Beauty of Northwest Wilderness: Visiting the Zumwalt Prairie

About the Zumwalt Prairie Preserve

Zumwalt Prairie is a grassland area between the snowy Wallowa Mountains and the ragged cliffs of Hells Canyon. It's located in northeast Oregon near the border of Washington and Idaho. It's measuring 330,000 acres, much of the land is used for agriculture, with some portions protected as the Zumwalt Prairie Preserve owned by The Nature Conservancy. And part of that portion is designated as a National Natural Landmark.

A hundred-fifty years ago, this prairie was the seasonal hunting grounds of the Chief Joseph band of the Nez Perce. Stalked and hunted by whites in the 1870s, the Nez Perce were forced on a military retreat that led them 1,200 miles to seek support from other tribes. Much of the history of this area centers around Chief Joseph -- that's his Christian name. His native name translates as "Thunder Rolls Down the Mountain."

Chief Joseph's nephew, Yellow Wolf, was a vital strategist in the retreat. He never converted to Christianity, and, like some other Nez Perce, followed a revivalist tradition called the Dreamer Faith, which was deeply rooted in the environment of eastern Oregon and was a call to return to indigenous traditions.

Zumwalt Prairie has one of the highest concentrations of breeding hawks and eagles in the world—largely because the native bunch-grass prairie here teems with their favorite prey, ground squirrels.

Most of the preserve is off limits, but you are allowed to stroll on few trails or scramble up the Harsin Butte for a 360 degree of stunning look.

The Camping Site

We left Seattle on May 20, 2016 Friday, after about 8 hours driving, we arrived at the camping ground in the Wallowa Lake State Park. The campground is just next to the Wallowa Lake, and the Wallowa river run through the bridge at the entrance gate. In summer time, here is very crowed with lots of campers.

8 hours driving from Seattle to the Zumwalt Prairie Preserve

The Wallowa Lake viewed from North end

May 21 - Exploring the Zumzalt Prairie

We got up on Saturday and prepared the hiking to Zumzalt/Wallowa/Imnaha area for wolf observation, birding and more spring wildflowers. A few destinations that we are planning to go on Saturday:

Patti's Trail
Harsin Butte
Horned Lark Trail

We left Wallowa Lake State Park camping ground, and drove Highway 82 east of Enterprise 3.2 miles and make right turn (North) for Buckhorn Spring between milepost 68 and 69, into paved Crow Creek Road for 1.1 miles to a fork, veered right to stay on Crow Creek Road for another 3.9 miles to another fork. Then veered right onto Zumwalt Road. After about 11.2 miles, the road becomes gravel road. Turned right on Duckett Road 1.4 miles away. And drove on the road until we saw Buckett Barn Information Center.

South view for Wallowa Mountains from Crow Creek Road

On the road of Crow Creek Road, we met a few raptors and lots of wild flowers.

Raptor flies away from the post on Crow Creek Road

Unfortunately Patti's Trail was closed for the maintenance, and we couldn't scramble this beautiful trail.

So we decided to scramble Harsin Butte to enjoy the wild flowers. The parking lot's GPS location is (45.526555N, -116.964912W). The trail to the butte is just 1.6 miles round trip with 690' elevation gain. 700 feet. However there is no visible trail at the beginning of the scramble, but we found lots of beautiful flowers. The group scatter around and scramble slowly up to the top of the butte.