Sunday, May 26, 2024
During our Memorial Day camping weekend in the Umatilla National Forest we hiked up to Madison Butte.
We drove out Friday and found a campsite, but Saturday was cold and windy and not great for hiking, so we just bopped around finding geocaches and wildflowers. Sunday was much nicer with no wind so we headed for the Madison Butte Trailhead on Road 21 near the Tupper Work Center.
There’s a gated spur here but it was a muddy mess, so we parked along the road:
There was another car parked at the trailhead and I joked to Greg “Wouldn’t it be funny if we know the people who belong to this car? Way out here so far from town?”
The trail starts at this gate:
We followed an old Jeep track up the hill:
We saw a number of wildflowers. Barestem desert-parsely:
Lupine:
Death camas:
Something in the pea family:
Grounsel:
Very pretty hiking along here:
Lots of junipers:
Looking down the hill behind us:
Arnica:
Milkvetch:
After 0.9 miles we reached the junction with the Tupper Butte Trail. This old fallen sign may have said as much at one point in time:
I didn’t see a trail heading through the meadow here towards Tupper Butte:
A hundred feet later, though, I noticed a faint Jeep track heading in the right direction. I forgot to take a picture then, but did on the way back. It’s pretty invisible!
There’s an old fallen signpost here:
Looking behind us again:
Continuing uphill:
Entering into denser forest:
We passed an old barbed wire fence that looks like it hasn’t seen maintenance in awhile:
We saw signs of recent trail maintenance. On this hike we passed at least 20 fallen trees that had been cleared this season. Thanks, trail crew!
Larch trees lose their needles in the fall and grow them back in early summer. They were so cute! Also really feathery soft:
These Western roundleaf violet were growing in the forest:
Emerging from the forest into a more open area:
And we’ve got our first view of Madison Butte and its lookout tower:
Balsamroot:
Continuing on, the trail goes down, then up. Down, then up. But it was very pleasant hiking. Lovely trees and the meadows are still green and lush (later they will be very brown):
Violets:
The trail was marked by white and silver diamonds:
Madison Butte came back into view. The tower is hidden in the trees up there:
Less flowers up here at a higher elevation, but still green:
We reached Bottle Spring, where the water collected in a plastic trough:
The water trickles down into a yucky-looking pond:
Several old metal troughs were laying about:
While were looking around the spring we saw the two hikers who belonged to that other car approaching from above. I had been joking earlier when I said we might know the people in that car, but it turns out we DID know them! It was the wanderingyuncks, who are finishing their mission to do all 100 hikes in all five of William L. Sullivan’s hiking books. They just need to finish the eastern Oregon book and they’ll be all done. We had a nice chat before parting ways.
Just beyond the spring we passed through this strange wooden “passageway”:
And then we were at the upper trailhead on Road 033:
We turned right for the last bit of hiking to the lookout. Fortunately the gate lower down on this road is closed at this time of year so we saw no vehicles:
This is a rough road, for sure:
Lots of false hellebore:
There are some big trees up here!
Spring beauties:
Some type of onion:
There’s the lookout!
There’s a toilet down the hill on the north side:
I was surpirsed to see grass widows blooming up here!
We saw groundsel too:
There are some views from the ground. Looking northeast:
Black Mountain to the northeast:
Southeast:
The Strawberry Mountains to the southeast:
Looking south to the Aldrich Mountains:
West:
Northwest:
The tower is staffed during fire season, but it was too early and no one was there. We couldn’t get up to the catwalk, but we could climb the stairs most of the way up. Better views up there, of course. Northeast:
Looking east to the Elkhorns:
Vinegar Hill and Dixie Butte to the southeast:
The Strawberry Mountains:
South:
Northwest:
We had the summit all to ourselves and there was NO WIND! We sat underneath the tower for shade and had a fancy picnic:
After we ate Greg spotted a tick on his pants. Yuck! Ticks are the worse. Later on the hike down I spotted one on my shirt:
Survey marker:
What forces bent this sturdy pot?
After several hours on the summit we headed back down. Most of those trees you see in the photo below are larches. This would be gorgeous in fall!
Dwarf hesperochiron:
We had thought about doing the side trip to Tupper Butte on the way down, but we got such a late start and took so long on the hike that it was 5pm by the time we reached the junction, and we decided to just keep going:
Even though there was uphill in both direction this was still a great hike. Definitely awesome to do this time of year when it’s all green and blooming.
Gaia stats: 8.2 miles, 2,200′ elevation gain
