Like Coming Home

It’s bitter cold out on the porch and snow blows in on the northwest wind. When it’s clear you can see the Big Dipper, Orion and the Milky Way clear as crystal out here. Dry desert air and no light pollution. The ranch’s ten thousand acres laid out in a night-darkened panorama. I’m 20 miles west of Lakeview, Oregon--my hometown--in Oregon’s south-central high desert. Inside by the wood stove, my wife Rosalie is sitting in the recliner while my parents Ken and Audrae and two youngest brothers Nate and Coren play with their first niece and grandbaby, my daughter.

We’re going skiing tomorrow at Warner Canyon Ski Area. Just northeast of Lakeview on Highway 140 toward Adel.

View from my parents' back porch. Photo by Jens Odegaard.

The Outback

As the car shakes off the Valley’s rain clouds and fog damp and the Doug firs whipping past my car window start turning to Lodgepoles and Ponderosas at the crest of the Willamette Pass on Highway 58 in the High Cascades, I know I’m headed home.

There’s still a long way to go. Another 20 miles or so to the Crescent Cutoff. Cruise the curves past the cinder pit for 10 miles. Then a straight shot north on Highway 97 for 15 miles stuck between semis, take the junction south onto Highway 31 and hit the gas toward Lakeview 150 miles away.

It’s Lodgepole Lane for the first 30 miles of Highway 31, mind-numbing repetition and perfect time to start cranking the Ryan Bingham. Get that dusty, country-rock flowing through the veins. It’s like the entry chute to the corral of the Oregon Outback. Box everyone into two lanes of tree-lined, cinder-dusted, potholed highway, before setting them free with vistas that stretch almost to Nevada and if you look far enough on a clear day, Mt. Shasta in California.

The Hill

I’m standing at the summit of Warner Canyon Ski Area with my daughter in the front pack and my wife, parents and brothers adjusting goggles. The 360-degree views of Camas Valley to the east, Goose Lake Valley to the west, and the Warner Mountains north and south down into California as far as the eye can see fill the empty spot inside me bored out drip by drip from day after day of winter rain in the Willamette Valley.

Warner Canyon’s 200 acres, 1,000 feet of vertical, one triple chair and no lift lines are as close to skiing heaven as I’ll ever get. It’s a county park run by the local, nonprofit Fremont Highlanders Ski Club.

Faded photographs from generations of skiers dating back to the ‘50s and maybe even earlier line the wall of the single-room lodge. The old T-bar surface lift shows up in the black and whites. Some of the fresh-faced skiers from the old photos are still cruising the slopes, now going white on their summits and slowly fading out.

Bindings from old leather strap setups to the first metal click-ins, are mounted to the faded gray siding out on the lodge porch. There’s plenty of room inside to warm up on the hand-me-down couches surrounding the potbelly stove. The parking lot is only a third full.

It’s a hideout nestled among the snow-capped peaks of the high desert.

Backside view from Warner Canyon Ski Area summit. Photo by Melissa Maxwell.

The Desert

In the car we come busting out of the Lodgepole chute at a smooth 80 miles per hour, humming along. The trees fade out and the view opens up like the pages of dog-eared copy of Sunny Hancock’s poetry or William Kittredge’s recollections.

It’s the high desert, and there’s nothing that the 21st Century can do about it. Sure there are some barbwire fences and tar-patched blacktop roads meandering out along dry creek beds, but the promontory of Fort Rock jutting up several hundred feet out of the volcanic dust, and the Juniper-dotted rimrocks with herds of mule deer surrounding valleys full of sagebrush and antelope have been baking in the summer and freezing in the winter since before the Modocs and Klamaths and Northern Paiutes, and Captain John C. Fremont in the mid-1800s, ever walked or rode a horse through here.

Fort Rock and the high desert. Photo by Brandon, used by permission of a Creative Commons license.

Don’t blink or you’ll miss Silver Lake, a wide spot in the road 50 miles south of the 97 junction with not much more than the appropriately named Silver Lake Cafe & Bar and a two-pump gas station. It’s sitting all alone in the middle of nowhere, with no lake in sight. If there’s been a recent rain or enough snow melt, the moisture on the baked earth catches the sunlight and the desert looks like a full silver basin when you crest Picture Rock Pass to the south--must have been what whomever named the place saw.

On over Picture Rock headed south into Summer Lake Valley. Here there really is a lake. On the north end there’s marshland teeming with waterfowl and hunters flock to bag geese, ducks and whatever else they can get a tag for. There’s another gas station in Summer Lake, a rest stop, a few houses, an old church, and a restaurant. Then it’s south through the curves along the lake bed skirting Winter Rim.

The story goes that Fremont and his men were fighting through the snow, winds, and bitter cold along the ridge and when they dropped down into the valley it felt like summer. The name stuck. I’ve driven through a few times when it’s been snowing up top and balmy with sunshine down along the lake.

Summer Lake and Winter Rim. Photo by Jens Odegaard.

The Weather

The weather in this part of the state is temperamental as an old hook-horned cow with her tail in a kink. Skiing today we’ve had everything from bluebird sky to heavy snow and I’ve taken layers on and off and on again. The atmosphere is thinner out here with the 5,000 foot elevation and it’s either snowing or sunny or both.

Some years the snow never really even comes. The Cascades suck all the moisture out of the sky and leave nothing but dried tumbleweed clouds to drift east across the pale blue for months on end.

Those years Warner Canyon never opens and the old triple chair bought with grant money from the state for county park improvements stands abandoned all winter looking line a line of leafless Cottonwoods rattling around in bone-chilling wind.

The Rim Country

Big Ponderosas used to cover all 25 or so miles of Winter Rim, but they burned in the Winter Fire of 2002. The fire was so hot that in some places it burned the topsoil off. Now the fire-ravaged rim stands as a charred sentinel matching the plant-free south end of Summer Lake, where the water evaporates off leaving dried crust. When the wind whips, dust devils spin into small tornadoes and the sky turns red. You could film a Mad Max sequel out over the flat.

Winter Rim merges into a small mountain range and the road curves east around the bluffs walling off the south end of the lake. Like a desert rattler it slithers down out of the Summer Lake Valley, lower toward the Chewaucan River running off the mountains to the south. The town of Paisley sits along the riverbank 98 miles south of the 97 junction. A Cottonwood and meadow-grass oasis.

The ZX Ranch--one of, if not the largest, in the state--headquarters here and the old J-Spear ranch houses and barns are just off the highway. In the summer, the greens and yellows of the meadow grass grow in stark contrast to the dusty grays of sagebrush and the muted reds of the surrounding desert bluffs. The winters are mild for this part of the state, and in the winter Black Angus cattle cover the valley eating hay from the summer’s harvest.

There are still real cowboys in this part of the country. Felt Stetsons in the winter and wide-brimmed palm-leaf hats in the summer. Silk neckties, mother of pearl snap-button shirts, Wrangler’s with chaw-can worn back pockets, and polished leather boots. Horses steam from their backs in the summer when the saddles come off after a long day of pulling calves to the branding fire, and in the winter they steam from the nostrils in the early morning when dead grass sparkles with frost.

Headed south out of Paisley. Photo by Michael McCullough, used with permission of a Creative Commons license.

Abert Rim looms to the south in the windshield. Five hundred feet of rock sticking straight up out the earth where the earth was cracked millennia ago. At the base of the rim is the junction in Valley Falls where 31 turns into Highway 395, 25 miles north of Lakeview .

Up through the gap out of Valley Falls and past Chandler State Park. I caught a 10 inch rainbow trout there once with my little yellow Eagle Claw pole with a Rooster Tail spinner on the 10-pound test line. The Ponderosas are six feet and more through the base and thick as forest.

The road opens up into Crooked Creek Valley, hay fields dotted with small ranch homesteads. Elk herds skirt the the fields underneath the branches of the Ponderosas, hidden by the Juniper. I shift down, climbing out of Crooked Creek Valley into Goose Lake Valley.

The Warner Mountains guard the valley floor to the east and run south into Northern California. Crane Mountain at 8,546 is the highest peak in the Oregon portion of the range, just south of Lakeview.

The Town

Two thousand people, give or take, live in Lakeview, the seat of Lake County: big as Ireland where my great-grandfather came from, 7,000 people and by my rough estimate several hundred thousand head of cattle. I grew up in the house my great-grandfather built in 1930 on N 3rd Street.

We stop by--my parents still own it though it sits empty now that they live on the ranch. The trampoline is still in the pit my other brother Eli and I dug one summer to make it level with the ground. A couple of backflips. Back in the car. Grab some gas before leaving town.

I consider stopping by El Aguila Real, Lakeview’s best and only Mexican restaurant for a Dos Equis and fajitas, but opt to grab a case of Coronas and eat my mom’s home cooking instead.

Downtown Lakeview. Photo by Ken Lund, used with permission of a Creative Commons license.

Looking back over my shoulder I recall the time my dad and I hiked Crane Mountain above Lily Lake in late spring when I was about 13. We drove in up the gravel road as far as we could make it, then boot hiked up an old avalanche chute with our skis strapped to backpacks. When we got to the top, you could see forever in the cloudless sunshine. A can of refried beans, a pack of tortillas and some glugs of water. The spring corn was smooth as warm butter. We dropped the chute and then down into the trees, hopping deadfall and ducking low hanging evergreen branches. Skied right up to the lake where the lilies were just starting to green up after a winter of ice.

We head west on Highway 140 from Lakeview toward the ranch. Honk as we drive by my grandparent’s place just off the road before Drew’s Gap. There’s more open space out here than you can shake a stick at.

It’s a five hour drive in good conditions from the Willamette Valley. The thought of kicking it on the back porch with nothing to look at but open meadows, and juniper bluffs and rims gets me through the last 20 minutes.

Hugs from dad. Kisses from mom. Feeding the horses with Nate and Coren and swinging off the haystack from the cotton rope strung up from the barn rafters. A few Coronas.

It’s quiet out here on the porch watching the snow blow in. You can hear the coyotes yipping.

The Skiing

Three chutes off the backside of Warner Canyon on Coyote run are dusted with fresh, untouched powdered milk. It’s just my dad, my little bros and me while my mom, daughter and wife warm up in the lodge. We take run after run. The only other people skiing out here are two patrolmen. There’s maybe 30 people total on the whole mountain.

Plenty of fresh to go around.

Dad, Ken Odegaard, overlooking Camas Valley from the top of Coyote run. Photo by Jens Odegaard.

Even on the the main face under the lift, there’s un-tracked. Drop off the rocks at the top, figure-8 your last set of turns, bunny hop the Willow bush and style a turn toward pops. Look back and watch the two bros shred.

Back into the lodge to pick up the girls and take a couple of cruisers down the few runs they got groomed last night before the cut-rate Bombardier snowcat had its latest breakdown and started leaking oil all over the floor of the shop. When my dad managed the hill during my high school years, it seemed like he spent more time in his coveralls coated in grease, cursing out, and trying to fix failing equipment than he did skiing.

None of that headache is his now. He just runs the kids ski camps and teams, serving as de-facto ski school with my mom and a few other volunteers.

We were going to hit the un-tracked on Cougar, but never got around to it. The cliff on Gully will have to wait too and Rooster Tail jump, where I attempted my first 720 and ended up in an accidental 540, will have to be packed-out another day.

Too much of a good thing. The open space as far as the eye can see strikes a chord inside that can only be played by the feeling of coming home.

--Jens