The austere landscape of southeastern Oregon has rarely seen the attention it received last year, when an armed Right-wing militia occupied the Malheur Wildlife Refuge outside of Burns. But Oregon’s high desert, at the northern edge of the Great Basin, is a vast wonderland of varied landscapes boasting saline lakes, 9,000-foot mountains, fields of lava rock, canyons flush with cottonwood, and several hot springs.
This trip is a campout with some light backpacking to get ourselves away from the road. We’ll set up a base camp to share readings, projects and discussions, with day-hikes planned to explore the area. We will cover backpacking essentials, but the emphasis will be on discovering the high-desert landscape through the stories of its occupants: learning about the Paiute through their own legends, about Basque immigrants that shepherded the hills, and uncovering the struggle over the public lands here through the words of both its protectors and would-be privatizers.
Participants: Roya Amirsoleymani, Wendi Anderson, Michael Boonstra, Nathaniel Cummings-Lambert, Eliza Dennis, Katie Hargrave, Diane Jacobs, Sarah Mirk, Meredith Lynn, Skye Tafoya
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