Slot canyons are dangerous except when they’re scarcely deep enough to hide a mouse.

The modest fissure in stone that my wife, Lisa, and I came across during our first snowless hike in a few months offers scant refuge even for slender rodents.

I suppose a clumsy hiker could twist an ankle there, but this would require a considerable degree of recklessness.

I’m prone to stumbling myself and I stayed upright while we had a look at the place.

I have read many accounts of adventurous, and perhaps a trifle foolhardy, hikers who explore slot canyons in places such as the Grand Canyon and the sandstone country of southeastern Utah.

In the most extreme cases these features, gouged from the rock by the region’s infrequent but omnipotent flash floods, are so narrow that a person standing in the bottom can touch both walls by extending their arms.

But those walls might extend upward for hundreds of feet, as smooth as the sides of a skyscraper.

In some cases the only way to escape a slot canyon is to follow it to where it intersects a larger, and less precipitous, gorge.

Which is a reasonable option unless a house-sized chunk of canyon wall has tumbled into the bottom, creating an obstacle that even skilled rock climbers can’t get past.

Or a cloudburst, possibly dozens of miles away, is spawning a flash flood that is careening toward you.

All of which is to say that once you get into a slot canyon — no simple task itself, in some cases — it’s entirely possible you won’t be able to get back out, stranded like a spider in a toilet bowl.

The terrain near Durkee, where Lisa and I hiked on March 9, is nothing like as treacherous as parts of the Southwest.

I certainly didn’t expect to see a slot canyon.

Even one I could step across without breaking stride.

I was lured to the expanse of public land just west of the Burnt River Canyon Road by the prospect of covering a few miles without the burden of snowshoes.

At about 2,800 feet elevation, the Durkee Valley is about 600 feet lower than Baker Valley, so the snow tends to come off earlier.

Mud, though, is a different matter.

When the frost goes out of the ground in spring, mud follows as surely as a rainbow after a summer storm.

And no mud I have encountered pulls so vigorously at hiking boots, or clogs tire treads so quickly and comprehensively, as the glutinous mud common to the sagebrush country that sprawls across much of the eastern half of Baker County.

(And other parts of our region.)

It’s viscous, this mud, about the same consistency as toothpaste but without the capacity to protect dental enamel and freshen breath.

Lisa uttered the dread word — “mud” — when I told her where I wanted to go.

I assured her, mustering more confidence than I actually felt, that the area ought to be dry after the recent rainless stretch.

I felt better about my prediction, though, when we turned onto the Burnt River Canyon Road and saw a dispersing dust cloud from another rig ahead.

We didn’t miss the mud by many days.

The unimproved road that branches off Burnt River Canyon Road was marred by ankle-deep ruts that had solidified into formidable, but fortunately soft, speed bumps.

This patch of public ground isn’t vast, covering around 4 square miles.

Nor is it remote.

Interstate 84 is just a mile or so to the north, and the rumble of traffic, and in particular commercial trucks downshifting to climb the grade west of Durkee, creates a constant background hum.

Yet I find it a compelling place to ramble.

The topography is eclectic — far more varied that it looks when you’re rolling down the freeway at 70 mph.

From that vantage point the terrain seems mundane, a series of modest hills and valleys covered with sagebrush and grass and the occasional patch of junipers.

This is misleading.

The several ephemeral streams — which I suspect typically carry water only briefly, during spring snowmelt and right after a summer downpour — have sculpted the bedrock and the soil into curious shapes.

One basin reminds me of South Dakota’s Badlands, with slopes of ashy soil with the consistency of talcum powder.

Nearby is an outcrop of pinnacles that would not look out of place in Utah’s Bryce Canyon National Park.

Besides mud the other scourge of spring is of course wind.

In deference to the gusts blowing from the southeast, I plotted a hiking route that stayed mainly to the shallow draws to take advantage of their shelter. It was a pleasant day, partly sunny with a temperature about 50, but I quickly tire of being buffeted, even when the wind isn’t chilly.

I like to hike in these defiles because I find fascinating to see how water tinkers with the landscape even when it flows so rarely and at such trivial volumes.

I walk much as I do on an ocean beach, with my eyes looking down, searching both for obstacles such as unstable rocks and for flotsam that invariably comes to rest in such places.

Shards of bright white quartz, for instance.

Or bits of bone.

We hiked up one draw for half a mile or so. Although standing water was scarce, just a few puddles that a handful of elk would quickly empty, it was obvious that water had flowed here recently. The grass, starting to green as the soil warms, was laid flat.

We crossed a plateau and then descended into another, somewhat wider and deeper, gorge.

The slope we walked on faces south, and I hoped to find my first buttercup of the season. But apparently the arctic outbreak a month earlier, when temperatures plunged below zero, had stunted the spring flowers.

We did see a few finger-length sprigs of grass widows, the pale pink blossoms of which will soon brighten the slope.

A desultory trickle of water was flowing in this draw. We had at last come upon mud.

We followed the gulch downhill, mainly staying in the bottom but detouring onto deer trails in the few places where boulders or juniper branches got in the way.

(Juniper branches, I am convinced, have a sort of sentience and will go right for your eyes if you challenge them.)

At a point where the stream veered sharply to the south, we saw the miniature slot canyon.

For a distance of maybe 25 feet, the streambed cut through an outcrop of stone.

At its narrowest the channel was scarcely wider than my hand. At the bottom was a pool about 3 feet wide and several inches deep.

I dipped my hand in the water, which was cool but nothing like the hand-numbing chill of a stream in the Wallowas or Elkhorns.

Comparing this spot to real slot canyons is sort of silly, to be sure.

No one is ever going to designate this as national park, with trails and interpretive signs and a gift shop packed with whimsical souvenirs including the mandatory shot glass and a rotating display of personalized miniature license plates.

(The unorthodox “y” in my first name inevitably leaving me disappointed as I spun the thing to get to the “J” row.)

But we were pleased by the place just the same.

It was the sort of unexpected encounter that can enliven an otherwise ordinary stroll through the sagebrush on a March afternoon when spring suddenly seems plausible again.

 

IF YOU GO: 

From Baker City, drive east on Interstate 84 and exit at Durkee, near Milepost 327. Turn right at the stop sign and drive through the “downtown” of the unincorporated town of Durkee, named for a pioneer family. After a third of a mile, just beyond the railroad tracks, turn right at a stop sign onto Old Highway 30.

Drive west on Highway 30 for 1.5 miles, then turn left onto paved Burnt River Canyon Road. Follow the road, which turns to gravel, for 2 miles. There is an open area on the right side of the road with plenty of room for parking. There’s a BLM sign noting that the primitive road is not suitable for passenger cars or trailers. If you have a high-clearance vehicle (and the road is dry), drive for about a quarter mile to a junction, in the bottom of a gully, where the main road climbs steeply and a side road heads off to the left. The miniature slot canyon is in the draw that runs northwest from the intersection, between the two roads.

Jayson Jacoby is the editor of the Baker City Herald. Contact him at 541-518-2088 or jjacoby@bakercityherald.com.