Adventures with Tracy Vallier, August 2011, Hells Canyon near Oxbow, Oregon

On our first day we took two trucks up the Kleinschmidt Grade in Idaho. Steep, gravel switchbacks, a 4-wheel-drive road. Tracy rode in Charles’s truck, Dave & I behind. We stopped on the grade to talk to a couple, Tracy’s friends, from Cuprum, the town at the top. They were on their way out to photograph tombstones at Halfway, Oregon. They record gravesites and post pictures on findagrave for people who want to see where their ancestors are buried.

At the top of the grade we turned out onto Windy Ridge, back toward the south.There was a sign on a locked gate, “Road Closed.”  With good reason! But Tracy had borrowed the key from the Forest Service, and we drove along the top of the world in progressively (or regressively) worse conditions. Rocks or trees had to be cleared in some places. At a spot only Tracy could recognize as a turn-off, we parked while they cleared brush out ahead.

Tracy explained that we were headed toward an old homestead that had burned out years ago. He had come across it in 1965, and found that the calendar on the kitchen wall showed the last day circled—and hence, the date that place was abandoned—as September 19, 1936—Tracy’s birthday! So he has a special affinity for the place. 

The lane got worse & worse, and the 2 scariest places were sharp curves against the side of the hill, where I feared the trucks would tip over the mountain—bumpy, rough, brushy, and then your uphill side goes up, and you slew around the turn with tires spinning in the bumps and rocks, --I leaned as far uphill as I could. I thought we might be quickly finding our own graves at the bottom of the canyon! And we had to come back that way, too! How would we even turn around?

Finally we came to a point near the old homestead where we could park & eventually turn around, so we parked for the day. Springs still feed the gullies where the old orchards are summer home to Bears!

A lot could be seen from the ridge, before Tracy and Charles descended. What a view!

Dave and I spent the day reading in folding chairs, in the shade of a huge old red fir tree. From the amount of coyote scat at the base, we could assume there was a den under the roots, abandoned for the summer.

When Tracy & Charles climbed back up the mountain at the end of the day, I dreaded the return trip. But it was no worse than earlier—just as scary! Tracy rode with Dave up ahead; they wanted to hurry to the store for ice before it closed. I rode with Charles, and we picked up rocks and leaves and identified a few trees, but these stunning flowers were a mystery until I finally found them in an old book at home.

Rattler! It was on the road at a switchback, and we jumped out of the truck for a demonstration of how to catch a rattlesnake!

Charles had two tools for the job, ready at hand in the front seat.  A (very) long- handled hook, to slow down the snake’s progress, and a (very) long- handled grabber, one in each hand. After pressing the hook gently but firmly on the snake’s back, he then squeezed the grabber by its handles, and picked up the snake by the midsection; and he could then raise it off the ground, hugged by the two sides of the grabber. It was a beauty (sorry, no camera), with 9 rattles on the tail, about 2 feet long.

That man was so quick, that the surprised snake never even rattled an alarm. He let me hold the (very) long-handled grabber! The snake squirmed & writhed, but he couldn’t get away, and he wasn’t hurt. When I let him down to the ground and released the grabber, he slithered across the road and into the ditch with never a look back. That was the first time I ever held a rattler.

Second Day. Oregon side of the canyon. We learned about Triassic rocks folding over Permian rocks, near the Snake River.

We drove up an even steeper road than the Kleinschmidt, to drop off Tracy and Charles at the top of the drainage they wanted to study, above Ashby Creek.

Dave & I drove back down to the river to await the descending geologists. Dave caught a few fish, and I read more books.

The blackberries there grew way up in the trees like vines—20 feet tall!—reaching for the sunlight. But knowing that the sweetest berries ripen in the shade, I reached under the leaves and ate all I wanted. I got plenty for a skilletful of blackberry dumplings for supper. And the little yellow plums from trees that have escaped from the homesteads are delicious and so beautiful—not a speck of insect damage (how is that?)  I brought home a mess of them to make Canyon Plum Jam.

Friday was a day to rest, so Tracy showed us some beautiful high country in the Wallowa Whitman National Forest. The trail along a creek that he had hiked with Garry many years ago had been washed out, so we went up to Fish Lake, a most gorgeous pristine lake where the Valliers had camped during two summers of field work. Dave caught some fish there (released) and we ate lunch. In clearings at the high elevations we saw grand spreads of brilliant wildflowers. And we scrambled over several roches moutonnée. These are big boulders where geologists can see the marks of passing glaciers that scratched the rocks.





Back at the campground in the late afternoon, two little boys were looking for Tracy after their own day out exploring. When they spotted him at our table, they came running, clutching rocks in their little hands—“Tracy, Tracy! Look what I found!” When their mother came to get them, the little boys resisted, saying, “Tracy’s telling stories about the rocks!”

“Will you tell the story again?”

Old or young, we never tire of hearing the stories from the master story-teller, the super geologist, the lifelong teacher.   






Diana Fredley