Road to Perjue

It is odd that a gravel road should evoke such an emotional response in me, but there I was, nearly in

tears as I approached a place in the Owyhees that was, swear to God, dedicated to parking. Not just a

patch of earth laid bare by overgrazing or having to straddle a ditch to leave room for other cars, the

Perjue Canyon trailhead has a bonafide place to leave multiple vehicles. The ease with which Lucy and I

traveled here, made me think how often some of the places we talk about most are based in part on the

difficulty of getting there. While this holds true for many areas where there is no easy way in, there is

something to be said about getting somewhere beautiful without risking multiple flat tires or swamping

your vehicle crossing a creek.

After thousands of miles on typically less than ideal backcountry Idaho and Oregon roads and trails, a

moment like this could be immortalized in a country song. A song to that unexpected instance where

the dirt road rides more easily than not and allows your truck to take you where you need to go—bar,

funeral, wedding, birth of child—safely, memorably. The name of this stretch of compacted earth, Mud

Flat Road, basically begs for someone to eulogize it in open G.

From Boise, I just drove almost 99% of the way to the western edge of the Little Jacks Creek Wilderness

on a paved road. The final few miles were then a dawdle on a well-maintained gravel surface. Just like

that, we had arrived to a wilderness area. And unlike those strips along the highway that have won the

war on native plants, this immediate section of road wasn’t a thick bank of medusa head against

mounds of Russian thistle caught in a fenceline. This close to Poison Creek, a thin band of willows and

stands of old growth sagebrush–some well over my head–created sparse but actual shade. 

It’s the end of September and while it is one of the least hot days since early June, we can feel the heat

gathering itself. Up the hill from the trailhead, away from the creek’s influence, the landscape has

transitioned to that late summer part of the Owyhee color wheel: a spectrum from burnt toast to singed

cheatgrass with two color strips reserved for rhyolite red and basalt black. By 10 a.m. the heat and

relentless wash of color had a strange effect on the world. We could feel the sagebrush encroaching on

us from either side of the trail as it reclaimed long sections of the two-track road John Campton and

Frank Perjue, early 20th century homesteaders, used over a hundred years ago. Plumes of dust rose

over the hills below us with each passing vehicle. These plumes would then hang there for minutes

before finally dissipating. We felt caught in a different sense of time.

As we crested the saddle between Poison Creek and the Shoofly Creek drainage, we were stopped by an

unexpected site. A ribbon of bright green emerged from the mouth of one canyon to the south, cut

across a flat open area below some cabin remains, and quickly disappeared around a corner into

another canyon to the northeast. The closer we drew to the creek and the cabin, the juxtaposition of

these willows and aspen and cottonwood and elderberries and bird calls and sense of life and so on

against the rest of the landscape felt harsh and welcome. The description inked on the 1875 general

land office plat, describing this section of land as broken and unfit for settlement, seemed wildly

misleading. At least at first.

But as we pushed down the trail cleared a few months prior by the Idaho Trails Association, it became

clear the desert and these small creeks had been working just fine–in their own way. Dogwoods and

rosebushes had already started extending across the trail to begin the process of obscuring the recent

interventions. If this area were to have been settled, it would have required a persistent, likely scorched

earth, battle against the very things that brought us a sense of relief. 

We lingered long enough in a few of the small aspen glens to take photos, douse our dogs in creek

water, then plunged back into the sagebrush for our vehicle. The parking area, the most recent attempt

to tame this part of the Owyhee's, still looked amazing. Who knows for how long.

Each Season

I think this is what it looks like

the last corner before the path

turns from shade to sun and makes

the long run up the hill

A branch of dogwood—

white flesh under a strip of red skin—

broken a few hours back

after blocking our way through

Something I did and would do

again in this canyon, clogged with color

aspens losing their September

green a few weeks into October

My sense of comfort

confused by surfaces at the bottom—

cooler and kinder to a human

touch—can’t move from where

water softens stone

The rest of the country—

an undiluted coarseness—

waits inches from bedrock

to turn inside out

my blank curiosity of the map.