Hidden Gems of Southeast Oregon - the rarely seen wonders on your public lands 

I love this part of the state and you did a fantastic job presenting it with your video. I was riveted - thank you!

I love Oregon's high desert. Thank you

Fantastic. Beautifully done!

great job thanks

Impressive presentation. Well done.

Thanks for sharing the beauty Mark.

This is the best video of this part of Oregon there is thanks for all the geologic explanations, as a kid we never ventured east of Bend, finally at the age of 66 i made to fort rock it was fascinating.

Enjoy ed your videos. Sent them to my son in law from Roseburg Oregon. You 2 have a lot in common. He loves hiking and photography he’s from Colorado. Now living in Oregon.

Gosh....the Google Earth aerials were so-so - kind of flat and moved too fast. BUT YOUR PHOTOS WERE JUST STUNNING. The lighting and compositions, the clouds, the land forms and plants....just so very beautiful. I really appreciated your section about the first peoples and your admonition to visit; be an active advocate and learn to live lightly with respect on this beautiful earth. Thank you so much

Thanks,live all the way throughout that part of Or.you did a Great job on this .

This was wonderful and the photography was stunning.

Thank you so much for sharing. It was fascinating. I especially loved the Owyhee River Canyon!

a labor of love! beautiful artistic photography. a rarity, glad i came across it, thank you!

you need to thank the people you are trashing. If they have and are still ruining this land that you are trying to save. then how can it still so beautiful. It's amazing how people beneath you kept this land so beautiful. thank you would be a good start

Thank you for the time you took in preparing this! My daughter and I are planning a trip over this area and your video was very helpful.

Eastern and Southeastern Oregon is my go to place to explore and get away from the crowds of the Cascades. It is not a place for the unprepared. Much of this area is remote and travelers must be prepared, fuel, food, and services are most often a long ways away. Unlike most of Oregon cell service is unpredictable. I carry a Garmin Inreach mini,

This was amazing. I enjoyed this tremendously. Thank you so much for all of the hard work putting together this presentation. We are truly fortunate to have these lands and such emblematic beauty. We must always treasure and fight for them.

Ur a gem... Thanks.. i needed to see this and all i can, lol, nature junkie.. ineed another one....

I love to shoot the milky way out in the S.E. Oregon desert. I travel there from Idaho. I’ve shot it on the Alvord Desert and at Borax Lake. There’s nothing like being out there and watching the Milky Way rise. I do feel that it may get a little more busy, but one good thing about Southeast Oregon, as it’s quite a long haul from population centers to get there-which is fine with me!

Thank you so much for this, giving me some great ideas where to take fam next.

I enjoyed your movie of an area that I have been exploring these past 4 years. I especially liked the messaging around protecting our public land and the reference to ONDA. You may also be familiar with the work of Backcountry Hunters and Anglers (BHA) up in Missoula, a well-run and funded organization dedicating to protecting our rights to use our public lands. One thing about your geology... you are using the term "thrust" incorrectly. A thrust fault is a low angle reverse fault, which is the result of tectonic compression (not extension which is the hallmark of the basin and range tectonism and the resulting geomorphology). Thrust faults typically are large scale and commonly result in a lot of deformation (folding of beds, etc). A good example of a fold and thrust belt is the Rocky Mountains to our East. The Basin and Range is the result of tectonic extension, the geologic opposite of thrusting, so calling any of those features "thrust mountains" is really inaccurate. High angle "normal" faults result from extension (your diagram), creating the horsts (e.g., Winter Ridge, Steen Mountain etc.) and grabens (e.g. Summerlake, Alvord, etc.) and the prevailing geomorphology of the B&R. There are also low angle normal faults called "detachments" which are well studied at this point. Those faults are typically regional in scale and deep. A lot of the horst and grabens you are seeing are in the "upper plate" of larger regional features like detachments that never daylight. Sorry for being such a geology nerd, but you seem like a person that would want to use those terms correctly.

You might want to hold your iphone camera horizontally for social media....

Great video! Thank you!

There is enough locked up public land. Tree huggers make me wanna puke

At last an appropriate tribute to an area of Oregon seldom visited. On the other hand I hope the Steens, for one, will remain free from crowds & because of its relative isolation, not to mention the special kind of beauty that many people have little appreciation for, it will remain an unspoiled gem of Mother Nature that I will cherish always. Thanks so much for posting this although has Frenchglen shrunk even more since 2007? At that time there was a very small elementary school & a local population of around 40 people. I will check the present population figures.

cool 411, and yes many gems and minerals/elements/combo's

Thank you for this remarkable video. I have visited Steens Mountain and the Hart Mountain hot spring campground many times. What memories! It was good to see more of other places I was not able to go: Alvord, Pueblo, Owyhee. Excellent use of Google Earth to give overviews followed by your own excellent photographs. I have my own treasured photographs from those places and I do know how to appreciate good work of that type. Cudos and thanks! At 83 I may not be able to see it again for real.

Thanks much for putting all of this together.

Those blocks (Steens et al.) are not “thrust blocks”. They are bound by normal faults, and the region is under extension. No thrusting involved. They are called “Fault blocks” and the process is “Fault block rotation”.

More history of the land and a little less google earth and music!

Beautiful video footage; thanks so much.

Thanks so much such a great video along with all the info. I only spent a brief amount of time in the sixties in the area now I guess I'm too old to return to explore but thanks for taking me there.

Excellent video I’ll be there in mid September. Thank you, great narrative start to finish.

did you know that the term Owyhee got it's name from trappers trying to spell Hawaii it seems some native Hawaiians who wanted directions to find local Indian tribes ..they walked off into the wilderness and were never seen again the area was named for them on the maps

Great video

beautiful

That was really cool Mark.Thanks for sharing 😀

I loved servicing Oregon in the early 90's I loved looking for property there in 2019 to 2020....i loved south east Washington and the Lewis and Clark Valley...we have one of the most beautiful land from Coast to Coast. I hope the gem state sends a clear message to Oregon . Now that lumber costs are up....

You did a great job on this video. I share your passion for eastern Oregon but I don’t want to see wilderness areas because they damage the local economies in these remote areas. These areas are doing their best to survive with state policies that tie their hands from being able to make a living in the area. I don’t want to see them unable to raise cattle or sustain a lifestyle.

Understanding the problem so we can understand the solution. Regional mega drought in the southwest, caused by a lot of things but essentially more water is being used and is in one way or another moved out of the region then the amount of water that is re-entered into the region. Conservation has its place but it is not a solution to this problem. The demands on water will not abate without causing complete collapse so the only alternative is to introduce a new source of water. Drawing water from other regional rivers like the Columbia or the Mississippi or Missouri would only move the problem around, draining other regions. The only essentially inexhaustible source of water is the ocean. One thing we need to do is move water from the ocean back inland to places we need it and if we can do that while generating clean energy we have a chance to mitigate climate change and still have a prosperous future. It is really, really hard but it is not impossible. If I could explain my idea in an equation it would go something like. (seawater from the west coast moved inland + converted by combination geothermal/desalination projects = clean water and clean energy.) The biggest idea I am trying to express is tunneling aqueducts from the coast, in this case the west coast of the USA inland to feed combination geothermal power and sea water desalination plants. The idea seems to be so big that no one has considered it possible but I believe it is not only possible but it is necessary. For over a century the fossil water contained in aquifers has been pumped out to feed agriculture, industry and municipal water needs. The natural water cycle cant refill fossil water deposits that were filled 10,000 years ago when the glaciers melted after the last ice age. Without refilling these aquifers there is not much of a future for the region of the United states. As a result ground levels in some areas of the San Joaquin Valley have subsided by more than 30 feet. Similar fossil water depletion is happening in other regions all around the world. TBM and tunneling technology has matured and further developments in the industry are poised to speed up the tunneling process and it's these tunnels that are the only way to move large volumes of water from the ocean inland. The water is moved inland to areas where it can be desalinated in geothermal plants producing clean water and power. In many cases the water will recharge surface reservoirs where it will be used first to make more hydro power before being released into rivers and canal systems. It's very important however to not stop tunneling at these first stops but to continue several legs until the water has traveled from the ocean under mountain ranges to interior states. Along the way water will flow down grade through tunnels and rise in geothermal loops to fill mountain top pumped hydro batteries several times before eventually recharging several major aquifers. What I am proposing is essentially reversing the flow of the Colorado River Compact. Bringing water from the coast of California first to mountaintop reservoirs then to the deserts of Nevada and Arizona and on to Utah, New Mexico, Colorado and Wyoming. This big idea looks past any individual city or states problems and looks at the whole and by using first principles identifies the actual problem and only solution. Thank you for your time, I would like the opportunity to explain in further detail and answer any questions.

Northern Arizona is very much like SE Oregon.

This is not the "Gems" video I was looking for, It was much much more wonderful! Thank You! PS. Thought some of the music was familiar. Some of my favorite musicians in here! Just Amazing!

Fantastic, we have a cabin in this area and you captured it beautifully.

Amazing post!! Really great work on this and some fantastic views!! Wow! Best, from Colorado!

Thank you so much. Last April I explored here with a Roadside Guide; I must return with this new awareness! Beautiful compilation!

Love this country. Your pictures really do it justice. Thank you.

very beautiful presentation Mark Darnell! Thank you!

Fantastic. Many thanks for an excellent job.

A privilege to share nature with you. Carol

Thankfully those monsters in Portland haven't figured out how to destroy this too.

Awesome video, thank you for bringing this part of Oregon to RU-vid for all of us to enjoy! We own land down near Christmas Valley. Everything is beautiful & vast out there. Truly a wild west feeling.