Steens Mountain

Monday, July 4, 2022

After staying at the Drake Peak Lookout for three nights we headed east for a few days to check out Steens Mountain.

We drove over from the Lakeview area on Sunday and set up camp at Page Springs Campground. This campground is notoriously buggy and the mosquitoes made themselves known pretty much immediately. We set up the bug tent and then we were able to hang out comfortably, safe from the swarms:

Page Springs Campground

On Sunday we set out to drive the Steens Mountain Loop Road. Our timing was lucky as the road had only opened a few days prior. We stopped at primitive Lily Lake Campground to check it out:

Lily Lake Campground

Lily Lake is more like a swampy pond. It may be worse in morning and evening, but it wasn’t super buggy here when we stopped. There are a few campsites here and there was only one person camped here:

Lily Lake Campground

We saw these paintbrush there:

Paintbrush

Then we drove on to Fish Lake. There is a campground here and it was pretty full and busy:

Fish Lake

This doesn’t seem like a place camas would bloom, but we saw some:

Camas

Up the road we stopped at this unsigned viewpoint that looks down on Fish Creek:

Steens Road Viewpoint

Balsamroot in bloom:

Flowers

Our next stop was Kiger Gorge, which might be the most popular and well-known spot on Steens Mountain. And for good reason. I mean just look at it:

Kiger Gorge

Kiger Gorge

This gorge was carved by a massive glacier during the ice age one million years ago. Snow compressed into masses of ice over a thousand feet thick. The weight and downward motion of the glacier carved out this U-shape valley through which Kiger Creek now flows.

Kiger Gorge

Kiger Gorge

This is the headwall of the valley:

Kiger Gorge

Lingering snow:

Kiger Gorge

We stopped at another roadside viewpoint to get a view down Little Blitzen Gorge:

Little Blitzen Gorge

On the other side of the road we could see east down to the desert below:

Looking east

Although there is a road all the way to the summit of Steens Mountain, the public can’t drive the whole way. We parked at this gate and started walking:

Steens Summit

From the summit road we could see Wildhorse Lake below:

Steens Summit Hike

Steens Summit Hike

Steens Summit Hike

There’s a trail that goes down to that lake and we could see snow lingering on the upper part of that trail:

Looking down on Wildhorse Lake Trail

Looking down on Wildhorse Lake Trail

The summit is home to a lot of communications equipment:

Steens Summit Hike

Steens Summit Hike

Steens Summit Hike

View of Wildhorse Lake from the summit:

Steens Summit Hike

Closeup of Wildhorse Creek:

Steens Summit Hike

Looking east from the summit:

Steens Summit Hike

Looking southeast. You can see a bit of the Alvord Desert down there:

Steens Summit Hike

Looking northeast:

Steens Summit Hike

Looking south:

Steens Summit Hike

We found the geocache on the summit (the highest geocache in Oregon!) then we hiked back down to the car. From there we hiked part of the way to Wildhorse Lake, as far as this trail register:

Steens Summit Hike

A view of the snow on the trail that we saw from above:

Steens Summit Hike

Looking down on the lake:

Steens Summit Hike

We didn’t go any further than this for several reasons, but we were also getting short on time, since Greg had spent A LOT of time with the wildflowers on our drive so far today. We drove on and stopped at the East Rim Viewpoint, with a view down Little Blitzen Gorge:

East Rim Viewpoint

East Rim Viewpoint

And a view to the east of the Alvord Desert:

East Rim Viewpoint

View to Steens summit and its radio towers:

East Rim Viewpoint

Looking down the rugged east flank of Steens Mountain:

East Rim Viewpoint

We continued down the road and stopped at this viewpoint looking up Little Indian Gorge:

Little Indian Gorge

Little Indian Gorge

Little Indian Gorge

View of the road snaking its way along:

Steens Loop Road

Just down the road was a viewpoint for Little Blitzen Gorge. There was a short walk to the viewpoint and we saw some nice wildflowers along the way:

Wildflowers

Wildflowers

Wildflowers

Little Blitzen Gorge

Little Blitzen Gorge

When my family went on a trip here in 1992 we drove this road in our Astro minivan. The road was much rougher than my parents were expecting. We ended up with a flat tire, had to put on the spare, and limp our way into Burns to get it fixed. On our 2009 map this section of the road was labeled “rough, rocky, steep, and narrow.” But at some point in the last 13 years they must have done some improvements, because while some sections were still steep and narrow, there were no sections that were rough or rocky.

We saw wild horses on the drive out, which was pretty neat:

Wild horses

Wild horses

So that was our whirlwind one-day tour of Steens Mountain. We’d love to come back and take a more leisurely pace and do some of the hikes here, including Wildhorse Lake.