Owyhee Canyonlands — Indian Summer in ION Country

8 min readJan 13, 2022

Every fall I gather a group of friends for an adventure somewhere in the magic that is the Pacific Northwest during Indian Summer.

This time around we’re headed for the Owyhee Canyonlands. We rendezvous at an old one-room jailhouse outside of Bend before beginning our trek East towards ION Country.

ION Country is local nomenclature for the sparsely inhabited expanse where Idaho, Oregon and Nevada come together. Before this trip, I had been reading Mike Hanley’s Owhyee Trails book and had become interested in exploring this area much deeper than in my previous visits. Following my personal mantra of “Go deeper; Stay longer,” I had embraced my inner ‘map nerd’ and designed a route that would take our group to a number of the region’s highlights and then deep into its Southern backcountry before looping back to find the stone marker where the corners of the three states met. We had scheduled the trip in Fall largely because our route involved 5–6 river crossings. I had checked flow gauges and previously consulted with the local BLM rangers to verify the times of year this route could be accomplished and it was clear that even with our capable Land Cruisers and Land Rovers, would need that second Jerry can (a rarity in a country where gas stations are so plentiful), we would need good weather (much of the Owyhee Canyonlands region becomes impassible in wet weather) and we would need to ford the rivers when they were at their lowest flow.

After refueling at Rome Station (Call ahead. He doesn’t always have fuel), we aired down and headed into the Canyonlands.

Over the first few days, we camped along the edge of the canyon, we visited Oregon’s ‘other Crater Lake’ (it’s definitely not as deep), we hiked Coffeepot Crater, and then we dropped down into the canyon to camp (and flyfish) at the historic Birch Creek Ranch.

One of special aspects of the trips I put together with friends is cooking as a group. I’ve found that cooking together bonds a group that much faster. As part of the Fall trip, we cook a couple of meals together and have a curated whiskey tasting. On this trip, our ‘ad-minister of the liquid brown’ had selected a suite of bottles from Scotland for the group to enjoy.

We visited the historic mining town of Silver City, ID. The town sits above 6,000' and snow was due soon. Most of the town’s residents had already left for the winter (Summer population — 12; Winter population — 1) and only the Watchman and a few hunters were left in town. We’d missed the Saloon’s closing by one day. I made a mental note to not make that mistake again.

And then we went deep. Deep into the Owyhee Backcountry. 420+ dusty miles deep. Deep enough that after 3 days, a full 25 gallon tank and 10 gallons of extra fuel, my Land Cruiser with its thirsty V8 was running on fumes when we popped out on Hwy 95 near McDermitt, NV.

Should you dare venture deep into the Owyhee Canyonlands, make sure you contact the local BLM office and talk to the locals at Rome Station or Jordan Valley to verify current conditions. Carry extra fuel and a satellite communications device (I’ve tried many and now carry a Zoleo). …and remember, the rattlesnakes are everywhere out there. Walk loud.