We arrived in Bates State Park which is a large park with miles of trails and a nice big pond with lots of wildlife. Bates was a town that was dismantled in the 50’s when the mill shut down. The entire town and mill were removed. People moved their houses with them and the mill was dismantled. The only thing left of the mill is the large pond. The only things left of the town are some daffodiles. In the picture above our truck is parked where the mill used to be and just past that the town was located.
Kimber Mike Don and I road to two small “ghost towns” past Bates, Susanville and Galina. It was a nice 40 mile ride. We were past by about 4 cars. Very nice road, called the Middle Fork of the John Day, it follows the river from Hwy 7 to Hwy 395.
This stretch of river was dredged by what in the day they called the “ultimate gold minning machine”. It destroys everything in its path. The dredge floats along in about 9 feet of water. It builds it’s own pond as it dredges along. Completly destroys the river and everything in it.
The confederated tribes of Warm Springs worked to repair the damage to the river and restored fish and wildlife habiat. A small section of the river was not repaired for some reason. Above are pictures of both. Don and I drove up to Sumpter where the Dredge State Park is. That is where I took the picture of the “machine”.
Airstream wonderers 