The Blues
It’s that time of the year, you may be having the blues. The valley is in an inversion and they don’t want me to burn my wood stove but I love the way it warms everything. This morning I looked out the window to find a fog bank for most of the day and they tell me its going to rain. We sure could use some snow, if we don’t get some soon the crops are going to suffer and there goes the price, going up for the consumer. Christmas has come and gone and the New Year is here. Well enough of that!
I did get to go on a great scouting trip at the end of September. My cousin, brother-in-law and I met on a Friday morning, loaded our gear in the back of our cousins pickup and headed for the Blues, mountains that is. The Blue Mountains located largely in northeast Oregon but stretch into Washington State. Our cousin had drawn a tag for muzzle loader deer and wanted to do some scouting in the Wenaha-Tucannon Wilderness area which is in the Blue Mountains. We headed for Pasco Wa. then on to Hwy. 12 to state route 124 to Waitsberg and Dayton Wa., it was time to get out of the truck for a few minutes, in the middle of town (Dayton) there’s a small park with this old grinding stone. It was a nice place to take a break from the drive.
http://www.fs.usda.gov/Internet/FSE_DOCUMENTS/stelprdb5399914.kml – Google Maps
From here we headed south on the N. Touchet Rd. NF-64, this is the road that goes by the turn off to Ski Bluewood ski resort, and onto Kendall-Skyline Dr. NF-46. We followed NF-46 to NF-300 and turned right on NF-300, our cousin wanted to check this area out for a place to hunt. NF-300 is bordered on both sides of the road by the Wenaha-Tucannon Wilderness area. It’s a dead-end road with a spur near the end. After exploring our way in and out we headed north again on NF-46. I can see why they call it Skyline Dr., when you look to the east and north you have a spectacular view. We were lucky to have great clear skies on our trip and could see along way.
The night before we left we had 60+ mph winds, all the way to Dayton we could see were the trees had been blown down, damaging buildings and power lines, people were out cleaning up the mess all along the way. I had left a mess of branches in the yard at home to come back to, but I wasn’t going to let that make me miss this trip.
Looking north from Teal Springs campground.
Some how I became the navigator, I know I didn’t volunteer, must have been out voted back in Dayton when I was in the restroom. We followed Skyline Dr. onto the north, to NF-4608 it dead ends on the north side of the Wenaha-Tucannon Wilderness. Some where on this road my navigation skills failed us and we ended up back on NF-46 headed north, and we never did see the end of NF-4608. Traveling along Skyline Dr., we got to see one of the biggest most beautiful Blue Grouse sitting just off the side of the road. He was very impressive to all three of us.
Looking into the Tucannon River drainage.
We had driven for some time and it was time to look for a place to camp. After leaving Dayton you enter the Umatilla National Forest, the Wenaha-Tucannon Wilderness is located in this forest. We didn’t know it but we were just about to the north border of the Umatilla National forest when we saw a nice camping spot along the road. It was a primitive site, but we didn’t need to many luxuries, so we made our selves to home for the night, set up our tents and cooking equipment. There are very many nice camp grounds all through the Umatilla National Forest, we found them all to be very easy to navigate with clean restrooms and camping spots. Some of the camp grounds are along the creeks and rivers of the area and are quite nice for family camping. After dinner we all went for a walk heading up the road to the north, I know I wanted to see the next great view of what was to come, this first day,we had traveled from the dry central part of Washington, elevation of 1000′ to an elevation of over 5000′ with spectacular views. We hadn’t walked far when we spotted the Leaving Umatilla National Forest sign.
The next morning we were up and after a breakfast of breakfast burritos(potatoes, onions, peppers, home-made salsa, eggs, sausage and tortillas(the vegetables were from my garden, the eggs and salsa came from my neighbor) pretty cheap breakfast and stays with you for a while, it was time to head to Pomeroy Wa. for gas and a trip down the east side of the Wenaha-Tucannon wilderness. Leaving Pomeroy you want to follow the Peola Rd.#128 south, then Mountain Rd. that turns into NF-40 road(Pomeroy-Grouse Flats Rd.) this is a nice wide gravel road it does get a little wash boarded in places but no problem for cars. When you come to NF-4030 you have Mt. Misery to the west and are on the border of the wilderness area for many miles along the west side of the road NF-40(all the way to Oregon), going south you have a view of the Grand Ronde, Snake River drainage, and on into Idaho to the east. At this point you should have a vehicle with 4 wheel drive that has some clearance under it, NF-40 becomes NF-4039 after a few miles it becomes a narrow, steep, rough road, with turn outs to pass oncoming vehicles, always keep an eye ahead if you can, it was pretty hard to take your eyes away from the views. NF-246 goes to the right, we followed it to the end, there was camp sites with picnic tables and by now those burritos had worn off. At this point you are only a few miles from the Washington-Oregon border. My brother-in-law had brought along some freeze-dried meals with heaters, came in real handy and they were pretty tasty(watch out these became very hot! found that out when the boxes you heat them in started blowing up). Instead of retracing our tracks all the way back we checked the map and took an alternate route that bypassed a lot of NF-4039 the roughest part anyway and came back to NF-40 headed back to Mt. Misery, the terrain changes from turn to turn and the views can not be described. I hope you have clear skies if you visit this area you can see far into Idaho and Oregon. This really made me feel small.
Made it back to Mt. Misery, I can under stand why they call it that. It was a little cool even in the mid-after noon with the sun shining. It must be miserable in the wind, rain and snowy times there’s not much protection from the elements. From here we continued on north up NF-40 to NF-330. At the end of NF-330 you come to Teal Springs campground and the last two camping sites are at an elevation of 6100′. They have a south exposure and you can walk to the south out on a big bald knob, you can look down into the Tucannon river drainage, and look across the drainage to the south is the north side of the Wenaha-Tucannon Wilderness and Mt. Misery, to the west and northwest you can see for many miles, it’s quite the view. There are nice clean restrooms and gravel sites for RVs. We had to stay the night. The second to last site is dirt with a fire ring and picnic table with a short walk to the clear knob. We where hoping for clear skies and no wind, you are exposed to some of the elements at this site. After a dinner of BBQ steak, fried potatoes and corn on the cob it was time for a campfire, we got lucky they had just lifted the ban on campfires. Campfire is built and it’s time for dessert, strawberry short cakes, sure glad our cousin came up with those, really hit the spot while sitting around the fire. It turned out we had mostly clear skies when it got dark and the stars where shining bright in the cool night sky, what a view of the Milky Way, it was great! After seeing a couple of satellites it was time 
for bed.
Sunday morning and its time to head home but not before a breakfast of pancakes, eggs and some leftover steak.
On the way north we drove out NF-200 looking for a hunting spot for early archery, this road takes you out on the ridge line above the Tucannon river, this is a good view to the west. We stopped to check out a camping spot and as soon as my brother-in-law stepped away for the truck he was back saying he just saw something brown move out in the woods. He wanted his bear spray. There are a lot of bears in the Blue Mountains so be prepared. We still had a little time to kill so I grabbed my bow and went for a walk out of the camp site down an old logging road, just about at the end of the road I see movement in the trees to my left. I’m in a good spot with small trees between me and the movement, it’s a young buck deer and he is watching my brother-in-law walk down the road, it doesn’t move the whole time he walks the road. I’m watching the deer all along and the next thing I know my brother-in-law is standing beside me, startled me when I realized he was alongside me, I had been trying to see how many points the buck had, if he would just take another step out from behind the tree he was trying to hide behind. I decided to just keep an eye on him and walk on down the road, its amazing how fast that deer disappeared. Well maybe we can cut him off if he tries to cross the road between us and the truck. About halfway back I see a deer only this one is a big doe, my brother-in-law got to see her too, but no more bucks. That was a cool way to end our scouting trip to the Blue mountains.
I think we all had a great time spending the weekend together. I know it will be a time I will never forget!
This part of the State of Washington is a place everyone should see even for just a short visit.
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