Back in September, just after Labor Day, I was traveling to the Portland, Oregon area to work for the next three months at my day job in order to pay some bills. I had lived in the Pacific Northwest for 15 years as a younger man, and my boss had asked me to run a couple of crews for him on a new contract. I was coming from Texas, and I had spent the last night in a motel in Pendleton.
Arising early, I had left Pendleton before daylight. Traveling west on I-84 I had dropped down into the basin making my way toward Portland. It was a cloudy day mixed with rain... nothing unusual for this area.
As I was driving along something happened to catch my eye across the freeway and about 200 yds up the hillside to the south. Son-of-a-gun! It was a full curl bighorn sheep just standing there looking out at the river below. A real grizzled looking old gray bearded rascal with massive bosses... What a surprise!
As I said before, I used to live in the Pacific Northwest and part of that time I worked for the Washington Game Department in Spokane. I was unaware that bighorn sheep were now inhabiting the bluffs above the Columbia River. I surmised that they had been planted in recent years by the Oregon Game Department, but later I found out that they had migrated on their own from the John Day Canyon to the south and west. They had, indeed, been planted in the John Day Canyon, but these had moved into this area on their own. What a success story!
As I continued, trying to digest what I had just witnessed, I spotted a group of ewes and younger rams side-hilling westward parallel to the freeway and about 400 yds up the bluff. This was probably 2-3 miles further than the old solitary ram that I had first seen.
That was it! I had to call Doc, a hunting buddy of mine, and tell him what I had just seen... sort of a "share the moment" reaction. I had seen bighorns near the road or crossing the road before in Colorado and Montana, but I never dreamed of seeing such a sight in the Columbia River Basin.
On a later trip to visit my uncle in Spokane, I stopped along the way and climbed up on the bench above the river to see what I could find. I had spoken on the telephone with an Oregon wildlife biologist about what I had seen, and he had given me additional information about the sheep and how they happened to be there. The land here is Corps of Engineers land, and I was not trespassing. But up and over the top of the bluff is private land.
As my luck would have it, the sheep were nowhere to be found on this day, at least from my observations. (They were probably watching me struggle to climb up to the bench all the time.) But I did find a well used game trail and some fresh sheep tracks to validate my claims.
Skeptics will, no doubt, say those tracks could just as easily be deer tracks, but deer tracks have a more sharply pointed toe than sheep tracks. Bighorn tracks will more resemble a hog's track, than a deer's track.
So if,by chance, any of you are ever traveling I-84 between Biggs Junction and Arlington, Oregon, be alert along the south bluff between John Day Canyon and Phillipi Canyon for a possible sighting of bighorn sheep. They are thriving along the edge of the river in another classic edge habitat that has not been artificially restored, but simply allowed to develop unmolested. How awesome that we have a window into such an environment while traveling along between our own destinations...
Arising early, I had left Pendleton before daylight. Traveling west on I-84 I had dropped down into the basin making my way toward Portland. It was a cloudy day mixed with rain... nothing unusual for this area.
As I was driving along something happened to catch my eye across the freeway and about 200 yds up the hillside to the south. Son-of-a-gun! It was a full curl bighorn sheep just standing there looking out at the river below. A real grizzled looking old gray bearded rascal with massive bosses... What a surprise!
As I said before, I used to live in the Pacific Northwest and part of that time I worked for the Washington Game Department in Spokane. I was unaware that bighorn sheep were now inhabiting the bluffs above the Columbia River. I surmised that they had been planted in recent years by the Oregon Game Department, but later I found out that they had migrated on their own from the John Day Canyon to the south and west. They had, indeed, been planted in the John Day Canyon, but these had moved into this area on their own. What a success story!
 |
| The bighorns are usually seen between Phillipi Canyon and the mouth of the John Day River |
That was it! I had to call Doc, a hunting buddy of mine, and tell him what I had just seen... sort of a "share the moment" reaction. I had seen bighorns near the road or crossing the road before in Colorado and Montana, but I never dreamed of seeing such a sight in the Columbia River Basin.
 |
| Columbia River from up on the bench where the bighorns live |
As my luck would have it, the sheep were nowhere to be found on this day, at least from my observations. (They were probably watching me struggle to climb up to the bench all the time.) But I did find a well used game trail and some fresh sheep tracks to validate my claims.
 |
| Blunt toed sheep tracks look more like a hog's track than a deer's. |
So if,by chance, any of you are ever traveling I-84 between Biggs Junction and Arlington, Oregon, be alert along the south bluff between John Day Canyon and Phillipi Canyon for a possible sighting of bighorn sheep. They are thriving along the edge of the river in another classic edge habitat that has not been artificially restored, but simply allowed to develop unmolested. How awesome that we have a window into such an environment while traveling along between our own destinations...
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Are those really bighorn tracks? I would think that they would be a lot bigger or more deeply embedded. They are excellent climbers though which I always associated with deep grooves on clay. It doesn’t hurt to have the Best Hunting Knife in one of those excursions though. Thanks for sharing all these. It really is a fun read and happy to meet another enthusiast.
Relative size on those pictures is probably confusing, but those tracks are larger than a mule deer's track and rounded at the toe, like a hog's track. The ground is relatively hard and rocky so the tracks are not very deep.
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