Stars sparkle like jewels in the night sky over the Oregon desert in the vast southeastern landscape.

Jewels are evident by day, too, from Hart Mountain’s rich wildlife habitat to the Owyhee River’s colorful canyons. These special settings, rough on the edges, but so rewarding for those who love them, may soon be connected by a trail.

MORE ROUTE THAN TRAIL

The Oregon Desert Trail will be a nonmotorized route for hikers and horseback riders with portions for cyclists. A mapped trail, with water holes, campsites and waypoints identified, will entice more visitors to learn about, enjoy and care for this expansive part of the state.

The trail’s route has been scouted the past two summers by staff and volunteers from the Bend-based Oregon Natural Desert Association.

When the project comes to fruition, perhaps within a year or two, Oregon’s desert jewels will be linked by a continuous corridor on public land. An actual trail, like one in a forest, need not be built because the route will link existing tracks with cross-country travel across open terrain.

The trail will extend from near the Idaho border to Bend and take a meandering path that dips south almost to the Nevada border.

The route is not supposed to be easy. It covers vast, undeveloped and remote areas. It will include long sections where the only water available is what a hiker has cached in advance or gets from prearranged meetings along the way. Many miles will be lonely and forlorn, though rewarding for anyone strong enough and possessing the right skills to cover the miles at an appropriate time of year.

All that’s needed is the mapping.

A VAST CHAIN LINKED WITH JEWELS

Why would a place so remote, so far off well-traveled paths need a designated hiking corridor?

Some places along the Oregon Desert Trail will never attract most people. Those places will be hiked, biked or ridden on horseback by a few rugged individuals or small groups bent on doing the entire route to fulfill a challenge.

Most visitors, however, will gravitate to the crown jewels the trail will connect, among them the Oregon Badlands Wilderness, Diablo Peak, the Fremont National Forest, Steens Mountain, the Pueblo Mountains and the Trout Creek Mountains.

The proposed desert trail is modeled after the 800-mile Hayduke Trail of Utah and Arizona, which connects North America’s string of desert jewels: Arches, Canyonlands, Capital Reef, Grand Staircase, Bryce Canyon, Grand Canyon and Zion.

Oregon’s trail won’t be in that league, but it provides a respite from national parks with their millions of visitors and ledgers of rules.

The idea for the Oregon Desert Trail originated with Brent Fenty, executive director of the Oregon Natural Desert Association. He dispatched his team, supplemented by volunteers who join the association’s trips, to scout the route beginning last year.

The entire way will have been explored by the end of fall, leaving winter for mapping and writing a proposal to present to land managers.

Formal approval is desired, but not required because the route is on public land.

“This trail will thread a lot of amazing places together,” Fenty said, admitting that some of those places will always be a challenge to reach. “The basic philosophy is for people to get to know these places, to love them and to work to protect them.

“There is this treasure in Oregon’s backyard, but much of it is not protected for future generations.”

Much of the land the trail will cross has either no protected status or is classified as wilderness study areas.

Congress has resolved appropriate uses on only a small part of Oregon’s southeast desert, Steens Mountain in 2000 and the Oregon Badlands in 2009. More than 5 million acres await resolution.

WILDFIRES AND WILD COUNTRY

Remnants of burned sagebrush stretch as far as the eye can see, to the crest of the closest hills and across the distant plains. Wildfires were especially vicious this summer in remote southeast Oregon, scarring much of the route of the desert trail.

Nearly a million acres burned in southern Harney and Malheur counties.

A month after the flames subsided, a half-dozen hikers traveled to the Trout Creek Mountains, site of the 460,000-acre Holloway fire in August, to scout two sections of the trail where it will enter and leave the remote mountains that spill across the Nevada border.

One member of the group has been an off-and-on lifelong resident of the Oregon desert, having recently retired as state field veterinarian for eastern Oregon.

“Fire out here is part of the natural system,” said Julie Weikel, who lives 25 miles south of Burns at the Narrows. “It’s just too bad so much had to go up at once.”

She noted that walking through the desert is a lot easier now, with so much brush and woody debris burned to the roots by three major blazes.

“You’re going to see some magnificent sights out here the next couple of years,” she said. “With enough rain, the spring wildflowers will be incredible.”

New chutes of green were growing just weeks after the fire, even without rain, from willows, aspens and greasewood.

Fire is but one part of the desert experience, which includes solitude and quiet, sweet smells of sage after a rain, wildlife, daily cycles of the sun and sky, winds kicking up dust devils, and night skies filled with stars.

And the hunt for water.

Members of the exploratory group had no trouble in that regard because they set up camp at Willow Creek Hot Springs, a small Bureau of Land Management campground that escaped the fire’s fury.

The hot springs are 30 miles from the tiny outpost of Fields in southeast Oregon and five miles from its closest neighbor, the landmark Whitehorse Ranch.

The hot springs’ twin warm and cool pools are the perfect soaking place to wash off dirt from a day in the desert.

A DESERT FULL OF SURPRISES

One member of the team rose early one morning, walked a hundred yards from camp to the top of a small hill and peered down on five beavers in Willow Creek.

While driving to a hiking location, trip leader Jeremy Fox slowed to let a rattlesnake cross the dusty track. The 3-foot snake was going from the burned side of the road to the unburned side.

If ever there was a time to feel sympathy for a rattler, this was it, because the snake must have been hungry.

At the hiking destination, Fox explained to the team how and when to take digital photos, how to make and record global positioning data.

The Oregon Natural Desert Association will use the results to map the trail and load waypoints onto a website to guide users to parking areas, hiking corridors, water holes and campsites.

“We don’t want to put someone in these places who is unprepared,” Fox said. “We have to make 100 percent sure our maps are accurate. We want trail users to safely experience the whole package, or at least as much as they want.”

And as anyone who has been out there knows, the Oregon desert has much to offer those who seek the experience.

NOTES ON THE DESERT TRAIL

Æ The area around the Trout Creek Mountains is a little over four hours from Boise.

Æ It is reached by driving U.S. 95 from the Treasure Valley south through Jordan Valley and Burns Junction and continuing to the Whitehorse Ranch Road.

Æ Plan on camping for several days.

Æ If you want to explore the terrain this time of the year, be prepared for remote country and wet and muddy desert roads.

8 WORDIES OR LINKTOLYLYLYL

8First reported at IdahoStatesman.com