Steelhead Falls

Sometimes it’s best not to fanatically cleave to your plans come hell or high water.

Especially high water.

Turning back can be tricky, especially when you’re psychically invested in a scheme that involves a hike along a big, boulder-strewn river, a deep High Desert canyon and enough wildlife to keep you craning this way and that for the duration of your particular adventure. Especially when you’ve been cooped up far too long.

But the weather was abominable. So, amid the driving rain, lashing sleet and road lakes that could swallow a Mini Cooper in a single gulp, I gave up on the Middle Deschutes and all that goes with it.

And I sulked. For a day.

But it turned out to be a good call because the following Sunday was beautiful out around Steelhead Falls. The rain had subsided, the temperature moderated and the sun even broke through a time or two. And the Deschutes River was a sight for housebound, cabin-sore eyes.

I wasn’t the only one who felt the need to get outside and move, preferably to a place where the roads are rutted, the trails lonesome and achingly beautiful in a splendidly isolated, washboard sort of way. Mark Quon and Michael McClure were more than ready to bust loose after too many days on the inside looking out.

We parked at the little dirt parking area, about a half-mile upriver from the falls, next to a lone pickup, which, I deduced by the logoed cap on the front dashboard, belonged to a fly fisher from Eugene. I’ll never know for sure, because he (she?) must have gone upstream; we never saw another soul.

We headed for Steelhead Falls, the trail damp, not soggy, perfect for surmising what had gone before us. Deer mainly, but the occasional small animal had passed this way as well. I couldn’t tell exactly what left the little prints; need to brush up on my tracking skills.

Steelhead Falls, now in full winter flow, is the kind of place that conjures momentous thoughts of human insignificance, the awesome power of nature and the potential of some fair-to-middlin’ fly-fishing come spring, before those notions go tumbling downriver and out of sight around the bend. At least, it’s that way with me.

Before Portland General Electric built the Pelton-Round Butte Dam complex downriver in 1959, slamming the door shut on anadromous fish, steelhead, spring chinook and sockeye salmon battled their way up and over the imposing falls each season. There’s a crude and battered rock wall on the near side of Steelhead Falls that once served as a fish ladder to help the returning fish over the hump. Built in 1922, the ladder offered the steelhead and salmon a boost during low water months, particularly after irrigators began taking more water out of the Deschutes in the 1930s.

This time of year, if it could get past the dam downriver, a chrome bright, eight-pound steelhead could forgo the ladder and hurl itself up and over these falls. We saw none, of course, but there’s a move afoot to reintroduce salmon and steelhead to the Upper Deschutes Basin. A tantalizing prospect.

After admiring the falls and thinking our thoughts, we forged on, downriver, to see what was around that next bend.

What’s there is more rimrock, more river, more roadless country. It’s that way from the falls down to Lake Billy Chinook. To the east is a chunk of land known as the peninsula because it’s sandwiched between the Deschutes and the Crooked River, which also flows into Lake Billy Chinook (as does the Metolius River to the west).

Up top and back to the south is Crooked River Ranch country. The 12,000-acre rural subdivision was a working cattle ranch in the early 1900s. According to Crooked River Realty, the ranch went residential in 1971. Today, it’s ranchettes, horse corrals and bands of wintering as well as resident mule deer.

On the return to the trailhead, we saw a golden eagle soaring, ducks, geese and a couple of great blue herons looking for trout.

Back at the parking area, the white pickup was still there. I imagined its owner, somewhere upstream, happily fishing a pool lousy with big, hungry trout. Sometimes you don’t realize how badly you need to get out until you do.

From Bend, drive north on U.S. Highway 97 to Terrebonne. Turn right onto Lower Bridge Road, then right into the Crooked River Ranch subdivision. About 1 1/2 miles on, turn left on Badger Road, then right on Quail Road. After about a mile, turn left on River Road and follow it to the parking area and trailhead. It’s about a mile roundtrip to Steelhead Falls, but the trail continues on, following the east bank of the river. No permits are needed.

– Jim Witty