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.
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.
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.
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.
It's a rattlesnake, which I saw crossing the road in front of me one day last spring, and so I jumped out of my truck and immediately started taking photos as fast as I could. You can use the tire tracks in the photo for a crude scale, because I didn't have time - or the desire - to try to put my rock hammer next to the snake. I had to hurry with the photos: not only was the snake intent on crossing the road, as soon as I appeared on the scene, it became intent on getting away from me! It's kind of small for a rattler, I think. It is most likely the western diamondback, though I don't know the many different species of rattlers very well
Here's the snake again, finally having made it to the side of the road, where it can now breathe a sigh of relief and disappear into the rocks and bushes.
Here, you can count the rattles on the end of the tail (which is, of course, where the rattles belong). I count 7, including the little tip. Folk lore would have it that the number of rattles are supposed to roughly equal the numbers of years a rattlesnake has been around, but a snake can shed it's skin more than once per year, which is when they grow a new rattle. So counting doesn't say much about the age of the snake.
