Recreation Creek – The MoHo and Other Traveling Tales

Fabulous Friends Fabulous Days Fabulous Fun

Continued from this post:

As I wrote yesterday, Jeanne (my friend from Vermont) arrived on Monday, Labor Day, a very short time after Phil and Joanne left for Eugene. I haven’t seen Jeanne since her wedding last year, when I traveled to Vermont to participate in one of the most wonderful weddings I have ever experienced.

Jeanne has many friends in Klamath Falls, and it gets pretty crazy when she visits trying to fit everyone in. Most of her friends are high energy, very physical folks. Big time bikers, runners, hikers, and white water boaters. Just like Jeanne. Thank goodness I have a couple of decades on them as an excuse for not being able to keep up, not wanting to, actually. I’ll settle for a flat water paddle and a long walk any day!

Still, Jeanne made sure she had time for us, spending a couple of days and a night in the cabin. After a nice walk in the neighborhood, we settled in at home for some of Jeanne’s favorite ribs. I don’t think I have made them since the last time she visited, but I am sure glad that was her request. Got the recipe from a local Rocky Point resident famous for his cooking. Something about a few hours braising in pineapple juice and seasonings before they go on the grill with sticky sweet gooey sauce makes them fall off the bone tender and so tasty. Yum.

Once again we pulled out the dominoes. Jeanne and Alan found out while visiting us a couple of years ago that our domino game was one they actually liked, but forgot how to play it. Alan, now her sweet husband, actually bought her a set after they left here last visit. Hopefully this time she will remember.

The next morning dawned the most gorgeous, smoke free, bluebird sky day we have seen in weeks. By nine Jeanne and I were on the water, launching at Malone Spring and traveling north to Crystal Spring.

The canoe trail is within the boundary of the Upper Klamath NWR, and parallels the steep eastern flank of the Cascade Mountains. As you can see, it winds through the marsh, with lots of meanders. The water is crystal clear, but filled with plants and fish and birds abound.

In this photo, from a larger perspective, you can see the upper part of the canoe trail in relation to our place in Rocky Point, in addition to Pelican Bay where we kayaked with Phil and Joanne, and the spring run to Harriman Springs where we took Judy and Phil and Joanne as well. It is nice to have options based on how much time we have and how many miles our guests wish to paddle. The run with Jeanne, (and the same run later with Jimmy and Nickie) is about 8 miles round trip.

I would have loved to linger at the spring, but we had only 4 hours to make the round trip because Jeanne’s friends were picking her up for another adventure. Hiking down to the water of Crater Lake for an icy swim and the long steep hike back up were next on the list. I begged off this one, even though invited since I wasn’t sure my recently rebuilt innards could handle the climb back up the long steep trail.

After Jeanne left, Mo and I had a day to get the new wood stove moved into the apartments, finish up a few details, and buy groceries for the next round of guests.

I was so excited to have Nickie and Jimmy (The Intrepid Decrepit Travelers) send a text message saying they were heading our way and would we be home. I had already practiced a couple of days of food, so I just did it all again for our new company. Good thing we all like salmon! The End of the Day (3 of 7)

They arrived on Thursday afternoon, and didn’t take long to arrange Tergel in the shop driveway, get her leveled with the slides out and join us for more make it yourself wraps and fruit. I have found this to be a great way to do lunch for a bunch, laying out spreads, hummus, cheeses, veggies and several kinds of tortillas for everyone to put together their favorite. Takes a lot of the pressure off!

Mo took a break from our guests to try to catch up on getting the lawns mowed while the three of us took Mattie for a nice long walk along Rocky Point road while we chatted and got caught up on all the recent doings. I was really impressed with Jimmy’s recovery and his strength walking after such recent knee surgery. Way to go, Jimmy!

We had so much fun with dinner and conversation I completely forgot to take photos. Guess that is a good sign.

The next morning we were again up early to get out on the creek before the warm temperatures took over. Sadly, the bluebird skies had disappeared and smoke from the California fires was once again muting the horizon and the distant mountains.

Still it was beautiful out on the water. Jimmy and Nickie have a tandem Sea Eagle, but opted instead to try our hard side boats. It was just at the point of being a bit too long, but everyone did fine and instead of having to rush off when we reached Crystal Spring, we had the luxury of lolling around above the beautiful springs before taking our time going back downriver.

The current is almost negligible, just enough to feel it a bit as you are paddling upstream, but not enough to really get you moving downstream. Nature was good to us on this day because the afternoon winds never appeared. Good thing there isn’t much current! Mattie is new to kayaking, and this was only her third time out. She is just a bit nervous. For who knows what reason, she decided to jump right out of the boat into the water. It was COLD, and I think she was quite happy that Mo was able to haul her back in within seconds. She didn’t try it again.

While floating around the spring, my phone rang. What?? I didn’t even remember that it was on and certainly didn’t expect to have a signal. Sure enough my friend Marti, from Idaho, was calling trying to figure out how to get to Rocky Point. I told her we would be there in a couple of hours and that hopefully she could relax on the porch till we arrived.

When we got home, Marti was waiting patiently enjoying a book and the shady porch with her dog, Rueben. Rueben was a very excitable dog, and we had no idea how he and Mattie would get along, but they were just fine, if a tad rambunctious. I offered the cabin to Marti and Rueben, and Jimmy and Nickie decided it was nap time in Tergel!

Understand, Marti is a river rat from way back, guiding on the Rogue River in years past, and running the Grand Canyon and so many others I have no idea about. Still, I had offered to take her out in our lake kayaks, but after so many trips I felt a bit worn out. The look of disappointment in Marti’s eyes when I started to beg off another kayak trip was enough to get me back in my boat once again that day for a second paddle down to Harriman Spring.

I got a good deal of paddling in during that week, for sure, and I loved it.

We had planned to go out to supper, down the road once again to the local resort, but everyone was so relaxed, and there was so much food left over that we decided to eat at home. I marinated and broiled some chicken and made another fresh salad to go with all the rest of the goodies. We feasted, laughed and talked until everyone just plumb gave out and meandered off to bed.

Saturday morning dawned smoky and warm, and I think Nickie and Jimmy were not happy about having to return to Nevada City and the huge Butte Fire smoke that was affecting their area. Still, everyone was up early, sharing coffee and fruit before they buttoned up Tergel, hooked up Smartie and headed down the road toward California and Marti continued her Oregon travels heading toward the coast. The End of the Day (7 of 7)

This last photo might just give an idea of how much fun we have with these great friends of ours that we never would have known if not for RVing and blogging about it.

I think this may have been the busiest week I have experienced with company since my family reunion back in 2007. It was so much fun to see everyone, but I must say next time I hope all our visitors won’t have to schedule during the same week.

Out the Back Door Kayaking Upper Klamath National Wildlife Refuge

Current location: Rocky Point, Oregon Sunny and 50F at 6am, predicted high today 79F

Ah yes, finally. We managed to walk away from yard and house chores for a day and loaded up the kayaks. I was appalled when I realized that the last time we had the boats in the water was back in Florida in March. Sheesh. As I wrote in the title, some of the very best kayaking in the country is right out our back door. The Rocky Point boat launch is just a mile from our house, but yesterday we decided to travel a few miles north on Westside Road to launch at Malone Springs.

Yes, some of you know my last name is Malone, but no, the springs were named long before I arrived in the Klamath Basin in 2002.

We were on the water by 9:40 AM, and a big surprise was the lack of mosquitoes at Malone Springs. The Forest Service boat launch site has two free campsites, but the mosquitoes can often be daunting during the early summer. In fact, most of the east side of the Cascade range in Oregon is plagued with a heavy mosquito population, including some of the more lovely lakeside campgrounds. Maybe not as bad as Minnesota or Alaska, but definitely something that requires planning. Don’t forget the mosquito spray for shoreline activities! However, once out on the water, mosquitoes and bugs are almost never a problem.

Skies were perfect and the temperature was cool enough that we wouldn’t get overheated out on the water. Winds were light, coming from the north, so we had a bit of a breeze and a very little bit of current to paddle against on our way north to Crystal Spring.

One of the great pleasures of working soil survey in the Klamath Basin was the opportunity to map the soils in the Upper Klamath National Wildlife Refuge. With more than 14,000 acres of organic soils supporting wetland plants, the marsh is directly adjacent to the forested lands of the Cascades. The complex vegetation patterns provided endless riddles of soil and vegetation patterns to decipher. Crystal Spring_032

Looking north as we paddle along the creek, we are treated to a view of the Crater Lake Caldera, still covered in snow.

Unlike the spring runs in Florida, the waterway we travel here is fed by hundreds of springs that come from the pumice soils all along the eastern slope of the Cascades. The water is cold, and there are a few large springs that are named, but many others feed the creek that flows through the marsh, as well as the thousands of acres of natural wetlands that are on the northern side of Klamath Lake.

The refuge canoe trail is famous for fly fishing. These 3 guys were the only folks we saw on this day on the refuge.

Different kinds of soils support different kinds of vegetation, and this is true of subaqueous organic soils as well. One of my major accomplishments mapping these wetlands was figuring out the complex relationships between different types of organic soil and vegetation patterns.

Remember that old saying, “out in the toolies”? These are the real tules, bigstem bulrush, that dominate the marsh.

They provide amazing cover for the many birds that we heard but did not see as we paddled along, When the tules get tall, they hide the sandhill cranes, great egrets, and blue herons that we heard calling throughout our paddle.

sedges Other major native plants that occur in the marsh are several species of sedge (carex).

The sedges seem to like the organic soils that are less weathered, more fibrous, and the willows occur in areas where the fibers are the least weathered, soils that are peaty rather than mucky. You have no idea how many holes I bored in this marsh to finally figure this out. As they say “What difference does it make?” Maybe none to the casual kayaker, but for the refuge managers it is helpful to know how to manage the refuge, and soil information has a big influence on refuge management decisions.

Other plants have colonized in some parts of the refuge, such as cattails and Canary Reedgrass, beautiful to look at, but not natural to the environment and detrimental to the existing plant communities.

Beaver dams are plentiful along the route.

No houses along the route except for this vacation property where our fishermen were staying.

Just a bit more than 4 miles of paddling brings us to beautiful Crystal Springs.

Traveling along Westside Road by car will lead to a roadside rest area with a trail down to the spring, but launching from this spot would be a bit of a pain.

North of Crystal Spring is a well known bed and breakfast called Crystalwood Lodge, visible from the channel north of the spring that I am reasonably certain was dredged for spring access.

We turn around for the paddle down the creek, with current in our favor and no southern wind coming toward us from the lake. The winds often come up about 2 in the afternoon and on this day we beat them.

There aren’t many places along the route that are conducive to landing, but back at the area where we saw the teepee, there is a rocky point that provides a place to get out of the boats and give both Abby and Mo and me a bit of a break before we continue back along the meandering route to return to Malone Springs.

The snow is still deep on Pelican Butte. Our home is at the base of that long slope below the mountain at the left side of the photo. The reflections on the return route are always mesmerizing to me, and I can’t tell you how many photos I have from this spot.

I paddle slowly, sometimes simply drifting along with the current, taking time to photograph the beautiful wocus, sacred and important plant to the local tribes for centuries.We slide into Malone Spring once again, still quiet with no other campers or paddlers around on this Wednesday afternoon. It has been a perfect paddle.

With the marsh vegetation providing great cover, the birds that we actually saw were a redtail hawk, redwing and yellow head blackbirds, and as Carol Herr would say, lots of ‘little brown birds”. Later in the day I did have one great blue heron fly gracefully across the creek right in front of me, but the camera was in the dry bag by that time so no photo. I made a sound recording of a bird call I didn’t recognize at all, and hopefully I can get Judy or Carol to tell me what the bird might be. I know the sounds of the herons and the cranes, but this one was completely new to me. No snakes, turtles, or alligators are in these waters, and I found myself missing them a bit.

I mapped our route with the Motion GPX app on my phone, just over 4 miles each way.

Here is another map that is related only peripherally to the kayak trip.

The black line on this map refers to the known wolf activity zone in the Cascades for OR7 or Journey, as he was named by Oregon schoolchildren. If you haven’t read about him yet, here is the story. There are many newspaper articles out there for this event, but I chose to share this one because it was written by the son of a good friend.

I call Journey “my wolf’, not because I have actually seen him, but because one night back in 2011, when he first began his journey to southern Oregon and California, while he was traveling through the Wood River Valley, Mo and I heard his howls during our evening time in the hot tub. Liz Parrish, owner of the Crystalwood Lodge actually saw him near her place, no doubt interested in her pack of sled dogs. Crystalwood is probably the most dog friendly lodge I know of!

“My” wolf is a daddy.

For the first time in nearly a century pups have been born in the Oregon Cascades. I believe we need to live in a world that includes predators for balance. Some of my local Rocky Point friends are all up in arms over this wolf near us. They are cattlemen, and ranchers, concerned for their livestock. Journey and his mate are hidden high in the mountains, and in all his travels he has never approached any domestic animal. I support the right of the wolf to live in Oregon, in this part of Oregon. There are great ranchers who have figured out how to live with wolves, and I pray that here in the Wood River Valley they don’t ever lose an animal to a wolf. I pray for Journey’s safety and I celebrate his new family.