Trip 04, Day 07 (Day 34):
FRIDAY, AUGUST 24, 2007: HINES, BURNS, AND THE OLD HIGHWAY FROM HELL
On almost every trip, there is one day when we walk to our base camp location. This is significant when you are jockeying vehicles to starting and stopping points, because if one of those places is your base camp, it reduces the drive time considerably. Today was that day. We drove the pick-up out to our start point (which we mistakenly thought was one place until I turned on my GPS and said, “This is not the right place,” then drove another quarter mile to the correct spot), and started walking. Joe took a day off from running, so we walked together the entire day.
Starting point: 43.51145 N, 119.13669 W – elevation 4227 feet
Ending point: 43.59865 N, 119.04846 W – elevation 4175 feet
At about 2 miles, we spotted another section of the old highway paralleling Highway 20 along the north side, so we picked our steps through the foxtails and walked along the old pavement. For about a quarter mile, it was much like what we saw yesterday, but without the burned-out look, just lots of weeds and brush growing up through the cracks. Then we came upon a horrific scene such as only Stephen King could dream up. The first thing we saw was what looked like a very large anthill from a distance. But when we got close, we saw that it was a mummified carcass of a mule deer or antelope. Next to it was the ravaged remains of a fawn, possibly newborn. For the next 50 yards or so, the ground was strewn with bones and decayed body parts of deer and other animals, much of it bleached bones. Whereas yesterday’s discovery had seemed too unreal to be disturbing, this was stomach-turning in its savagery. We tried to theorize what brought this about, and we guessed that perhaps game poachers used this area to dump their carcasses, and coyotes would come to feed. One deer we saw had obviously had the antlers sawed or broken off at their base.
We were glad to get back to the highway away from the carnage. A bit further we looked down on another kind of carnage, a field full of rusting wrecked autos. At about 3.4 miles, we entered Hines, a town immediately adjacent to Burns. The highway had turned left to a due-north heading, then more to northeast all the way through Burns. At about 7 miles, we entered Burns, passing McDonald’s, RJ’s Drive-In, and the road out to the casino. In the center of Burns, the main highway turns left and becomes a north-south main drag through downtown. Here we passed the old Desert Theater on the left and El Toreo Mexican Restaurant on the right. We soon left town, passing the road leading to the Paiute Reservation, and shortly arrived at Burns RV Park, stopping at the bridge over the Silvies River.
Walk rating: 6.0
Money found: Day: $.01 Trip: $0.70 Project: $13.16
Distance: Day: 9.3 miles Trip: 68.4 miles Project: 319.8 miles
Significance: Walked through Burns, Oregon.
