Owyhee Canyon Wilderness Area Residency Day 4: Hike into Nip and Tuck Creek

I was the last body up this morning, at about 7:45.  I'm a night owl, but luckily I'm also fairly low maintenance in the morning (just need coffee), and I'm quick at packing up my gear.  We received a disturbing weather report from dispatch this morning, calling for "rivers of moisture."  Not sure what this might entail, and knowing that the roads here become impassable when wet, we decided it would be safest to pack up and plan to move to a lower campsite tonight where the roads are graveled.

We drove east until we were north and a bit west of the Nip and Tuck Creek drainage system.  After parking the trucks and getting packed up for the trail, we set off into the wilderness.  It promptly began to drizzle, and we had intermittent rain throughout the day.  It was nothing miserable, but we had to take care with the camera gear.  The benefit of rain is that colors tend to be more vivid and when one is photographing down in the canyons, it helps to have an overcast sky instead of strong shadows.

We hiked through one drainage, crossed over to another, and followed it down, winding with the terrain, scrambling over rocks, exploring boulders, hoodoos, junipers, a stand of fir trees, immense willows, tiny fish, colorful lichen, and so much more.  It was a good day of hiking, with many long stops for photography.

Watching the time, we decided that if we climbed up and out of the drainage we would have a significantly shorter hike back to the trucks following a ridge line, and this would allow us to stay out longer, and explore further.  Somewhere in the late afternoon we made the call to scramble up and out, then spent a couple hours hiking back along the ridge, enjoying some fantastic views and other discoveries (more details in the photo captions below).  One of the rangers described this area as being classic North Fork Wilderness, saying it has an Alice in Wonderland quality with the strange forms in rocks, boulders, trees, something of a magical forest.  There are areas of open, sloping land with strange protruding forms of rock and gnarled juniper trees.  Then there is dense riparian vegetation that requires some serious bushwhacking.  I love it all.

As we hiked along, Ranger Steenhoven, who had been tracking our route via GPS, asked us all to guess how far we'd hiked.  I threw out 5.873 miles.  Then he made it a contest and I second guessed myself, thinking maybe we had hiked farther than it felt.  In the end I stuck with my first answer, and I was very close: we'd hiked 5.9 miles.  What did I win?  A few packets of a tea that has gained quite a reputation the last couple days.  The description on the package is...well, grandiose.  "Fine fresh-tasting, spring-harvested green teas from China. Linger in the pure, steam-fired broth of this first-flush green tea, thinking clear, peaceful thoughts. Like watching mist rise off a thermal spring, hidden behind a wooded glen and only accessible by trampoline."  This is a spring harvested tea made from green tips from China.  The day I had some, it made me jittery like I've never experienced.  We also had some pretty great conversations about all that's wrong with the world, and we may have devised solutions to all the problems.  Credit was given to the tea for inspiring such quality philosophizing.

Back at the trucks we drove out to where the roads converge by a map/sign, and headed a little ways down the road to Nickel Creek to find a campsite.  The light was quickly disappearing as we pitched tents.  The wind picked up some and we heard a loud creaking, leading us to discover a large, dead tree in the stand we had set up beneath.   We did some shifting to make sure it wouldn't hit any of us if it came down in the night.

Dinner was cooked in the dark, and we were pleased to discover that we were again being treated to a warm night.  Despite the cloud cover, the moon's light was very bright, and conducive to another night hike.  I was not sleepy, and Ranger Worthington was game to hike some more.  We put on another couple miles before heading back for some sleep.

Sunrise.

Driving east to start our hike.

A stop on the way for some cool trees.

Yes, there will be many, many images of junipers here.  There are so many, and they are all so fantastic to look at.

Teeny tiny bonsai juniper.

One ranger said "Hey, that might be an Elk on the next ridge!"  I took this photo and zoomed in to discover it's just yet another cow.  This area has been heavily grazed for many decades, and some areas have been heavily impacted.  More on that another time.

The brush encroaches on the road such that driving along is like going through a car wash, except instead of soft brushes cleaning the car, it's bushes and large tree limbs scraping down the sides and across the roof.

It's a good and bumpy road as well.  Roads likes this always lead to the best places to visit.

Rangers E.E. Worthington and C. Steenhoven posing with the gate and sign they put in to mark the wilderness entrance.

A first viewpoint.

Rangers stick together.

Trees, boulders, lichen.  What's not to love?

Closeup of the fantastic abstract shapes and colors.

A shot to try to show the size of these willows.  

Liking the lichen...

Examining the deep, extensive root systems of grasses.

A natural arch.

The creek bed is mostly dry.

Photographer Shari Hart setting up a shot.

Another cool tree.

Love the aspen and rocks along the drainage.

Mosses abound along with the lichen.

Scrambling along, always waiting on the pokey artists who are busy arting with cameras.

A little meadow down below.

There are some really cool hoodoos in this area.

Plenty of dense brush down here.  And no trails save those made by elk and cows.

There were small fish in this creek, a few inches long.

An elk wallow.

A split in the game trail.

Paths like this work fine for cows and elk.  Lots of ducking and bush whacking required for us humans.

See that blue thing?  It's the nemesis of the rangers: a mylar balloon.  They have an extensive collection of mylar balloons that they have picked up out here, they are hung in their storage facility.

Almost a face here.

This cracked me up.  I turned back to see the two wilderness rangers holding up a phone and an ipad.

A rest.

Beginning the steep climb up to the top of the ridge, looking down on two others.

Made it up.  For the most part, the ridges are open and easy walking.

The colors in the aspen!

Closeup of a juniper clinging to the face of the opposite canyon wall.

Ranger E.E. Worthington, celebrating a successful scramble.

One of the neatest rocks.  See the face?

Easier to see the face here.

We found so many puffball mushrooms today!  This one seemed huge until we saw some of the later discoveries.

Puffball closeup.

Lichens and moss.

A thoroughly exploded puffball mushroom.

Checking out yet another juniper.

And we're back out to the old road that leads away from the wilderness.

The drive out to find a new campsite.

One of the many, many fences out here separating grazing areas.  Cattle are a distinct presence in the Owyhees.