3rd Annual Badger Creek Wilderness - March 27-29, 2009

hambone · Post by **hambone** » Sun Mar 22, 2009 5:12 pm

Nope just dropping off Chitown at his new bus! (long story, you'll get it in person)
I'd be campin RIGHT NOW if I didn't have to milk the cows.
Summer is coming...

vistacruzer · Post by **vistacruzer** » Sun Mar 22, 2009 6:08 pm

oh your a teats man

Emily's Owner · Post by **Emily's Owner** » Sun Mar 22, 2009 6:20 pm

We may be leaving Friday morning instead........

vistacruzer · Post by **vistacruzer** » Sun Mar 22, 2009 6:32 pm

good thing there is a tavern 12 miles from camp

Bookwus · Post by **Bookwus** » Mon Mar 23, 2009 7:06 am

Hiya All,

Just a quick note to let you know that my status for the weekend has been downgraded to "Tentative". I believe that I mentioned that this Thursday is my wife's birthday. Well, in the past week she has developed quite a limp; a very sore and painful right knee. Doctor says it looks like arthritis.

I had a semi-guilty conscience about taking so soon after her birthday, but now with the knee situation....... I can't leave her here on her own. But, on the other hand, this may clear up. The doc put her on a drug and that helped some over the weekend, so we'll see how she comes along.

hambone · Post by **hambone** » Mon Mar 23, 2009 7:13 am

Crap! Well do what ya gotta do.

Bookwus · Post by **Bookwus** » Mon Mar 23, 2009 7:18 am

Hiya Bob,

Yep.

I'm keeping my fingers crossed for a speedy recovery. She's really been pretty gimpy at times - quite a bit of discomfort and pain. It's been hard for her to sleep and that made her cranky to boot. At least the drugs have helped with that aspect.

Anyway she does seem to be getting a bit better...........so I just might be there.

hambone · Post by **hambone** » Mon Mar 23, 2009 8:29 am

http://thegrich.blogspot.com/2008/09/ba ... rness.html
http://www.geocities.com/rainforest/jun ... point.html

vistacruzer · Post by **vistacruzer** » Mon Mar 23, 2009 11:04 am

Thanks Hambone nice links more candy..

hambone · Post by **hambone** » Tue Mar 24, 2009 10:41 am

http://www.gather.com/viewArticle.jsp?g ... 4977104185

http://www.dfw.state.or.us/resources/vi ... e_area.asp

Weather still looking pretty good:

Thursday: Partly sunny, with a high near 50. Calm wind becoming east around 6 mph.
Thursday Night: Mostly cloudy, with a low around 27.

Friday: Partly sunny, with a high near 53.
Friday Night: Mostly cloudy, with a low around 30.

Saturday: A slight chance of rain showers. Mostly cloudy, with a high near 54.
Saturday Night: A slight chance of rain and snow showers. Snow level 2400 feet. Mostly cloudy, with a low around 30.

Sunday: A slight chance of rain showers. Mostly cloudy, with a high near 54.

Central Oregon has its wildlife wonders
by The Associated Press Saturday March 01, 2008, 2:41 PM
The Oregonian/2007

Bird-watching opportunities extend south through central Oregon to the Klamath Marsh National Wildlife Refuge, where members of the conservation group Oregon Wild enjoy the view during an outing last November.
By Chester Allen
The (Olympia) Olympian

I've spent a lot of time driving the beautiful country from The Dalles to Maupin in 22 years of fishing trips to the lower Deschutes River. But I've never spent much time exploring the rolling, creek-laced landscape of sagebrush, ponderosa pine, oak trees, juniper and millions and millions of rocks.

What a mistake that was.

The country, like most of central Oregon, looks arid and hardscrabble from the road. But a closer look shows a land rich in wildlife and beauty.

The land toward the tiny ranching town of Wamic is wrinkled and buckled in every direction. The White River, which flows directly off Mount Hood's glacial slopes, boils through craggy canyons.
A few ranches and the odd fruit orchard soften the land and provide extra food for local deer and elk.

I was eager to find local birds for the Audubon Society's Backyard Bird Count, which allows anyone to count birds anywhere, but a good friend took me to the nearby White River Wildlife Area, which is a big chunk of beautiful land.

Josh Moulton of the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife manages the land and lives on it, too. Moulton was nice enough to take some time on a Saturday afternoon and talk about this special place.

Thousands of deer and elk migrate from the snowy high country of Mount Hood to winter on the land, and it also has a good population of wild turkeys, Moulton said.

Deer and elk need lower-elevation land during the winter, as the snow piles up in the high country and makes finding food impossible. A lot of people come to the area this time of year to collect the antlers that buck deer and bull elk shed toward the end of winter, Moulton said.

I never knew so many people collected shed antlers, but Moulton said it's a big deal.

"If it's a hard winter, we'll close down parts of the area to shed hunters, as we don't want to stress the animals," Moulton said.

The thermometer read 47 degrees, but it was a shirtsleeve-warm day if you stood in the sun. It was time to count birds. I'll visit the White River Wildlife Area again soon.

We jitterbugged all over that big country, and flocks of robins fluttered along the roadsides in little bursts of wings and flashes of orange bellies.

I counted a lot of Canada geese feeding on the new, electric-green grass in fields and rafting up in little ponds. I also saw a few cackling geese, which look like smaller Canada geese but have a stumpier bill.

It's fun to hike new country, but sitting in one spot for a few minutes, say on a sun-warmed rock, sometimes results in more birds.

We found some friendly rocks near a tiny creek -- one this small is always called a "crick" in this part of the world -- that trickled through big rocks and under a mixed forest of orange-barked ponderosa pine and leafless oak trees.

I was almost dozing off when a bigger bird landed on the trunk of a dead oak tree.

I had never seen a woodpecker with a pink belly before, and I snapped a few out-of-focus shots -- yes, my hands were shaking a little bit -- before it flapped off down the creek.

I dug out my National Geographic "Complete Birds of North America," and found that I've now seen my first Lewis's woodpecker. These birds, which are rare on the west side of the Cascades because so much of the oak woods have been cut, look almost tropical in weak winter sunlight.

These woodpeckers are a glossy, iridescent black on the head, back and wings, but their faces are blood red, and they have a gray breast and gaudy pink belly.

Wow.

Here's my full bird count for Wamic:

• 120 or so Canada geese
• Seven cackling geese
• 40 robins
• Six juncos
• Nine house sparrows
• 17 crows clustered in a field
• Two drake pintail ducks
• Five Gadwall ducks.
• One Lewis's woodpecker

A lot of people say a trip to Oregon's high desert is a great way to get out of the rain, but it's also fascinating country that tempts you to keep walking and stopping and looking.

For more information on the White River Wildlife Area, call 541-544-2126 or go to www.dfw.state.or.us.

Bookwus · Post by **Bookwus** » Tue Mar 24, 2009 5:58 pm

Hiya All,

Looks as though I am officially out of the picture for this weekend. Interestingly my wife's knee continues to improve. Apparently just a touch of osteo-arthritis and the drugs seem to be doing a pretty good job with her.

The conflict has to do with her birthday celebration. My daughter and mother-in-law got together and decided that we should do the party on Saturday night so that relatives down in the valley would be able to make it.

So.......I'm kaput. I'll be thinking of you guys and wishing I were there this weekend. Have a good time and take plenty of pictures so I can feel really bad about missing it.

ps.......Ya had to post that piece on birdwatching, didn't ya Bob? Geez, I really like to go birding and I've never seen a Lewis's Woodpecker.

spiffy · Post by **spiffy** » Tue Mar 24, 2009 6:18 pm

My middle name is Lewis. wink wink

vistacruzer · Post by **vistacruzer** » Tue Mar 24, 2009 6:28 pm

I will see you all at the camp, do not know when ... hambone your motor is a work of art great job

chitwnvw · Post by **chitwnvw** » Tue Mar 24, 2009 8:26 pm

Hammie's motor sounds like sewing machine, and the engine bay is pure porn!

tristessa · Post by **tristessa** » Tue Mar 24, 2009 10:28 pm

chitwnvw wrote:and the engine bay is pure porn!

Yeah, but I'm still waiting for the "money shot" picture...

Itinerant Air-Cooled

Itinerant Air-Cooled

3rd Annual Badger Creek Wilderness - March 27-29, 2009