Flight to Steen's upper slopes.

Today I made a "day break" start to check for possible Elk hunting spots this fall on the lower slopes of the Steen's Mt. The terrain there runs from 8500 to 5000 feet. While on the South end the escarpment juts up out of the desert floor from about 4000 feet to 10,000 feet very nearly vertically, and on the North end of the escarpment, slopes gradually from 4,000 to 10,000 feet South of Burns Oregon in the area of the Malheur Refuge.

We have had a really unusual and wet June. There is more water on the desert than many of the residents here, have ever seen. It really has made the spring branding very difficult as the stock is all scattered all over the hills, and even horses could not negotiate the saturated earth.

The water that you see in the picture below is in the Mickey Basin, and rarely holds anywhere near that much water.

The top of the plateau is covered with Sage, Juniper and Aspen, and supplies very rich forage for both game animals and livestock. Deer and Antelope were evident, but no Elk were sighted. I stayed up quite high, so it would be very easy to miss them.

Looking West towards the Alvord. Mann Lake is in the foreground.

Although I didn't take any pictures of the future sites, there is a new road that has been punched in the hillside to allow access to a soon to be "Wind Farm" on the South facing ridge. The rest of the roads were "two track" of what appeared and I sure will prove to be very rough road. I was very surprised to find three "line Shacks" located on the top of the slope.

I crossed Kiger Gorge a bit lower than its beginning, which is at 10,000 feet, but even so it is quite lovely.

On leaving the area I crossed over the ridge towards the Alvord, noting the water coming off the ridge, and on down to the Alvord itself, then turned towards home.

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Upon touchdown found that I had consumed 6.5 gallons of gas, covering 115 miles in 2.1 hours of flight. Of course this fuel burn is not accurate, since I seem to have a habit of forgetting to flip off the choke after it is warmed up. Doesn't hurt it, just burns more fuel. :-/ My highest altitude was 9000 feet, with an outside air temp. of 65 degrees.