winsor & Newton Venetian Red and Cobalt and Ultramarine Blues.  There … tech stuff out of the way.

The morning of December 8^th was spent within a three quarters of a mile of the incident, cleaning and maintaining my tools and my ancient pair of Sorel boots; these latter are decades old, and still good, since I’ve not had much occasion to use them having spent all those years in Cornwall, England, where the weather rarely gets below freezing.  I had lost a week’s painting, but there were other returns.  There was a certain pride in having faced a life threatening situation and had not been found wanting, and having had such an experience should serve me well in the future.  Many others have been tested and weathered similar as a matter of course, and others have failed, while many others have never had to face such a test and will never know.  In the weeks since, I have briefly related this story to a few acquaintances, with varying reactions.  I would have freaked, was one, which seemed to have been the general sentiment, especially by those who would never be out there at that time of the year; that is very understandable.  Since I choose to go into the wild places, I am glad to have had the experience, as I now know how I will likely react when unforeseen occurrences appear somewhere down the pike.  I too freaked during the initial moments of discovering I was stuck, and that I was going to lose 3 hours of a painting day while I gathered dead sage and fallen juniper branches to get myself unstuck.  But when I realized that the branches and sage had not worked, freaking out and annoyance was no longer an option, and cool reflection was the order of the day.  A relatively minor 3 hour annoyance can afford the luxury of the odd freak out, but when it becomes clear that the annoyance is larger, and a day or two (or seven), is what is necessary to retrieve the situation, the mindset must change to meet the new situation. 

And so after cleanup and lunch I proceeded a few miles down the road and decided on a Ponderosa grove, on NFD 27, overlooking Sycan Marsh for my campsite, still at about 5500’, and I would paint the view from here the next morning.  Many of these High Desert Marshes seem to be mostly grazing land, and are marshes in the Spring when the snow melts or in high precipitation years.  Perhaps there are areas of bog, but they are not what I grew up to think of as a marsh, back in the Midwest; I expect I would change my mind after a period of heavy precipitation; I’m still getting a handle on this varied High Desert landscape. 

It was generally overcast the next morning, even though the Moon had been out most of the night, and only the base of Yamsay Mountain, across the level of Sycan Marsh was visible below the cloud base.  I could see the odd patch of snow on its slopes.  Occasional rain blotted out the mountain and the far side of the Marsh a couple of times during the painting session, but the hoped for clearing never occurred, so I never was able to glimpse the contour of the top ... another time.  After painting I had a couple of hours of daylight left so I continued on towards Winter Ridge, to the east, hoping to reach the rim overlooking Summer Lake, but as the altitude there is at 7000’ I ran into snow on the road, and decided I would not risk that, even though there were tire tracks I might have followed; that’s what got me stuck on the flat.  The radio was talking about wind in the forecast, which could translate to more snow up at altitude, and as it was late afternoon now, I risked it not.  I was stopped by snow covered roads twice more, on NFD 29, attempting to get down to Summer Lake 3000’ lower, and then on NFD 28 just before Bald Butte, attempting to get down towards Lakeview.  In the end I retraced to NFD 30 which would take me down to Hwy 140, not far east of Beatty, and on to Lakeview, and a Launderette, the next morning.  That night I spent off of NFD 30, near a small quarry pond, with a lone female Ring-necked Duck in residence.

Last photo of the Road.  This is just before I attempted my final escape and before I had to extend it a bit to the left on the far bank (the left bank), and here on the left of the right bank (extreme left foreground) towards the viewer, after I reversed the truck onto this extreme left part of the turnaround, here seen in the foreground.  This is where I ended up prizing stones out from the right hand side of the turnaround and laying them over on the left towards the viewer, and also on the far bank.  This Saga is now over for this blog … thank goodness, I hear you cry.

This is the End … my Friend!

[to paraphrase the Doors]

There was a frost overnight, although not a hard one, but enough to cover the puddles with skim-ice and the rocks and boulders all around covered with a thin layer of frost.  I was at work by 08:40 and within 45 minutes the skim-ice and frost on the rocks had melted away.  I worked mainly on the right-hand turn around, and it went well, partly because some of the rocks I humped back were good sized and flat, maybe 3 to 4 inches in thickness, and several were as much as a hundred pounds in weight, which meant more ground area was surfaced I good time.  By 13:10 I deemed that I might be more or less finished, so I had a bite to eat, and studied my proposed moves.  How good was my road building?  I would soon find out. 

At 13:50 I reversed straight back about 8 feet, which got me off the trackway part of my construction … that is those narrow portions that went from each respective front tire to their respective rear ones.  After inspecting the road, I pulled forward 3 feet and slightly to the right, got out and studied the situation.  I next reversed towards the right so that my left front tire went up onto the left bank as I made the turn, ending up onto the right hand bank, with my front tires on the main roadway … I was at the extreme end of my roadway, and near the edge of the paved area of the turning area on the right bank.  I now saw that my turnaround was probably not large enough.  Nevertheless I pulled forward onto the left-hand bank and reversed back onto the right-hand turnaround, and was now 90º to the road, but still within 3 feet from the extreme left edge of the turnaround.  If I were to pull forward across the road and onto the left hand bank there was not enough paved area on that left bank to allow me to reverse at the correct angle onto the right-hand turnaround that would allow me to come forward off of it and away the way I had originally come seven days ago.  Even though the turning circle of my SUV is tight and better than many small cars, I had been optimistic about it.  I had also torn up the paved banks since they were so much softer beneath my paving than the roadway itself.

After much deliberation, I realized that I would not be able to utilize the right-hand area of the turnaround as planned (that area closest to where my vehicle had been all these days), which would have allowed me to approach my getaway at a shallow angle to the main roadway itself.  I would have to do it from my present 90º angle.  But I would have to do some more road-building first.  The sun was well on its western path, and rain was on its way.  I needed to do what I had to do, and to do it in a timely manner.  I began to prize up the rocks I had laid on the right-hand side of the turnaround, many of which I had laid that morning, and move them behind my truck, onto the main roadway and also onto the left hand bank.  The bigger stones went behind the SUV, since I had to reverse at least 4½ feet, otherwise when I made my final move I would not be able to make the roadway, since I would have been too far up onto the left-hand bank, when making that final turn.  But the ground was saturated and muddy behind the truck so I had to build big. 

I saw that the sun would be setting soon, and I didn’t want to spend the night on the turnaround, as I worried that the weight of my vehicle, might cause even these big stones to sink down into the mud, or worse still, that it might slide into the mud if the weight caused it to slide in between the stones so that the tires were in the mud itself.  The moment of truth … 16:25 … the sun would set in a few minutes … I had no time to extend the paved area on the left-hand bank as much as I wanted to, but I hoped that once I was in low 4-wheel drive, and with a run of about 6 or 8 feet that I would be able to plow my front right tire through that soft left-hand (which by then would now be on my right), and onto the main roadway itself.  I gritted my teeth, reversed 4½ feet, went immediately into forward gear, and plowed down off the turnaround onto the main roadway (and immediately off my paved construction), the right-hand front tire indeed plowing itself through the soft left (now right) bank, straightened back out onto the main road-way, my rear tires now off my paved construction as well, and fish-tailed the 600 yards to the tree-line, and onto the duff covered part of the road under the trees!  A couple hundred yards further and I pulled off onto a wide spot, where I would camp the night.  That night I was sore and stiff in spots, mainly due to that last couple of hours of construction, once I realized I needed to do some extending.  Rain did come in overnight, but it ended by morning.  I wanted to walk back in the morning and see where the ruts on the banks were that my tires had incised while making my escape.  That was not to be … once out of the mud, I didn’t feel like slogging through hundreds of yards of it again; even if I may have learned something useful … I was tired of the mud.  I spent the next morning cleaning equipment, and finally changing into fresh clothing, and thought over my ordeal.

I have always been of the mind that if I got myself into a situation, it was up to me to get myself out of it, and this I was determined to do.  Once I realized that it would not be a 3 hour job, there was nothing for it but to keep at it until I succeeded or my food and water began to run low; that would have been another couple of weeks.  If I had to walk out of there it would have been costly to have got a tow-truck in there to retrieve me.  I carry tools, such as shovel, axe, bow-saw, machete, and my trusty poker, am always well supplied with food and water, but I’m no longer a young man, and it surprised me how I managed to carry all those stones, out of shape as I really am for such endeavor.  I didn’t get stiff or sore until the last couple of hours, and didn’t feel that until the morning after, once I was out.  I can only think that the fact of swimming 1250 meters once a week, had a hand in my success.  Rough calculations are that I had moved somewhere between 10 and 12 tons of rock, and walked about 15 miles, constructing that roadway, half of that distance carrying weights; not really that much or that far over 46 hours of actual labor, but considering that much time was spent finding, choosing and prizing out the rocks, it was a good weeks work.  I also didn’t think about it until I was safely out, but I had just done all that work at an altitude of 5500 feet … I never felt breathless in an altitude sort of way, but more as one would in the normal course of laboring … I guess slow and steady was the way to go.

But let’s not beat around the bush; I was in a dangerous situation.  People do get stranded out in the Oregon Wild, and they do die out there.  But the ones I can bring to mind, were not prepared with tools and supplies, and hadn’t thought about the what-ifs before heading out.  As I said at the beginning of this blog/journal … I have entered the food chain, whenever I leave the beaten track.  What about the possibility of a heart attack or a stroke out there by yourself, I’ve been asked?  As the Sioux chief said to Dustin Hoffman, back at the end of the 1971 film, Little Big Man, “Today is a good day to die.”  I cannot fault that; I’d rather it happened out there in the Wild, rather in a city parking lot!  Almost any day out in the Wild is a good day to die, especially since I’m out there doing what I need to do … studying the beauties of the Natural World through paint.  Valuable lessons were learned, not only about my own capabilities when in a tight spot, but also more about the High Desert in Winter, and the decisions that should take greater consideration before they are followed.  I should have turned around before I followed the road out onto the flat, even if I might have bogged down at that point; extraction would have been easier there than where I did get stuck. 

I have extended these Posts about the road building episode, over seven days; as long as the actual occurrence.  I wanted my readers to get some sort of feel as to the length of time that was actually involved, and to also get an idea what I’m prepared to experience in my exploration of the Wild with my paintbrush.  The next Post will resume with the next Oil Sketch done after I escaped the mud.  Oh and by the way … for you historians out there, I escaped the mud on Pearl Harbor Day … a day to remember in future, in more ways than one.

The End is Nigh!

(Take Note: for those of you who have signed up to be notified by email of new postings to this blog, you have been receiving not just a notification, but an actual copy of the new blog posting as the email.  As this does not show the images of the paintings in the best possible light, you should click on the title of the latest blog posting at the top of the post, and not the title of the painting itself; this will open up the actual blog itself, and you may then enjoy the paintings at their best.)

Saturday … day 6, and I was up at 06:00, but as I stated at the end of the last Post, I reckon I only managed 6 - 6½ of sleep.  The ground is more saturated than ever, and silt is in many low spots of my road, but the heavy rains of last night doesn’t appear to have destabilized it, but out on the flat where my road materials dwell, it promises to be a heavy day.  All week I’ve been hoping for a two-day hard freeze, as that would have allowed me extract myself without all the road building, but other than the frosty morning I arrived upon, it has remained pretty much above freezing during the night.  And so it continues … 30% chance of rain by 10 AM, but it did not materialize, and the overnight winds are now a breeze.  Another day of great winter Sun light effects, and in the evening, a hot meal (3^rd in a row), and a beautiful Moon to send me to sleep … but that is later.

I pause occasionally, and try to visualize the how the course of my 3-point (probably more like 12-point) turn will be.  I go over this again and again, and lay the stones accordingly … one after the other … out and back … out and back … stone, after stone, after stone.  But the end is nigh!  I can see it … perhaps mid-afternoon tomorrow, with inspection and tweaking thereafter, and out first thing, Monday morning.  Even though I might be in a position to attempt the move by late afternoon tomorrow, I can’t risk it then, in case of unforeseen problems arising, or downright failure … I need to have enough daylight hours, if such occurs, to be able to rectify the situation.  But that is tomorrow; today is stone, after stone, after stone … prized from the mud, gathered in little lithic flocks, and then herded to the sharp end of the spear, and emplaced with growing aplomb … stone, after stone, after stone.

The road is almost finished here and off picture to the right the turning space is being laid.  It extends 50 feet, or so, from in the front of the truck to this point.  The bulge onto the left-hand bank should allow me to do my “12-point” turn, when the time comes.

A Perfect Painting Day spent Road-building Instead!

(Take Note: for those of you who have signed up to be notified by email of new postings to this blog, you have been receiving not just a notification, but an actual copy of the new blog posting as the email.  As this does not show the images of the paintings in the best possible light, you should click on the title of the latest blog posting at the top of the post, and not the title of the painting itself; this will open up the actual blog itself, and you may then enjoy the paintings at their best.)

Thursday … the 4^th day … little rain overnight, but the ground is spongy and, subsequently, the going is hard, but by lunchtime the overcast has turned into one of those wonderful days of cloud-shadows and sun-breaks across the landscape, which in the low Sun of Winter makes for marvelous sky-scapes.  It would have been a great day for painting had not road-building been the task of more urgency.  Showers were possible, but never materialized over me.  A good 8 hours were put in and 13 feet of road laid down, even with my slogging mud-fest reenactment of the Russian Front!

Every footstep placed carefully; each rock chosen prized out of the earth, to be carried to the road-site, singly or several at a time, depending on their size and weight, some as much as a hundred yards, to be carefully laid in place … a natural jigsaw puzzle.  Slogging out onto the flat, looking out for likely suspects, pushing my poker down into the mud beside a possible, giving the poker a twist, pulling it up an edge, and if suitable liberating it from the clay, and then to place it on a convenient nearby boulder, scan the area for others in the near vicinity, and repeating until several might be found and readied for transport.  When sufficient were found I shoved the business end of the poker upright into the mud to serve as a landmark, and began to ferry the new recruits back to road’s end.  A water break once or twice in morning, then lunch, and again in the afternoon, having to clean my fingers enough to be able to drink or eat.  These were my days.  But today was the best day so far, as I painted sky-scapes in my mind, and the road gradually lengthened, and beginning to build up the banks where I would have to turn the truck … 13 feet today!

The roadbed is coming along!  Two-thirds up from the bottom, along the right-hand edge of the photo, you can see a bit of grass with a boulder embedded … this is the immovable boulder that has caused me to have to extend the road past it before I can build onto the bank in order to make my turn.  Life would be easier were I able to build onto the bank right from the rear of the truck!

Having just checked my journal, it was tonight that I had my first hot supper, as described in my last posting … last night had been cold black beans and corn tortillas, with crushed chili.  I was able to heat breakfast water in an almost-break in the rain last night, so this morning was OK.  An almost full Moon rose through clouds while I prepared and ate this first hot supper, and then to bed.

The next day, Friday, was the same endeavor, but without the beautiful light of yesterday, and an hour and a quarter long shower interrupted the afternoon’s labor, and also came in again early so only 6½ hours managed.  The footing was better until the rain since the wind overnight and this morning began to slowly dry out the surface … dry being a relative term in this case.  The day’s end shower was long enough to keep me from working again until dark, but eased up enough for another hot meal and breakfast water for my thermoses.  Asleep by 21:30, after my usual contortionist undressing, and over the driver’s seat acrobatics to the sleeping bags, but was awoken at 23:30 by fierce rain and wind, much heavier than the rain of Wednesday, and for the next three hours slept and awoke fitfully until 02:30, when the rain ceased.  Up at 06:00, but I reckon I only managed 6 - 6½ of sleep.

The Longest Day!

(Take Note: for those of you who have signed up to be notified by email of new postings to this blog, you have been receiving not just a notification, but an actual copy of the new blog posting as the email.  As this does not show the images of the paintings in the best possible light, you should click on the title of the latest blog posting at the top of the post, and not the title of the painting itself; this will open up the actual blog itself, and you may then enjoy the paintings at their best.)

I got an hour of work done before the rain came in and I had to retreat to the truck where I read, listened to Radio Jefferson, the local public radio station, and had lunch.  After three hours I was able to get in another half an hour on the road construction, but that was it for the day … an hour and a half!  The night had been a bad one as I kept awakening and worrying how the coming rain might affect the roadway I had built thus far … if at all.  Would the weight of the truck force the wheels to sink in the rain?  Would the roadbed be strong enough?  Would the truck slip sideways to the left, and into the mud, when I eventually made my escape attempt, since the road sloped down that direction, and was getting mud covered and slippery as I walked over it humping rocks to the construction end?  Would the accumulating rainwater make the 600 yards of muddy road back to the trees impassable once I actually got turned around on the stone road I was constructing?  These questions turned over & over in my mind, and had made for an uneasy night, and now with the rain-forced inactivity, they kept running through my head as I watched the drops falling into the enlarging puddles.  True … my road seemed to be OK that evening when during a convenient hour long break I had actually prepared a hot supper, but if the rainy hours piled up …?  I did move the SUV back about 6 inches in case it had been sinking, but it seemed that it had not, and in this new position it remained until the end of construction.  But a hot supper!  It was only a thick chunky chicken corn chowder soup, but it was wonderful … I added fresh broccoli, and some tinned corn.  This is now my favorite soup.

This was my lowest day as I had too much time to think.  As I have said I was sixty miles from Nowhere and eighty miles from Almost There.  Even though there might be the odd homestead in the area, a long walk would be involved, and then a careful approach hoping not to be shot for trespassing … these things do happen.  But I was nowhere near ready to abandon my attempt at my self-extraction … I had a month of food and two weeks of water.  Best to keep to the road building; only when that failed would I think about heading out.  Think about the Pioneers who crossed the Continent on the Oregon Trail, sometimes in small groups, walking much of the way; how they might have to unload their small wagons, to fix a wheel; build a raft to ferry them across a river; rope them up or down an incline too steep for the oxen to manage.  I was not as alone as they were, even if they were a group, and I’m solitaire.  My predicament was a major inconvenience compared to theirs, even if possibly life-threatening; and people do die out here, but usually they have few supplies, or tools … I had all that.  However, to keep from morbid possibilities does mean, keeping a clear head, thinking things through thoroughly, taking care with every move made, and every step taken during this situation, to avoid injury … I’m sixty miles from Nowhere and eighty miles from Almost There.  But I had gotten through the day, and with a hot supper under the belt, the terrors of what if, began to recede … 8½ hours of good sleep ensued.

Mud continues on the Eastern Front!

(Take Note: for those of you who have signed up to be notified by email of new postings to this blog, you have been receiving not just a notification, but an actual copy of the new blog posting as the email.  As this does not show the images of the paintings in the best possible light, you should click on the title of the latest blog posting at the top of the post, and not the title of the painting itself; this will open up the actual blog itself, and you may then enjoy the paintings at their best.)

Tuesday, and I was at work by 08:30, and managed to build about 9 feet of road behind the rear tires, downing tools at 16:30, when the rain came in; the radio had mentioned it at breakfast.  Just before then, worried about the coming rain, I decided to attempt to reverse out of the two puddles my front wheels were in and onto the higher bit of roadway behind.  That would get me out of the low spot and make the truck a bit more level than it had been the first night.  I inspected the trackway from all angles; I was worried that the vehicle might slew off the narrow mud-slicked track I had built from each of the front tires to the rear ones and back into the mud to the left and down the center line of the SUV, since I couldn’t really build much that far under the truck itself.  With great trepidation I gritted my teeth and … successfully reversed about 6 feet, as seen in the photos.  A couple hours later, after the same evening meal as the night before, the rain stopped long enough for me to heat up water for the morning and have a cup of hot chocolate, before turning in.

[Sorry … same photos as yesterday; I didn’t take too many during the road construction; too much mud on my hands and daylight was not too plentiful.]

Wonder of wonders was that I was not stiff or sore today from yesterday’s exertions, which surprised me greatly, since my life is relatively sedentary walking back and forth at the easel, and not even that when working from a camp chair.  For whatever reason, I remained limber during construction of the road, and probably also because that after the initial rush of gathering branches and sagebrush, for the failed escape attempt, I determined to maintain a steady sure pace without pushing myself, or inviting injury. 

I, luckily, carry tough work gloves in the vehicle, for emergencies and these came in handy for this job, but the tool that saved me was an iron implement I purchased at the Sandy Mountain Festival back in 2004, my first Summer in Oregon (is it that long ago?!!)  It was at a blacksmith’s stall and I believe it was designed to be used as a meat turner for Bar-B-Qs, but I bought it to be used as a fireplace poker.  It has a little twist in the business end which I thought would aid in turning wood in a fireplace or woodstove, and as such it worked very well.  But for this job it came into its own, and I don’t think I could have completed the road building without it. 

To build the road I would walk out onto the flat, trying as much as possible to stay out of the mud, by stepping from rock to rock or tufts of sagebrush & grass, the flat being covered with all of those, searching for likely looking flattish rocks of a decent size.  When I spotted a likely looking individual, or several, I would push the end of my wonderful poker into the mud along the edge of the suspect, give the poker a twist to set the skewered tip hopefully beneath the rock, and pull it from the sucking mud.  If there were several suspects in the immediate vicinity, I would pry out several, placing them onto larger boulders, and then carry them across the flat singly, or several at a time depending on their size, to emplace them in the growing roadway.  The rocks ranged in weight from a few pounds each to some as much as 75 or 80 lbs.  The latter weight I estimated as to how they compared to the weight of my AGM battery, which with its plywood case is 85 lbs.  Without the poker with its skewered tip, I would not have been able to pull many of these rocks from the sucking mud … it saved my life and my fingertips.  My poker is one of many tools and implements I always carry, and it sure came into its own this time!

At my short lunch break and at the end of the day, I would have to spend the first 5 to 10 minutes cleaning the mud off my hands with my spray bottle of witch hazel and isopropyl alcohol mixture and tough paper shop towels, before I could eat.  When the holes began to appear in the fingertips of my work gloves, as they inevitably would, the cleaning time lengthened, as each finger was cleaned individually.  The end of the day cleaning of the hands was more thorough.  Then I would also take off my muddy shirt, put on my clean sweaters, fold the shirt with the mud inside and place it out of the way in the front window, while I ate supper in the driver’s seat.  The footwell got the muddy, but since the mud on my jeans was on the front of them and mostly the lower part of my legs, the driver’s seat itself remained relatively mud free.  Getting ready for sleep was an exercise in contortion as I had to take my boots off without putting my stocking-feet into the mud, and place them onto the floor of the footwell.  Then still perched on the driver’s seat, and with the door open, I would slowly peel off my jeans one leg at a time, resting my feet out over the mud onto the windowsill of the open driver’s door.  I next retracted my legs inside and crouched on the driver’s seat, while I draped my muddy Carhart work jeans, complete with hammer loop and side pockets for tools, over the steering wheel to dry as much as possible overnight.  Closing the driver’s door, I would then climb over the back of the seat to my sleeping bags behind.  There I have 7½ feet between the driver’s seat and the back of the SUV; I am 6 feet 4 inches so there is room at the foot of my sleeping bags for my duffle bag of clothing.  I managed to keep any mud in the truck in the driver’s footwell … none ever got into the back where I sleep.  In the morning this was all done in reverse. 

Rain was in the forecast, but I was hoping it would bypass me; it might have since the closest area in the forecast was over 60 miles away.  After two evenings of unexciting peanut butter and cracker plus raw vegetables, I determined tomorrow night would be different … it almost wasn’t.

MUD!

(Take Note: for those of you who have signed up to be notified by email of new postings to this blog, you have been receiving not just a notification, but an actual copy of the new blog posting as the email.  As this does not show the images of the paintings in the best possible light, you should click on the title of the latest blog posting at the top of the post, and not the title of the painting itself; this will open up the actual blog itself, and you may then enjoy the paintings at their best.)

[Sorry about the delay in posting this, but I’ve had my annual accounts to do … you understand.]

After filling my tank and spare containers with petrol at Klamath Falls the night before, the next morning, Monday, found a dusting of snow, about quarter of an inch, at my chosen campsite, and the air was crisp and the semi frozen ground crunched beneath my boots as I prepared to brake camp and enjoy my first full day in the High Desert landscape.  I had not gone far from where I had camped and keeping an eye out, as always, for future and better camping possibilities, when the beginnings of a lovely duff covered forest road beckoned off the larger forest road I was already on; so I took it.  About 200 yards in the Ponderosa Pines gave way to an open area known as a flat, in these parts.  I thought about turning around at this point, but the ground off road appeared a bit soft, and since I was more or less committed I proceeded in the shallow ruts the duff covered road had turned into out on the flat, intending to turn around in the far trees half a mile distant, when the road no doubt would resume its duff covered existence. 

Two thirds of the way across some large boulders were evident a short way ahead, and I didn’t think I could safely negotiate them without my petrol laden trailer-hitch platform catching up on them; without that I might have judiciously picked my way over them.  I halted, intent on turning around and retracing my path; transmission into reverse; the wheels began to spin; immediately stepped off the gas pedal.  I got out to inspect the situation, and remembering four years earlier getting stuck in fine volcanic ash up near Crater Lake, I thought … Great! An hour and a half gathering branches and digging out.  Oh were that true! 

Two hours later and after digging out around each tire, and with numerous branches and dead sagebrush in place, the moment of truth had come; the tires still only spun; I refrained from spinning and digging in deeper, since that is a fool’s errand, but immediately ceased, and thought through my next moves very carefully.  I was 60 miles from Nowhere in one direction and 80 miles from Almost There in the other; I was on a forest road off of a forest road and not likely to see any vehicle, possibly until next Summer, and if I did they would be on their way to being captured by the mud as well, and if not, getting pulled out could be costly; I got into this myself and I would damned well get out of it myself.  Forty years ago in the Scottish Highlands, I found myself on the backside of Bienn Eighe and Liathach trekking 20 miles to Craig Youth Hostel, on the coast and opposite the north wing of the Isle of Skye, humping a 70 pound pack since I had just resupplied in Kinlochewe the previous evening.  There were no trails evident on the map and I found the landscape was boulder moraine;  it was up a boulder, step to the next, and the next, down in between, and up onto another, or over, and so on, and so on; it took me 8¾ hours to go the 12 miles it turned out to be, and once out of the boulder field and over a low pass only 2½ hours for the final 8 miles, although t’was into a driving rain by the time the youth hostel appeared.  I had decided, once I got stuck into the moraine, that if I broke a leg, I would crawl out to the road on Upper Loch Torridon through a pass to the south; that test I did not have to take, as the exam I did pass was sufficient enough.  There have been similar testings before and since then, and this would be yet another. 

So after getting my mind right, I replaced some of the vegetation I had emplaced with thin flat rocks I had gathered, shoving them before and aft of each tire, building up a 2-foot trackway in front of each tire, and placing larger rocks at the end of each trackway to avoid driving off the end; 4 hours after my initial miring, I put the SUV into 4-wheel drive and into low gear, and pulled forwards out of the muck onto my rock trackway 9 full inches;  I was out of the sucking mud on narrow rock platforms of my construction.  The worst part of it had been digging out the sucking mud deep enough to place the initial sage and branches … it felt like I was on the Eastern Front, advancing on Stalingrad!  By day’s end I had filled in the ruts from my front tires to my rear tires and a little bit of roadway behind those.  By this time it was 18:30 and had been dark for an hour and a half, although there was an intermittent waxing gibbous moon poking out from the clouds, and I had worn my headlamp, while searching out and prying up the right rocks from the sucking clay out on the surrounding flat.  Eight hours had been put in and I called it a day.

      

This shows my position at 16:00 on the second day; I took no photos on the first day.  The two larger puddles are where the front tires were on the first day; they also mask the two foot trackway in front of them that I first constructed to pull forward onto to get me out of the mud itself and onto something solid, after my initial effort with the branches had failed.  Although it was lower there in those front puddles, once I was forward out of the mud, and on the newly built trackway, I was relatively safe, but since I did worry about it that first night, once I had built enough behind me I reversed those few feet to the position seen in these photos, and felt better about it during the construction that followed.   All the smaller puddles are my footprints.

Close up of the driver’s side front tire.  The little puddle behind it is nothing … just a lower spot in my road construction, and is masking flat rocks only a half inch or less beneath the surface.

I managed to heat breakfast water for my thermos, but was too tired to cook supper, so I had raw carrots and broccoli, herbal crackers and peanut butter, almonds, peanuts and some mandarin orange slices from a jar, with herbal tea to wash it all down … not exciting, but enough to sate my appetite.