Dredging for Gold and Farewell Bend

Riley is getting really miffed about these early mornings. He is all about sleeping in, a leisurely wake up, maybe a brief potty stroll, and breakfast around 9:30ish. When we want to be on the road by 9am, it really messes with his morning. It was, however, the best way to score a good campsite at Clyde Holliday State Park near John Day, OR. Which we did (Yay!), arriving just after lunch on Thursday, 6/17. On the drive here we saw some cool geological features, we’re not too far from parts of the John Day Fossil Beds National Monument which we visited in 2018.

 

Interesting colors and formations along the route.

Our spot is backed up to the John Day River again. Although it’s much smaller here and I do believe I could step across it in a few spots. No worries though, Riley only uses the first couple feet anyway. What he is really loving are the sprinklers! This is another Oregon park that waters the heck out of its grass and it seems there are always sprinklers on somewhere. He may be developing webbed toes but his oral hygiene is great. Lol.

Riley demonstrates his version of the Waterpik. Lol. 

 

We used the unoccupied hiker/biker camping area for play time. 

The temps topped 90° during our stay so we are happy for hook-ups, and left Riley in air-conditioned splendor while we drove the 63 miles to the Sumpter Valley Dredge State Heritage Site. Huh? The story goes like this… gold was discovered in the mountains near Sumpter Valley in 1862. The “rush” died out by the early 1900’s and all that remained were tiny flakes buried in the riverbeds. Panning by hand was too time consuming and too costly. Cue the dredge. Originally used to deepen waterways, they proved well-suited for large scale (and I do mean large scale!) gold mining. Three dredges were built in Sumpter Valley from 1912-1935. The last ceased operation and was abandoned in 1954. That one has been preserved and it is fascinating!

 

Sumpter Valley Gold Dredge

Rog checks out the bucket mechanism.

Much of the original machinery is intact. The dredge used a long row of front buckets to scoop and dump soil and rocks into the heart of the dredge which acted like a giant washing machine. There the material passed through a series of sorting mechanisms with the larger debris shooting out the rear of the dredge to create large tailing piles. We really enjoyed the information boards that described the process in detail. Once a week the Dredge Master would clean the wooden riffles, using mercury to separate the gold flakes from the sandy slurry. Cool stuff!

Different views of the exterior bucket chain.

 

Pulleys and Levers and Chains, Oh My. 

The inner workings of the dredge were fascinating.

The dredge floated in about 9 feet of water and made its own channel cutting perpendicularly into the riverbank then pivoting and coming back. Rog likened it to a giant chainsaw cutting through the ground. It unearthed more than 4 million dollars’ worth of gold over the years, but the mining operation devastated the river valley and its path, lined by huge tailing piles, is still clearly visible today.

 

A birds-eye view of the mining operation. Wow.
(Compliments of Google Maps)

On Saturday we skipped breakfast and headed for the Farmer's Market in the town of John Day… as it turned out, all four stalls. Lol. We snagged some homemade jam and a little produce, but there wasn’t a single baked good to be found. Totally bummed we decided to check out the 1811 Brewery and Bakery on Main Street. Wow, did that turn out to be a great idea! The food was great, but I was really intrigued by the beverage list. Hmmmm… Huckleberry infused vodka with strawberry puree and lemonade garnished with fresh blueberries and basil. Oh my. Doesn’t that sound like the breakfast of champions?! I’ve never in my life had a 9AM cocktail. Guess it was about time! Rog opted for the Breakfast Coffee Porter. Also yummy. Cheers!

A breakfast cocktail? YOLO! Cheers!

Another perk of Clyde Holliday is fairly good cell service. After having absolutely no connectivity at Cottonwood Canyon we were looking forward to getting caught up on email and doing some trip planning. Murphy intruded when Verizon helpfully used the last scraps of our data plan to inform us on June 17^th that we were out of data and on “safety mode”, which means they throttle the life out of us until our plan rolls over at midnight on July 19^th. Sigh. Sunday we spent three long hours with excruciatingly S-L-O-W internet revising our route. Why the change in plans? We got a text from Rog’s friend and former co-worker, Faith, that she was staying at their property in Rexford, MT and we were welcome to drop by. Careful what you wish for! We revised our route, ditching a few places and adding some new ones so we could spend a couple of days at Faith’s. We’re super tickled to see her and husband, Jim, and also to spend more time in the Sawtooth Mountains on the way there. Exploring new territory is always fun.

Our next stop was already on the itinerary, Farewell Bend State Park near Huntington, OR. We had reservations, so lucky for Riley no early morning start! Farewell Bend is on the Brownlee Reservoir, an impoundment of the Snake River. It’s the point on the Oregon Trail where emigrants, after following the Snake River for over 300 miles, bid Farewell to the Snake and took off overland toward the Columbia River.

 

Old Conestoga Wagons mark the entrance to the park.

We arrived on Sunday, 6/20 after a windy drive through a whole lot of nothing. All I have to say is those early settlers were a hardy bunch, it’s pretty desolate country around here.  The area doesn’t offer much interest for hiking so the primary attraction for us was kayaking on the reservoir. We had planned to take Riley along for another float, but the temps had gotten uncomfortably warm – high 90’s is too hot for our fur-clad boy. We figured he wouldn’t have much fun being broiled on the water when he’d rather be in it! As it turned out we did an early morning kayak and found enough shade along the banks that he’d have been fine.

Brownlee Reservoir on the Snake River. 

Views from the water. I thought the sand dunes across the river were interesting!

Still a whole lotta nothing out there. 

More greenery on the water than on the hills. Lol. 

Our plans for a second float on Tuesday were canned when a line of nearby thunderstorms kicked up the wind. Instead, we took Riley to the park’s large off-leash dog area and gave him some ball time. The sprinklers were going and he REALLY wanted to play in those, but several days of staying damp in the heat at Clyde Holliday have resulted in a couple hot spots. We’d been keeping a close eye out for hot spots on the top of his head, but these popped up on both sides of his face. Arrrgh! Most likely munching those sprinklers was a significant contributing factor. If you recall he had a bad outbreak on a trip in 2018 and we want to avoid a repeat of “hamburger head” and a run to the emergency vet.

He'd rather play in the sprinklers but I guess this will do. 

From here we head to Bull Trout Lake in Idaho for two days. We’re hoping the weather cooperates and we get to spend some more time on the water.