{"id":5247,"date":"2024-07-20T03:10:37","date_gmt":"2024-07-20T03:10:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/cherylhill.net\/blog\/?p=5247"},"modified":"2024-07-31T14:48:54","modified_gmt":"2024-07-31T14:48:54","slug":"indian-rock-trail","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/cherylhill.net\/blog\/2024\/07\/20\/indian-rock-trail\/","title":{"rendered":"Indian Rock Trail"},"content":{"rendered":"

Thursday, July 19, 2024<\/p>\n

Last October I drove up to the Indian Rock Lookout from the south. Today I hiked to it from the north via the Indian Rock Trail<\/a>.<\/p>\n

July in Oregon started off with an intense heat wave, and even though the temps backed off a bit after that it has been a very hot three weeks. By the second week of July careless humans got busy setting fires: the Larch Creek Fire near Dufur started July 9; the Falls Fire near Burns started July 10; the Cow Valley Fire near Baker City started July 11; and the Lone Rock Fire near Condon started July 13. (Unfortunately none of the people who set these fires have been caught so far.) Then thunderstorms arrived and more fires started. So I wasn’t expecting very good hiking conditions.<\/p>\n

I parked at the trailhead on Road 45 and headed south.<\/p>\n

\"Indian<\/p>\n

Although there are no signs telling you so, this trail travels through the Vinegar Hill – Indian Rock Scenic Area. In this part the forest is relatively young, growing back after the 1996 Summit Fire burned through here:<\/p>\n

\"Indian<\/p>\n

\"Indian<\/p>\n

I entered a short section where a few older trees survived the fire:<\/p>\n

\"Indian<\/p>\n

And I spotted a few old phone insulators as well:<\/p>\n

\"Indian<\/p>\n

Ancient wooden boardwalk\/bridge:<\/p>\n

\"Indian<\/p>\n

Older pre-fire survival trees with younger ones growing back:<\/p>\n

\"Indian<\/p>\n

There was, of course, some blowdown, but it could have been A LOT worse:<\/p>\n

\"Indian<\/p>\n

I started seeing some wildflowers:<\/p>\n

\"Indian<\/p>\n

I reached a meadow where I lost the trail:<\/p>\n

\"Indian<\/p>\n

I poked around and found the continuation on the other side. More wildflowers:<\/p>\n

\"Indian<\/p>\n

\"Indian<\/p>\n

\"Indian<\/p>\n

\"Indian<\/p>\n

\"Indian<\/p>\n

I could hear Big Creek off to the right, but I couldn’t see it. Then I reached a footbridge over Big Creek:<\/p>\n

\"Indian<\/p>\n

\"Indian<\/p>\n

\"Indian<\/p>\n

An overgrown section of trail:<\/p>\n

\"Indian<\/p>\n

I crossed a little creek that wasn’t on the map. It’s probably seasonal:<\/p>\n

\"Indian<\/p>\n

\"Indian<\/p>\n

\"Indian<\/p>\n

\"Indian<\/p>\n

\"Indian<\/p>\n

I entered this open meadow area where I had a view of the lookout:<\/p>\n

\"Indian<\/p>\n

\"Indian<\/p>\n

Beyond that was a large open sandy area. Another good view of the lookout here, but this where the trail tread completely disappeared:<\/p>\n

\"Indian<\/p>\n

\"Indian<\/p>\n

\"Indian<\/p>\n

The Forest Service apparently agrees that the tread has vanished here, because they have erected signs and cairns to guide the way:<\/p>\n

\"Indian<\/p>\n

These tress burned more recently, in 2022. Beyond them you can see a large meadow:<\/p>\n

\"Indian<\/p>\n

That meadow was probably wet until recently. Along its edge I found some elephanthead flowers that were mostly done except this one:<\/p>\n

\"Indian<\/p>\n

Continuing to navigate by signs and cairns:<\/p>\n

\"Indian<\/p>\n

\"Indian<\/p>\n

This meadow was CHOCK FULL of coneflower. I’ve never seen so much coneflower in one place before:<\/p>\n

\"Indian<\/p>\n

\"Indian<\/p>\n

At the edge of the meadow I reached the junction with the Princess Trail:<\/p>\n

\"Indian<\/p>\n

\"Indian<\/p>\n

Burnt trees and regrowing vegetation:<\/p>\n

\"Indian<\/p>\n

The trail once again became easier to follow:<\/p>\n

\"Indian<\/p>\n

The fleabane LOVED this burnt forest and there was a lot in bloom:<\/p>\n

\"Indian<\/p>\n

\"Indian<\/p>\n

\"Indian<\/p>\n

A peek at the lookout through the burnt trees:<\/p>\n

\"Indian<\/p>\n

Other wildflowers were blooming in the burn:<\/p>\n

\"Indian<\/p>\n

\"Indian<\/p>\n

\"Indian<\/p>\n

\"Indian<\/p>\n

\"Indian<\/p>\n

I reached Road 537 and the Indian Rock Trailhead:<\/p>\n

\"Indian<\/p>\n

Then hiked up the road towards the lookout:<\/p>\n

\"Indian<\/p>\n

I reached the end of the road the followed a steep rocky trail up the slope to the lookout. There were plenty of wildflowers blooming on the slopes here:<\/p>\n

\"Indian<\/p>\n

\"Indian<\/p>\n

\"Indian<\/p>\n

\"Indian<\/p>\n

\"Indian<\/p>\n

\"Indian<\/p>\n

The Boneyard Fire (and others) had been started by lightning two days earlier, adding to the already-prolific smoke in eastern Oregon:<\/p>\n

\"Indian<\/p>\n

\"Indian<\/p>\n

I reached the lookout, which is staffed:<\/p>\n

\"Indian<\/p>\n

\"Indian<\/p>\n

I met the woman working there. She’s worked many seasons as a lookout and was very chatty:<\/p>\n

\"Indian<\/p>\n

\"Indian<\/p>\n

Despite the smoke I could still see some of the surrounding mountains. The view to the north was the best:<\/p>\n

\"Indian<\/p>\n

That’s Deception Butte in the distance, and below is the valley of Big Creek that I hike up to get here:<\/p>\n

\"Indian<\/p>\n

\"Indian<\/p>\n

\"Indian<\/p>\n

The Crockets Knob Fire had burned through here in 2022 (it\u2019s a misspelling of a nearby former lookout site, Crockett Knob):<\/p>\n

\"Indian<\/p>\n

Looking east at Donaldson Rock and the distant Elkhorns. The green meadow below is where all that coneflower was growing:<\/p>\n

\"Indian<\/p>\n

Looking south at Dixie Butte:<\/p>\n

\"Indian<\/p>\n

Looking southwest:<\/p>\n

\"Indian<\/p>\n

\"Indian<\/p>\n

Looking west:<\/p>\n

\"Indian<\/p>\n

Looking northwest:<\/p>\n

\"Indian<\/p>\n

Despite the heat and the smoke this was a good hike!<\/p>\n

Gaia stats: 8.2 miles, 1,500′ elevation gain.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Thursday, July 19, 2024 Last October I drove up to the Indian Rock Lookout from the south. Today I hiked<\/p>\n

Continue readingIndian Rock Trail<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":5249,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[203,159,218,258],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5247","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-malheur-national-forest","category-oregon","category-umatilla-national-forest","category-vinegar-hill-indian-rock-scenic-area"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/cherylhill.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5247","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/cherylhill.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/cherylhill.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/cherylhill.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/cherylhill.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5247"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"http:\/\/cherylhill.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5247\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5298,"href":"http:\/\/cherylhill.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5247\/revisions\/5298"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/cherylhill.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5249"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/cherylhill.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5247"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/cherylhill.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5247"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/cherylhill.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5247"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}