The Catlow Valley is a basin in Harney County, Oregon, United States. It is a remote valley at the northwestern corner of North America's Basin and Range Province. The valley is named after a pioneer rancher, John Catlow. The area was used by Native Americans for thousands of years before European explorers arrived in the 19th century. Today, cattle ranching is the main commercial activity in the valley. The public land in the Catlow Valley is administered by the Bureau of Land Management. This public land offers a number of recreational opportunities including hiking, hunting, fishing, bird watching, and wildlife viewing.
Geography
Catlow Valley is located in Harney County in southeastern Oregon. The area is the northwestern corner of North America's continental basin and range country. The valley is approximately long and wide. It covers approximately of high desert range land. The average elevation of the valley floor is above sea level.LaLande, Jeff, "Catlow Valley", The Oregon Encyclopedia, Portland State University, Portland, Oregon, 2008."Catlow Valley", Oregon topographic map, United States Geological Survey, United States Department of Interior, Reston, Virginia; displayed via ACME mapper, www.acme.com, 12 April 2014.
The Catlow Valley is bounded by Hart Mountain on the west and Steens Mountain on the east, and Beatys Butte is southwest of the valley. Warner Peak is the highest point on Hart Mountain. The summit of Warner Peak is above sea level.McArthur, Lewis A. and Lewis L. McArthur, "Hart Mountain", Oregon Geographic Names (Seventh Edition), Oregon Historical Society Press, Portland, Oregon, 2003, p. 449. From the crest of the Hart Mountain, the land slopes gently down to the floor of the valley.Jackman, E.R. and R.A. Long, The Oregon Desert, Canton Press, Caldwell, Idaho: 1964, p. 368. Steens Mountain's western boundary is Catlow Rim. The rim runs along the east side of Catlow Valley from north to south. At the north end of the valley, the rim begins as gentle rolling hills. The rim gets steeper and high as it runs south. At the south end of the valley, Catlow Rim has a cliff face that rises more than a above the valley floor.Fuller, Richard E., "Southern Steens and its Relation to Pueblo Mountain" , The Geomorphology and Volcanic Sequence of Steens Mountain in Southeastern Oregon (Volume 3, Number 1), University of Washington Press, Seattle, Washington, November 1931.Forrester, J.W., "Cattle/Harney Made to Order", The Bulletin, Bend, Oregon, 15 October 1991, p. A-4. Beatys Butte is a stand-alone peak southwest of Catlow Valley. Its summit is above sea level, which gives it a prominence above the valley floor."Beatys Butte Herd Management Area" (PDF), Lakeview District, Bureau of Land Management, United States Department of Interior, Lakeview, Oregon, 2 April 2014.
Geology
The Catlow Valley is a tectonic depression called a graben. It is bounded on the east and west by high, uplifted fault-block mountains—Hart Mountain to the west and Steens Mountain to the east—with which it forms a horst and graben geological feature. Catlow Rim is a prominent escarpment that forms the western face of the Steens Mountain fault block, overlooking the Catlow Valley.Oregon Wilderness Environmental Impact Statement (Volume III), Bureau of Land Management, United States Department of Interior, Portland, Oregon, 1985, pp. 236–237. The rim is a basalt cliff that runs along the east side of the valley. Catlow Cave is located at the base of Catlow Rim near the southern end of the valley. The cave is wide at its mouth. It is high and deep. Roaring Springs Cave is another prominent cave located at the base of Catlow Rim."Catlow Cave", Oregon State Office, Bureau of Land Management, United States Department of Interior, Portland, Oregon, 23 March 2014.
During the Pleistocene Epoch, the Catlow Valley was covered by a single large lake, approximately by length and width. In some spots, the lake was over deep. Today, the valley is a high-desert alluvial basin. However, evidence of the ancient lake can still be seen in the form of shoreline erosion marks, gravel bars, and wave-cut terraces around the edge of the valley, especially along the base of Catlow Rim.Cressman, L. S., "Oregon's Ancient Civilization…How Old?", The Northwest's Own Magazine, The Sunday Oregonian, Portland, Oregon, 12 April 1936, p. 5.
Climate
The climate in the Catlow Valley is typical of the high-desert country of southeastern Oregon. Summers in the valley are short, characterized by high temperatures and very little moisture. The valley gets an average of of precipitation per year, mostly as snowfall. The winters are cold.
There is no official weather reporting station in the Catlow Valley. The P Ranch weather station is the nearest official National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) reporting station to the valley. It is approximately northeast of the Catlow Valley in the neighboring Blitzen Valley. The elevation of the P Ranch weather station is above sea level, approximately lower than the average elevation of the Catlow Valley. It reports daily weather data to NOAA's National Climatic Data Center."Normals Monthly Station Details", P Ranch Refuge Reporting Station (GHCND:USC00356853), National Climatic Data Center, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, Department of Commerce, Asheville, North Carolina, 13 April 2014.
Ecology
Flora
The Catlow Valley topography provides a number of wildlife habitats. These include seasonal lakes, marshes, riparian areas, grasslands, sage steppe, dry juniper forests, and rimrock. The valley is predominantly high-desert grassland with gently rolling hills to the north, west, and south of the valley floor. There are wetlands and meadows at the mouth of canyons where runoff from Hart Mountain and Steens Mountain drains into the valley. There are two major drainages from Hart Mountain on the west side of the valley, Rock Creek and Guano Creek. Rock Creek enters the valley from the northwest, and Guano Creek flows in from the southwest. The east side of the valley is bounded by Catlow Rim, a steep and rugged cliff. The rim is cut by canyons that channel runoff into small man-made reservoirs and shallow natural marshes along the edges of the valley floor. The three main drainages on the east side of the valley are Home Creek, Threemile Creek, and Skull Creek.Oregon Wilderness Environmental Impact Statement (Volume III), Bureau of Land Management, United States Department of Interior, Portland, Oregon, 1985, pp. 367–368.Jackman, E. R. and John Scharff, Steens Mountain in Oregon's High Desert Country, Caxton Printers, Caldwell, Idaho, 1967, p. 36. On the east side of the valley, Catlow Rim provides a rimrock habitat. Some of the east slope of Hart Mountain and the west slope of Steens Mountain are lightly covered with western juniper. There are also aspen trees in areas where winter snow tends to accumulate, as well as a ponderosa pine grove in one area on Hart Mountain.
The dominant vegetation throughout most of the valley is big sagebrush, low sagebrush, rabbitbrush, and bitterbrush. Common grasses include bluebunch wheatgrass, bunchgrass, and Idaho fescue.Rakestraw, John, "Southern Harney County", in Birding Oregon, Morris Book Publishing, Kearney, Nebraska, 2007, pp. 17–22. In addition, greasewood, shadscale, spiny hopsage, winterfat, and basin wildrye can be found in parts of the valley.Oregon Wilderness Environmental Impact Statement (Volume III), Bureau of Land Management, United States Department of Interior, Portland, Oregon, 1985, p. 282.
Fauna The Catlow Valley's wildlife includes many high-desert animal species. Large mammals found in the valley include mule deer, pronghorn, bighorn sheep, coyotes, bobcats, and cougars. The valley is also home to a herd of wild horses. Smaller mammals include badgers, jackrabbits, antelope squirrels, least chipmunks, bushy-tailed woodrats, desert woodrats, Great Basin pocket mice, canyon mice, and long-eared myotis bats."Mammal Checklists of the United States - Hart Mountain National Antelope Refuge" , Northern Prairie Wildlife Research Center, United States Geological Survey, United States Department of the Interior, Jamestown, North Dakota, 1 February 2013. Among the common reptiles are Great Basin fence lizards, sagebrush lizards, desert horned lizards, western skinks, gopher snakes, and western rattlesnakes."Amphibian and Reptile Checklists of the United States - Hart Mountain National Antelope Refuge" , Northern Prairie Wildlife Research Center, United States Geological Survey, United States Department of the Interior, Jamestown, North Dakota, 1 February 2013.
In the sage steppes and grasslands of the Catlow Valley, resident birds include horned larks, Brewer's sparrows, vesper sparrows, sage thrashers, sagebrush sparrows, black-throated sparrows, common ravens, and greater sage grouse. The valley also hosts mountain chickadees, Cassin's finches, black-headed grosbeaks, green-tailed towhees, yellow-rumped warblers, MacGillivray's warblers, mountain bluebirds, white-headed woodpeckers, California quail, mourning doves, magpies, burrowing owls, flammulated owls, and northern harriers. In the valley's riparian areas, dusky flycatchers, yellow warblers, orange-crowned warblers, house wrens, and spotted towhees are common in the summer months. In the rimrock, there are chukars, white-throated swifts, cliff swallows, and barn swallows. The larger birds include great horned owls, long-eared owls, prairie falcons, American kestrels, red-tailed hawks, and golden eagles.Oregon Wilderness Environmental Impact Statement (Volume III), Bureau of Land Management, United States Department of Interior, Portland, Oregon, 1985, p. 239.
All five of the year-round creeks that flow into the Catlow Valley (Rock Creek, Guano Creek, Home Creek, Skull Creek, and Threemile Creek) support fish populations. The native fish are tui chub and Great Basin redband trout. The creeks also host introduced populations of rainbow trout and Lahontan cutthroat trout. Redband trout and tui chub are abundant and well-distributed throughout the Rock Creek habitat. In Home Creek, the redband distribution and abundance are moderate; portions of the habitat are degraded. The redband populations in Guano, Skull, and Threemile creeks are limited. In addition, degraded parts of the Threemile Creek habitat include Threemile Reservoir."Catlow Valley Redband Trout" (PDF), Oregon Native Fish Status Report (Volume II), Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife, Salem, Oregon, 2005, p. 379."Fish Checklists of the United States - Hart Mountain National Antelope Refuge" , Northern Prairie Wildlife Research Center, United States Geological Survey, United States Department of the Interior, Jamestown, North Dakota, 1 February 2013.
History
Early history