Late November on the DRT: Dillon to Aspen to Benham

On the day before Thanksgiving, after nearly a week of rain and snow, the sun finally came out. I decided to go back to the Deschutes River Trail at Dillon Falls and walk the river to see what I could see. Who knows how much longer I'll be able to get out to this section of river this winter?

I arrived at Dillon Falls at 12:30, hoping to get the sun mainly at my back. I started downstream thinking to go to Lava Island, but by the time I reached Aspen, I decided to turn around and head back upstream to see Benham Falls one last time this year. While the first part of the walk was an amble with lots of long stops for photography, the second half was a hustle to get up to Benham and back to the truck by 4:30. Days are short this time of year.

It had warmed to 36 degrees when I arrived, meaning that exposed parts of the trail were slippery and muddy. Fortunately, there were no long slogs through the mud. On my way back to the truck, after the sun had gone behind the trees, the trail was in much better shape, having refrozen.

When I went past the marshy area just north of the Slough boat ramp, I heard a bizarre quacking sound, clearly a duck call and not something to be heard come from the mouth of any duck. As I worked my way around the wet area, I could see small ducks walking on the ice and floating in the small areas of open water. By the time I returned, the open areas had refrozen.

I used the tree cover to get as close as possible to a flock of Green-winged Teal, but still I was more than 75 yards distant, a stretch for even my big lens, especially without a tripod. Moving around to the south side of the slough, I started stalking my way through the underbrush towards a natural blind much closer to the water. I had not gone but about ten steps towards the water when I discovered the source of the duck call, a hunter dressed in camouflage warning me off.

I moved along, but would later hear his shotgun go off four times. I'm pretty certain that discharging a weapon that close to a trail is verboten, but it was a good reminder that I should invest in some blaze orange for my hikes in the various hunting seasons.

Steam or Mist Above Dillon Falls

Dillon Falls with Mist Frozen on Boulders

Frozen Mist on Boulders

How Cool Are These Icicles?

Color on Creeping Oregon Grape

Stairs Down from Dillon Falls

Lava Across the River

Frost on Tall Oregon Grape

Fitting Image from Aspen Day Use Area
Aspen Leaves on Bracken

Frost on Greenleaf Manzanita

Mt. Bachelor from Dillon Falls

Yellow Green Willow Twigs; Copper Alder Twigs

A Placid Area on the Deschutes

Green-Winged Teal on the Ice

Still Life: Prince of Pine and Downed Ponderosa

Benham Falls at Dusk

Frost on a Fir

Parting Shot: Deschutes Nearing Sundown

Loubia with Lamb Kefta

Andreas and Michelle went to Iceland just before we went to Italy so we haven't seen them in a hot minute. Our schedules finally allowed us to get together to see their absolutely stunning pictures. Iceland is very near the top of our list of places to visit in the next couple of years. I can hardly wait.

Loubia with Lamb Kefta

Andreas likes to cook and likes to pick my brain to learn new things. This time, he wanted to learn about spicing and I believe he mentioned Moroccan food specifically. At the same time, Ann seemed fixated on lamb and white beans, so I decided to do a bean stew common to the Maghreb, a dish called various things in various locales.

Loubia is a stew of white beans that I have encountered often. I know it in French as tagine d'haricots blancs or cassoulet algérienne. I also know that Andreas loves my cassoulet. And I also know that because it requires hours in the oven, it is not a dish that I can show him how to make right before dinner.

So what to do?

I decided keep on with the slow-cooked beans, but show him how to make two condiments for the beans, a red sauce and a green sauce. The red sauce was my version of harissa (red chiles, cumin, coriander, fennel, caraway, cinnamon, salt, garlic, lemon juice, and olive oil). The green sauce was my version of chermoula, an analog of chimichurri (parsley, cilantro, lemon zest, coriander, fennel, salt, garlic, lemon juice, olive oil). Chermoula is a typical condiment for fish, but I love it with meat in the same way that I love gremolata, salsa verde, or chimichurri with meat.

Long-cooked and mild dishes such as this loubia can often benefit from a zesty, acidic sauce to help wake up the taste buds. Also helpful is a bright green salad with an acidic dressing, such as the one I made from arugula, julienne of apple and fennel, and a tangy vinaigrette made with Sherry vinegar.

Lamb Kefta in the Classic Shape

First thing in the morning, I put my beans that had soaked overnight in lightly salted water on to par-cook for 90 minutes. I used my old stand-by beans, Steuben Yellow Eye beans from Rancho Gordo. Into the pot, I tossed a large sprig each of rosemary, sage, and thyme which would subtly flavor the beans.

Meanwhile, I got busy making the kefta (kofta, kafta, kufta: your choice). Because I was going to serve the beans and kefta with two assertive sauces, I did not highly season the lamb as I often do. The seasonings are a lot of garlic, a decent bit of a mild paprika, some salt, and a bit of coriander, cumin, and dried chile flakes. All the seasonings I mixed into a slurry with a couple of eggs and some white wine (definitely a no-no in the Arab world; substitute any stock or cream). Then I added a couple pounds of ground lamb and a half a cup of rolled oats.

I typically do add some type of starch to my meatballs and meatloaf to loosen the texture of the cooked product so that it is not super dense. I have used panko, panade (bread soaked in cream), cooked rice, and raw rolled oats all to success. Because I always have them on hand, I use rolled oats most frequently, a bonus if you have guests who are gluten-free.

After mixing the forcemeat (with the best tool of all, my hands), I put it in the refrigerator to settle and so that the oats could start to absorb the liquid and bind the mixture. When the beans were just about at the end of their 90-minute par-cook, I shaped the kefta, diced a leek and a large carrot, and minced half a bulb of garlic.

Then it was standard cassoulet procedure from there: brown the meat (the kefta), cook the aromatic vegetables in the same pan scraping up all the brown bits (the fond) from the bottom of the pan, drain the beans and save the cooking liquid for soup, mix the vegetables with the drained beans and season, put a layer of beans in the cocotte, add the meats, top with the remaining beans, fill with a deeply-flavored meat stock to just cover the beans, and finally bake in a slow oven, replenishing the stock as necessary and punching down the crust every hour or so.

While I Cooked, Ann Set the Table and Chose Utensils and Plates

I wanted to have something to snack on while the girls chatted and Andreas and I made the harissa and chermoula. I decided on a baked feta to take advantage of the oven since it would be going anyway in finishing the loubia. This couldn't be easier to make by whipping up a roasted red pepper sauce in the blender and layering it under and over slices of feta.

The roasted red pepper sauce is a pint jar of roasted red peppers, a couple tablespoons of my homemade harissa, a couple tablespoons of the intense umami-bomb estratto di pomodoro (Sicilian tomato paste), a couple cloves of garlic (minced), and a touch of salt. Ten seconds of whirring in the blender and it's done.

I also cut up some olives (Castelvetrano) and toasted some pine nuts for garnish. I stole a bit of parsley from the bunch that I picked for chermoula as an additional garnish.

Baked Feta in Roasted Red Pepper Sauce
Olives, Pine Nuts, and Parsley for Garnish

A Couple of Italian Girls

Loubia with Lamb Kefta
Loubia is Generally Saucier; I Made This Just Like Cassoulet

Arugula Salad with Apples, Fennel, and Sherry Vinaigrette
Loubia with Harissa and Chermoula

Deschutes River Trail: Aspen to Lava Island

Yesterday was predicted to be a beautiful day and I had seen reports that some of our local Trumpeter Swans were on the river near Aspen Day Use Area, so I planned to run over there while Ann was in her exercise class. When I told her of my plan, she decided to cancel her class and come with me. I was happy but surprised: the knee that she injured in Italy has been restricting her walking of late.

Though we did not see any swans, it was a beautiful and short walk along the river, first downstream to Lava Island and then back upstream to the truck that we left at Aspen.

Fall Color Near Lava Island

Thanks to a lot of local burning of slash piles and a bit of controlled burning, it was a hazy day and in the morning, we were facing into the sun on the east side of the river. Neither made for great photography, yet it wasn't horrible either. Early in the morning, the cold wind sliced right through our clothes, but it would die back as the day warmed to be pleasant.

Wounded Walker in Action

Rubber Rabbitbrush, Ericameria nauseosa, Stunning in Winter

Woods Roses, Rosa woodsii, and Cattails, Typha latifolia

Color from Lemmon's Willow, Salix lemmonii
I Only Know Which Willow Because I Saw it in Bloom This Year

The local falls for which the Deschutes River (Rivière des Chutes, "River of the Falls" to early French trappers) is named are all artifacts of geologically recent lava flows from the Newberry Volcano complex on the east side of the river. These flows, easily visible from the vantage point of Lava Butte, choked the river at Benham Falls, Dillon Falls, and Lava Island Falls. And near all these falls, the lava is easily visible on the east side of the river.

I have walked this stretch of river many times and have always wondered about a snag (a dead tree) that I see regularly in the lava flow just at the Big Eddy S-turns and rapids. I had always suspected that this snag held an Osprey's nest, but it being several hundred yards away in the middle of the lava flow, I could never tell for certain. On this walk, I brought along my big lens (in hopes of shooting the swans) with enough reach to verify the Osprey nest. Both Ann and I remarked that this is a great location for keeping the nest out of reach of terrestrial predators, namely raccoons.

Osprey Nest at Big Eddy in Middle of Lava

The Deschutes has for a couple centuries been known for its constant water levels, unusual in that most river levels fluctuate significantly. It was not until we erected dams and started siphoning water for irrigation that the water levels showed any significant changes. About October 15 of each year, at the end of the irrigation system, the Bureau of Reclamation restricts water flow from Wickiup Reservoir to refill the reservoir through the winter. And around April 15, they release more water from the dam to support irrigation throughout the growing season. The net effect is that we notice about an 18-inch drop in the water level in the winter.

Super Low Water at Big Eddy

Big Eddy at Low Water in November

Big Eddy at High Water in June

The Mountain Chickadees Were Extremely Noisy and Busy

Female Belted Kingfisher Surveying River
In a Twist, the Females are More Colorful Than the Males

In approaching Lava Island, we veered inland on a user (mountain bike) trail towards Seventh Mountain trying to find a more level walk that would be easier on Ann's knee. This brought us to the slough behind Seventh Mountain which is very dry in this season. In the spring and summer, it is home to many ducks. We walked briefly out on the dike into the slough before turning around and heading riverside past Lava Island towards the truck back at Aspen.

Bittersweet Nightshade Berries, Solanum dulcamara

Fireweed Seeds and Seedpods, Chamaenerion angustifolium 

Lava Island is named literally and is a big hunk of lava sandwiched between the main channel of the Deschutes to the east and a shallow high water channel to the west. Because of the reduced water flows, the high water channel is dry in this season. Volunteers head to this channel each fall to help census and move all the stranded fish, trout primarily, to the main channel, making the rough trek across the lava schlepping buckets of water and fish.

Lava Island High Water Channel is Dry

As much as I do not like smoke in the air, it did provide for a couple of interesting shots across Lava Island where the backlit smoke provided an eery, misty look to the photos.

As we walked the west bank opposite Lava Island, I wanted to show Ann, who has not walked this section of river before, the Lava Island Rockshelter, a very small cave that once served as a temporary hunting camp for historical peoples. A 1981 excavation found 38 obsidian points and tools such as hide scrapers, the obsidian probably coming from nearby Paulina or perhaps even just across the river at Lava Butte. Obsidian is common all over this part of Oregon. Dating is speculative, but the points are likely old. The tiny shelter was in use for about 10,000 years up to the early 1800s according to one estimate and for about 7,000 years up to 1900 according to another.

Lava Island Rockshelter

Glorious Wine Color of Creeping Oregon Grape, Berberis repens

Lava, Aspens (Populus tremuloides), and Willows (Salix sp.)

Red Osier Dogwood (Cornus sericea) and Willows (Salix sp.)

We never did see any swans or any other waterfowl for that matter, but it was a gorgeous day for a river walk and an entirely different experience than in the spring.