[pct-l] Oregon PCT Names

[Wayne Kraft]

Let's start at McKenzie Pass, west of Sisters, Oregon and ramble south a 
ways to consider some of the names we find.  First, there's McKenzie Pass, 
itself, named for the McKenzie River which originates from among the streams 
that flow from the western slopes of the Three Sisters. The river was named 
for Donald McKenzie, a member of the Astor  party (the first real settlers 
to come along after Lewis and Clark's expedition), who explored the 
Willamette Valley in 1812.  I can scarcely imagine the grandeur of the early 
19th century Willamette Valley, with its vast grasslands and forests 
unmarred by interstate freeways, fences and power lines.  It must have been 
a sight to behold.  At any rate, Donald McKenzie was an interesting fellow 
who explored not just the Willamette River Valley but the Columbia and Snake 
as well.  He strikes me as not unlike a modern thru-hiker in some respects. 
One contemporary said that "to conscious prudence he united the most 
dauntless intrepidity; in fact no hardships could fatigue, no dangers 
intimidate him."  While another, perhaps one left behind to tend to business 
while McKenzie wandered, styled him "a very selfish man, who cared for no 
one but himself."  You can't please everyone.  Donald McKenzie even had a 
trail name: Perpetual Motion.

When the Great Depression threatened to put the entire nation out of work, 
President Roosevelt organized and financed the CCC and WPA so that the 
federal government could hire unemployed workers and put them to work 
building neat stuff.  One of the neat things the CCC built was a circular 
enclosure made of lava rock designed to give visitors to McKenzie Pass a 
weather break from which they might observe the surrounding geologic 
wonders.  A long-time local guide, trail builder and USFS packer named Dee 
Wright was hired as foreman for the project, but died before it was 
completed. It was deemed fitting to name the Dee Wright Observatory for this 
fellow, a noted story teller who grew up among the Molalla Indians (the 
tribe not the high school football team) and was fluent in both English and 
Chinook jargon.

Next we come to North and South Mathieu  Lakes.  The early PCT went to both 
of these lakes, but one summer day in the early 70's the USFS completed a 
new trail up on the ridge and suddenly, like flipping a switch, the PCT 
bypassed North and headed straight to South Mathieu Lake.  My friends Kenny, 
Doug, Arthur and I hiked into the Three Sisters a day or so before they 
flipped the switch and came out a day after.  Imagine our confusion when we 
suddenly found ourselves on a trail that did not appear on our map and did 
not go past North Mathieu Lake.  Odd.  Anyway the lakes are named for 
Frances Xavier Mathieu, a French Canadian fellow who settled  in Butteville 
on the Willamette River.  Mathieu played an important part in Oregon history 
when he joined a group of men gathered in Champoeg, just round the bend from 
Butteville, to vote on whether Oregon ought to try to become a state or 
something else.  Apparently, FXM voted for something else, but everybody 
liked him anyway and eventually named for him a couple of high mountain 
lakes he had the good sense never to visit.

Now, as we travel deeper into the Three Sisters country, we'll find the 
landscape more often than not named for or by geology professors from the 
University of Oregon because, well, when geology professors discovered this 
geological wonderland they thought they'd died and gone to Pahrump.  Just 
past the lakes the PCT contours around Yapoah Crater, named by Prof. Ed 
Hodge.  Professor Hodge was familiar with Skinner's Butte in Eugene and knew 
the Indians called in Yapoah (lonesome hill) until Eugene Skinner came along 
and named the town and the butte for himself.  Professor Hodge decided to 
transplant the name to Yapoah Crater, which is a much better hill but hardly 
lonesome.

Continuing southward we refill our Platy's from the delicious water of 
Minnie Scott Spring.  Dee Wright suggested this  pleasant place be named for 
the wife of Felix Scott (whose name graces other landmarks - another story 
for another time) and it was done.  Unfortunately, Dee was full of it again 
because Felix Scott never married.  Minnie was his niece.  Oh well.

Finally we arrive at what has to be the most interestingly named feature of 
the entire Northern Sisters PCT, to wit: Opie Dilldock Pass.  In 1932 Dee 
Wright (again) and the USFS District Ranger from McKenzie Bridge, Ralph 
Engels, somehow found their way through the jumbled lava of this pass.  How 
they did that without a trail was apparently quite a story.  Many years 
prior to 1932 a Chicago newspaper had run an obscure comic strip called The 
Stories of Old Opie Dilldock (pronounced, I'm told, Old Dopey Dilldock.  The 
comic strip featured its protagonist, Opie Dilldock, spinning one yarn after 
another about his survival against impossible odds of various imaginary 
adventures.  Apparently, the story of Dee and Ralph's trip across the pass 
was similar to one of Opie Dilldock's tales, at least the way Dee told it, 
and the name stuck.

So there you have it.  Barely a half day's walk and we've encountered so 
much of Oregon's history and more than a few of Oregon's unique characters. 
There's more, much more.  So many names, so little time.