Day 5, The Refuge... that isn't
We drove the entirety of the Malheur Wildlife Refuge today. All of the lakes were dry and there were very few birds to be seen, an old man explained this to us later. However, we did see Ibis for the first time. We had NO idea these lived around here, I always thought they were Egyptian. But here they are in their glossy, multi-colored, curved beak glory and in large numbers. It was spectacular. That was about it for the northern part.
We circled Diamond Craters and stopped off at the historic round barn where we talked to a member of an old homestead family that was running the massive gift shop. The Jenkins Family bought their farm from the Peter French company after he got shot over a land dispute with a neighboring rancher. We spoke to that man's grandson. Once he got talking he did a great job of explaining their point of view and how much the refuge has changed with the uncontrolled invasive species and lack of control. Ravens kill Eagles?!? Craap I guess all of the migrating birds go to the surrounding irrigated fields and only 1/10 of the fowl still stop of at the refuge... just sad.
When we made it back down to Frenchglen and drove the lower portion of the refuge which is on the lower slopes of Steens Mountain we did see a few other nice birds and various critters but nothing as awesome as the Ibis. At the Peter French long barn we did see a shy Flicker and a couple young Kestrels, then we got barraged by mosquitoes and ran for the car.
That night we stayed at the Frenchglen Hotel est. 1916, it is a state historic site and well worth the stop. John, the proprietor was absolutely amasing with his wealth of knowledge about the area and the family style dinner and breakfast was really good. The bed was comfy and since we ended up in room 1 we had a view of the mountain from our window. The history of the hotel is fascinating. While we were there participants (victims is more like it) of the Mazama 1000 bike race were stopping in at the hotel after leaving Portland 2 days before. These guys had ridden over 200 miles just that day, had already done the 40 gravel mile circle of the Steens summit and were heading to Crater lake the next day. They all looked like death warmed over. THAT is crazy! We were planning on spending the next night up on the summit of Steens in our car again so we could watch the sun rise over the Alvord desert. However, it snowed on the upper part of the mountain significantly overnight and we decided it would be too cold and treacherous. So once again flexed our plans for the next day.
We circled Diamond Craters and stopped off at the historic round barn where we talked to a member of an old homestead family that was running the massive gift shop. The Jenkins Family bought their farm from the Peter French company after he got shot over a land dispute with a neighboring rancher. We spoke to that man's grandson. Once he got talking he did a great job of explaining their point of view and how much the refuge has changed with the uncontrolled invasive species and lack of control. Ravens kill Eagles?!? Craap I guess all of the migrating birds go to the surrounding irrigated fields and only 1/10 of the fowl still stop of at the refuge... just sad.
When we made it back down to Frenchglen and drove the lower portion of the refuge which is on the lower slopes of Steens Mountain we did see a few other nice birds and various critters but nothing as awesome as the Ibis. At the Peter French long barn we did see a shy Flicker and a couple young Kestrels, then we got barraged by mosquitoes and ran for the car.
That night we stayed at the Frenchglen Hotel est. 1916, it is a state historic site and well worth the stop. John, the proprietor was absolutely amasing with his wealth of knowledge about the area and the family style dinner and breakfast was really good. The bed was comfy and since we ended up in room 1 we had a view of the mountain from our window. The history of the hotel is fascinating. While we were there participants (victims is more like it) of the Mazama 1000 bike race were stopping in at the hotel after leaving Portland 2 days before. These guys had ridden over 200 miles just that day, had already done the 40 gravel mile circle of the Steens summit and were heading to Crater lake the next day. They all looked like death warmed over. THAT is crazy! We were planning on spending the next night up on the summit of Steens in our car again so we could watch the sun rise over the Alvord desert. However, it snowed on the upper part of the mountain significantly overnight and we decided it would be too cold and treacherous. So once again flexed our plans for the next day.