In spring, snow melt from Steens Mountain swells the lakes and floods thousands of acres of pasture land.  By mid summer it is a dry grassland with cattle (and horses) grazing everywhere.  Canals, dikes and huge diversion gates are used to manage this transition to best support local and migrating wild life.  Unfortunately, they haven’t reopened the visitor center since The Occupation so we couldn’t get a first hand explanation of how it all works.

The wildlife drive is long, 42 miles and not terribly productive but it was an OK stop. We saw pronghorn, mule deer, coyote and a number of warblers, sandhill cranes and trumpeter swans.

The Narrows Campground served as our home base for the stay. We took a day off from cooking to try the home cooking at their Café.  A Narrows Burger with green chilies and a tuna melt (first one I have ever had in my life by the way) were both delicious.  The home made peach pie topped it all off nicely.