Working on the Whychus-Deschutes Wilderness

            It looks like you're having a good time in Connecticut! I hope your project is coming along well!

I cannot believe that we are almost halfway through July, or that I am halfway through my internship! Everything’s in full swing here at ONDA, and I’ve been keeping pretty busy with my project. I’m working on the Whychus-Deschutes Wilderness Proposal this summer. The Whychus-Deschutes wilderness is an area about 19,000 acres large located about 45 minutes north of Bend. It includes parts of Whychus Creek and its confluence with the Deschutes River, which also flows through Bend. You can read more about the proposal here.

Whychus Creek. You have to ford the creek to continue on one of the trails, and it’s pretty cold!

The confluence of Whychus Creek and the Deschutes River

My first rattlesnake! It’s a baby that we spotted under a rock while looking for pictographs.

It’s an amazing area with steep canyons, waterfalls, Native American pictographs, and plenty of wildlife. It’s currently being managed as a Wilderness Study Area, but that doesn’t necessarily offer permanent protection. A federal Wilderness designation would ensure permanence and preserve the area for future generations, so that’s the goal!

Steelhead Falls, a popular and easily accessible spot in the proposed Whychus-Deschutes Wilderness.

A little gopher snake we found on the way to the falls.

Sadly these aren’t pictographs. Just some graffiti on the trail to Steelhead Falls. Yuck

My main job is community outreach. I have been working in Sisters, a small town about 30 minutes outside of Bend, talking to business and residents about the proposal and the area in an effort to garner support for it. I have also been working with my coordinator out at Crooked River Ranch, a rural community with many landowners that border the proposed area. We’ve been door-to-door talking to families and asking them to sign on to a support letter. The board at Crooked River Ranch is sending out a survey to residents in a couple of weeks to get a sense of how everyone is feeling about the proposal; we are hoping to have at least 250 supporters by then. There are some very vocal opponents, though. Some have concerns about what they perceive as more government interference, even though the proposal wouldn’t drastically change the way the area is managed. Others have voiced (quite aggressively) that a Wilderness designation would influence wildfire management, resulting in greater risk to them and their property. That’s actually false, but I’ve learned there’s almost no point arguing with the people that believe it’s true. They aren't going to change their minds anytime soon. For us, it’s just a matter of fighting the misinformation and getting in touch with the people that haven’t already made up their minds against the proposal.

Thankfully, we have a stellar group of volunteers who live on the ranch and support the proposal, and they’ve also been working hard to raise awareness about it. One of these volunteers has property that borders the proposed area, and he cares deeply about it. He loves to explore the canyons behind his house and he says that when he’s down there, it feels as though no other human has been there in hundreds of years.

A nice spot behind his property. We ran down and back up this canyon once before a landowner meeting. It was brutal but worth it.

It makes him angry, and rightfully so, to see people trash the area, which they have in some places. People dump their garbage in some spots and even graffiti the rocks. You just have to wonder what they're thinking. Why do they find it necessary to In his eyes, a Wilderness designation will promote a greater sense of respect for the land; he even has ideas about creating a type of neighborhood watch to help maintain the integrity of area by reporting people they see trashing it. It’s awesome to have people that care so much about this place, and this work wouldn’t be possible without them!