Oregon Trip Day 3: Hoodoos, a Snake, more Rhyolite, and Another Brewery

Continuing on toward central Oregon [this leg of the journey goes from Jarbidge, Nevada, to Baker City, Oregon, through the Snake River Plain], we awoke early in Jarbidge (NOT!), and took our leave of the town. Before leaving, though, we got a tour of the Red Dog Saloon, which is only open in winter.
Bar and cafe operations in Jarbidge, NV, are divided between the Outdoor Inn in summer and the Red Dog Saloon in winter. The reason for switching from one venue to the other is that the Red Dog is smaller and is therefore easier to heat during the cold, snowy winter months.

Here are a few other Red Dogs I've been to: Red Dog Saloon, Juneau, AK; Red Dog Saloon, Virginia City, NV; Red Dog Depot, Redmond, OR; and it seems like I'm missing one somewhere.

UPDATE 8Dec2013: Finally found the other Red Dog Saloon I've been to, located as always in Needles, CA. And here's one I've not visited.
Besides a few scattered Mormon crickets — which for some unknown reason were located mostly on the Idaho side of the road from Jarbidge to the Jarbidge Forks — we came across this rattlesnake hiding in the shade, looking to get run over. We promptly swerved while skidding to a halt.
I shot a few pictures of the snake coiling and poised to strike, but most of them came out blurry. The reason it was taking such a striking attitude? MOH was pushing it off the road with a stick, so it might not get run over or shot by anyone.
It finally did make it into the rocks by the roadside; we figured it might just come back out onto the nice, flat road where it would be in danger again, but don't know what went down after we left.
These are steep, roadside cliffs in the Cougar Point Tuff about half way between Jarbidge and the Jarbidge Forks (cliff location Google Maps), still south of the Idaho border in Nevada.

Photo: Cliff in the rhyolitic Cougar Point Tuff.

You can read a little about the Cougar Point Tuff here (Bonnichsen, 1991), and also in the my Day 2 trip report, where I show a couple close-up photos.
We had a hard time getting through this part of the canyon. Hoodoos kept popping up, especially above (and also below) a relatively thin and crudely columnar-jointed unit in the Cougar Point Tuff. We pulled into this pullout and to take pictures of these hoodoos...
...hoodoos that include this natural arch.

Photo: The Jarbidge Forks.

We finally made it, slowly but surely, to the Jarbidge Forks, which is in Idaho. The East Fork of the Jarbidge River, center and foreground of the photo, comes into the Jarbidge River, left part of the photo, and they both continue downstream to the right (north) as the Jarbidge River. We had been driving downstream along the Jarbidge River; now, for a relatively short distance, we would follow the East Fork upstream to Murphy's Hot Springs.

Photo: Some wild jointing and fracturing in the Dorsey Creek Rhyolite.

This is the Dorsey Creek Rhyolite at the Jarbidge Forks. It falls into the voluminous silicic lava flow category and erupted about 8 million years ago from sources within the Bruneau-Jarbidge eruptive center, which was centered downstream (north) of this Jarbidge Forks location. According to Bonnichsen, 1991, the Dorsey Creek Rhyolite is more than 650 feet thick in Jarbidge Canyon.
In this photo, also taken from the Jarbidge Forks, you can see some nice flow folding in the Dorsey Creek Rhyolite. Some of the flow foliation or folding in this large-volume rhyolite flow is similar to compaction or flow foliation present in densely welded to rheomorphic parts of the Cougar Point Tuff (photos in the Day 2 trip report). Distinguishing large-volume rhyolite flows from rheomorphic tuffs can be difficult.
While driving through Murphy's Hot Springs, ID, we spotted this marmot, likely to be a yellow-bellied marmot, Marmota flaviventris, according to this distribution map.
And then we took the grade out of the canyon of the East Fork of the Jarbidge River, getting a nice view of the canyon with the Jarbidge Mountains in the background. That's all Cougar Point Tuff in the canyon walls (Bonnichsen, 1991).
The rest of our trip on the third day was fairly uneventful saving one more crossing of Salmon Falls Creek at across the one-lane Salmon Falls Dam...
...and a nice view of the Thousand Springs area near Wendell, Idaho, just before we crossed the Snake River on old Highway 30 (MSRMaps).

According to this sign, a lava flow — or more than one? — changed the "geologic structure" of the area, resulting in formation of the many springs.

"Over thousands of years, volcanic activity repeatedly spread lava over the Snake River Plain, slowly forcing the river southward in a great curve. Successive channels of the river and its tributaries were filled with spongy lava, and became both reservoirs and underground conduits, gathering water from far to the northeast. Torrents from one or more of these buried channels burst forth on the opposite canyon wall."

I can't vouch for this description, but it sounds plausible, if somewhat general.
Many hours passed as we drove west to northwest on I-84; we finally came to Baker City, Oregon, and settled into a motel. We then immediately walked over to Barley Brown's Brew Pub. We both had the WFO IPA (Wide *Freaking* Open) and had a taste of the Hot Blonde, which is brewed with jalapeño peppers and went well with the south-of-the-border–style Ceasar salad I had. Highly recommened! Their beers as of more than a year ago.

Trip report to be continued...

Some References:
Bonnichsen, Bill, 1982, The Bruneau-Jarbidge Eruptive Center, Southwestern Idaho, in Bill Bonnichsen, and Roy M. Breckenridge, eds, Cenozoic Geology of Idaho: Idaho Geological Survey Bulletin B-26. p. 237-254.

Bonnichsen, Bill, 1991, Geology of Scenic Jarbidge Canyon Near Murphy Hot Springs, Idaho: Idaho Geological Survey, GeoNote 16, 2 pp.

Bonnichsen, Bill and Jenks, M.D., 1990, Geologic map of the Jarbidge River Wilderness Study Area, Owyhee County, Idaho: U.S. Geological Survey, Map MF-2127, scale 1:50000.

Cathey, Henrietta E, and Nash, Barbara P., 2004, The Cougar Point Tuff: Implications for Thermochemical Zonation and Longevity of High-Temperature, Large-Volume Silicic Magmas of the Miocene Yellowstone Hotspot: Journal of Petrology, v. 45, no. 1, p. 27-58.

Henry, C. D., and Wolff, J. A., 1992, Distinguishing strongly rheomorphic tuffs from extensive silicic lavas: Bulletin of Volcanology, v. 54, no. 3, p. 171-186 (links to abstract).

Starkel, W. A., Bonnichsen, B., Godchaux, M., Boroughs, S., and Wolff, J., 2006,
Far-Travelled High-Grade Ignimbrites or Widespread Generation of Low-d18O Magma? The Problem of the West Bennett Hills, Snake River Plain, ID: American Geophysical Union, Fall Meeting 2006, abstract #V51D-1704.

Travel Day 4, Part #2 and Day 5: Northeastern Oregon

After leaving Multnomah Falls, I tootled eastward along I-84, minding my own business for about four hours, until I came upon a sight that made me realize I was coming in to the north country. Never mind that I was, by then, heading southeast. Traveling west to east along the Columbia River doesn't make me think "north" - though coming to the river from the south might indeed make me think that. The yellow-green to yellow-orange trees I saw on the hillside made me think north, and they always do. These trees are conifers, commonly known as western larch (Larix occidentalis), sometimes called deciduous because they lose their needles every year. They are like little flames on the hillsides in the fall, when their needles turn yellow-green, then yellow, and then orange.
After a long drive across paved roads leading to graveled roads leading finally - after dark - to a rocky "rough dirt track," I came to the home of Liz Enslin, who lives in a yurt and blogs at Yips and Howls. [Photo taken inside the guest teepee.]
I was treated to great hospitality by Liz and her partner Jerry. The hospitality included a salad from homegrown vegetables and a great local beer: Terminal Gravity IPA brewed by the Terminal Gravity Brewery in Enterprise, Oregon . After enjoying bloggish conversation, I was escorted to the guest teepee.
In the morning, I awoke to this great view of the canyonlands of northeastern Oregon.
This is the teepee that was my overnight home. I was told by my hosts, after morning coffee, that the holes in the teepee canvas were put there by the slashing claws of a black bear. I didn't hear anything terribly suspicious in the dark of the night, but did hear coyotes in the early morning.

The yurt, as seen from the teepee. More about yurt living at Yips and Howls.
The countryside is underlain by basalt flows, like these barely seen under cloudy skies. These flows are part of the same Grand Ronde Basalt (CRBG) that we saw at Multnomah Falls.
Flows of the Grand Ronde Basalt are well exposed in Joseph Canyon at the Joseph Canyon Viewpoint on Highway 3. The basalt flows erupted from long fissure vents in this part of northeast Oregon and in southeast Washington; the resulting dike system is sometimes known as the Chief Joseph Dike Swarm. I took a few pictures in the pouring rain, did not see any dikes, and moved on.
Yes, the larch were turning yellow!
I first saw larch in west-central Idaho, probably not much farther north than these trees are located.
It was spring, and the new feathery needles were on the trees. I was amazed to "discover" such an unusual tree, and I'm still amazed every time I see them. Larches remind me of that first trip north of Boise a long time ago, and they remind me of every trip I've taken on the Alcan since then.

Some Links:
Liz Enslin has more about larch, as part of her Species of the Week series.

General Overview of the Columbia River Basalt Province (with photo of a dike in the Chief Joseph dike swarm).

Photo Tour of the Columbia River Basalt Province (with photos of the Grand Ronde Basalt and some cross-cutting dikes).

Travel Day Four, Part #1: Multnomah Falls

When I left the GSA meeting in Portland, I decided to take a different route back, one that would normally be shorter, except for several sidetrips that I took. After figuring out how to get away from downtown Portland despite faulty Google Maps directions, I immediately headed east on I-84, which goes up the Columbia River. My first goal: stop at Multnomah Falls (Google Maps location), one of my favorite places. To that end, I got off the freeway and took the old road, the Historic Columbia River Highway, which goes by several falls.
The first view of the falls, from the parking lot area, made it seem as though it was coming out of the low-hanging clouds. Would I be able to see the entire falls?
The upper and lower Multnomah Falls, and the footbridge, from a little ways in. The bridge - Benson Bridge - was built in 1914 by Simon Benson, an early emmigrant to Oregon.
Multnomah Falls - the second highest year-round waterfall in the U.S. - flows over part of the Columbia River Basalt Group (CRBG), specifically five flows of the Grande Ronde Basalt, which is the lower part of the Yakima Subgroup of the CRBG (Mangan et al, 1986). Many of the online links I found say that six flows are exposed in the cliff face of the falls; from what I can tell from an original source, six flows of the Grande Ronde Basalt are exposed from the Columbia River to the top of the falls, with pillow lavas being at or just below the very top of the upper falls (Norman and Roloff. 2004). Norman and Roloff's strat section makes it look like there are five flows in the cliff faces of the uppper and lower Multnomah Falls. Anyway, check out their drawing and see what you think!
These are the lower falls, with Benson Bridge above and the upper falls above and behind the bridge.
It's a moderately easy hike on this trail, through wonderful rainforest - see the ferns! - to the bridge.
At the bridge, this sign tells part of the story of a huge rock that came off the face behind the upper falls in 1995. The rest of the story is told here. The huge rock mass that fell off the cliff shattered when it hit the upper plunge pool, resulting in minor injuries to some people on the bridge. When I was there in late 2000, five years after the rockfall, the falls didn't look the way I remembered - from visits decades earlier and from photographs.
The entire upper falls. Can you tell where the rock fall came from? (It's shown on the sign.)
Well, I'm thinking that the rock fell from the large diagonal fracture area just above the curvilinear, nearly horizontal fracture cutting across the entire lower part of the photo. I base this conclusion partly from memory, and partly from a July, 1995, photo on Wikimedia that shows a rock mass instead of a diagonally fractured area. Also, compare the full resolution version of the Wikimedia photo to Ron Schott's gigapan of Multnomah Falls, from August 6, 2009.
And one more thing before we look higher: the rock in the center foreground of this photo is not "the" rock that fell in 1995. For one thing, it's not large enough to be the bus-sized rock. For another thing, the mass that fell shattered into pieces upon hitting the ground. And besides that, this rock is present in old photos including the Wikimedia photo of July, 1995.
This tan area near the top of the falls shows some interesting radiating to irregular columnar jointing in the basalt, just below some of the pillow lavas, which can be seen in the upper part of this photo (enlarge to see the pillows).
And finally, here is a close-up view of the uppermost part of the upper falls, which was almost hidden in the low-hanging clouds. I've walked the trail to the top - once, I think - back in 1993. I highly recommend the trail just for the immersion into the rain forest. And there's a great view looking straight down the falls.
Ooh, neat water near the bottom of the upper falls!
Another shot of the wonderful rainforest, this time on the way back toward the parking lot. Anyone who visits Multnomah Falls should consider eating in the historic Multnomah Falls Lodge, which was built in 1925. This time, I just stopped at an outdoor coffee and snack stand and got a hot chai tea to go.


Some References:
Mangan, M.T., Wright, T.L., Swanson, D.A., and Byerly, G.R., 1986, Regional correlation of Grande Ronde Basalt flows, Columbia River Basalt Group, Washington, Oregon, and Idaho: Geol. Soc. America Bulletin, v. 97, p. 1300-1318. [also see this Geoscience World link]


Norman, D.K., and Roloff, J.M., 2004, A Self-Guided Tour of the Geology of the Columbia River Gorge—Portland Airport to Skamania Lodge, Stevenson, Washington: Washington Division of Geology and Earth Resources, Open File Report 2004-7.


UPDATE 4Jun2010: For a view of the basaltic rock types at Multnomah Falls see this post at Geology Blues.