Lake County

Lake County has been billed as 'Oregon's Outback'.  Much in the way that Coos Bay calls itself 'the bay area'.  In case you are unfamiliar with Oregon geography, Lake County covers a large area that borders California and a bit of Nevada , east of Klamath Lakes and a long drive from the Cascade Range.  Lakeview is the county seat and other notable towns include Christmas Valley and Fort Rock.  It is very rural, has mountains and lakes, as well as sagebrush.             


My trip to Lake County was to a place called Hole in the Ground with my brother, who was visiting from Massachusetts.  As any respectable Oregonian would do, I take my visitors to exotic locales, such as Hole in the Ground.  Actually we were fishing at Crane Prairie Reservoir and it was too windy to keep trying.  It was too early to return to the cabin we were staying in at Diamond Peak so we pulled the map out and this sounded interesting.    


Hole in the Ground is off Highway 31 about 30 miles east of Highway 97 and a few miles in on a dirt road; near Fort Rock.  It's a large volcanic hole 300 feet deep and a mile wide.  Nearby H in the G is Big Hole, which is a similar feature, but I understand is full of trees, whereas this is mostly devoid of trees, except for the east side, where the above picture was taken.  This is in a very rural part of the high desert (approximately 4300' above sea level) surrounded by sagebrush.  


At the bottom, it looked like the site of some ritualistic activity, there was a large dirt circle at the center of the bottom of the hole.  We hiked down to investigate.  What we found was a 55-gallon metal drum full of trash and had been a burn barrel in a former life.  Quad tracks were all around the barrel with trails heading off to the the rim at several points.  The rusted barrel contained cans, bottles, and some old circuit boards.  And it was absolutely riddled with bullet holes.  We found hillbilly Utopia!  It was a nice hike without a soul in sight.