Rock Creek Weekend – Occidentalist

Ever been to Rock Creek? I think it’s right next to Deer Creek, right? We originally planned to be up in the high Cascades, but as the weekend approached and inches of rain or snow with wind looked likely we shifted plans to the east and headed to the Ochocos and found a quiet spot to spend the weekend next to Rock Creek. By the time we arrived on Friday night it was getting dark, the moon, Jupiter and Saturn were all scrolling across the sky.

The next morning it started raining just about breakfast time. It’s hard to complain, as we’re in severe drought so we sat back and enjoyed our coffee and listened to the rain on the roof. It quit about noon which gave us plenty of time to venture out on a hike.

Luckily we were walking distance to the nearest trailhead, and down Rock Creek we went.

The trailhead was empty and we had the trail entirely to ourselves for the afternoon. Fall colors adorned the creek, even though most of the larch hadn’t quite made the change yet. It was also nice to see some water in the creek, as most of the creeks on the drive in the night before were bone dry.

We wandered down the trail enjoying the sights until we reached the historic Waterman ditch, built to support gold mining beginning in 1892.

Then it was back up the hill and back to camp to get a slow braise going on some ham shanks in the dutch oven for dinner.

We settled in for a quiet early night, awakened by the occasional shower and the party the coyotes were having in the early morning. Next morning we were up and headed out. We stopped by a few points of interest, the first being the Wolf Mountain Lookout, which was still staffed for the season.

After talking to the lookout for a bit we headed out of the forest by way of Rager. Rager used to be a ranger station and remote Forest Service settlement last I was there. It’s now been decommissioned and most of the buildings are torn down. I guess you can manage the forest from Prineville now, and nobody needs to be out in the field.