Across from the start there is a red barn and other buildings. They are part of the R2 Ranch complex. The ranch is 47 miles long and, in some places, 22 miles wide. The ranch is built around more than 4,000 acres of irrigated land, 81,000 acres of rangeland with 150 improved springs and 7 year around creeks and ponds, and a 35-acre lake. The ranch carries historical significance. The Cross Keys post office was established on July 8, 1879 at the mouth of Cow Canyon and the bank of Trout Creek (just north on Highway 97 at the beginning of the grade). The ranch was also a stage and freight station in the early days. [R2 Ranch]

Homesteaders first settled the area in the 1880s, constructing more than 700 homes. By the 1930s, insufficient rainfall and unfavorable economic conditions led to farm failures and land abandonment. By 1935, about 35% of the homesteads were foreclosed upon by federal and private mortgage banks. The government repurchased the land from the remaining homesteaders. The Crooked River National Grassland was created by Congress in 1960 to improve range management and the forage resource. The grasslands, which cover 173,629 acres, include two National Wild and Scenic Rivers: the Deschutes and the Crooked. There are 20 national grasslands across the country, but Crooked River National Grassland is the only national grassland in the Pacific Northwest. [Ochoco National Forest]

The Columbia River Basalt Group (map view) is the youngest, smallest, and one of the best-preserved continental flood basalt provinces on Earth, covering over 81,000 sq miles, mainly in eastern Oregon and Washington, western Idaho, and part of northern Nevada. Basalt exposed on the vertical walls of canyons, coulees, and buttes is visible as a closely-packed array of rock fence posts [or palisades]. These columns formed when the lava cooled and crystallized into basalt rock. When the lava cooled, it shrank. This created vertical polygons, usually five-sided, that separated from their neighbors by cracks. [Wikepedia, HugeFloods.com]

Juniper tree encroachment erodes the health of rangelands by reducing the amount of water available, diminishing soil health, and crowding out native perennial plants that feed wildlife and cattle. As trees become dense, they also fuel hotter and more severe wildfires. Learn more about how Juniper tree reduction programs restore range health and animal habitat.

Hay Creek Ranch and its headquarters will be to your right. For over a century, Hay Creek Ranch has been one of the largest ranch holdings in Oregon and has played a prominent role in the history of central Oregon. The ranch was established in 1873 as the Baldwin Sheep and Land Company. The Dalles-Prineville freight and stagecoach lines ran through the ranch headquarters until about 1912. [Oregon Encyclopedia]

The Ashwood area (originally named Ash Butte) was first used by the Native American Sahaptin and Northern Paiute people. After the Sahaptin were forced to move to the Warm Springs Indian Reservation in the 1850s and the Northern Paiute were defeated in the 1870s, settlers moved into the area to raise cattle and sheep. Sheep ranching became an important local industry by 1900 because of the availability of the railroad in nearby Shaniko that facilitated the shipping of wool. Ashwood became a gold- and silver-mining boomtown in the 1910s. However, the minerals soon began to play out, and local residents turned back to ranching and agriculture as the mainstays of their economy.[Wikipedia]

Here you will find beautiful polka dot agates and canyon rim thundereggs. The polka dot agate is a semitransparent to semitranslucent agate with suspended round “dots” of contrasting colors with an orbital flat shape. A thunderegg is a nodule-like rock that is formed within volcanic ash layers. Thundereggs usually look like ordinary rocks on the outside, but slicing them in half and polishing them may reveal intricate patterns and colors.