Warner Valley

The Warner Valley is a valley in south-central Oregon in the United States. It is a remote valley at the northwestern corner of North America's Basin and Range Province. The valley is home to a chain of lakes and wetlands known as the Warner Lakes. Native Americans were present in the Warner Valley for thousands of years before European explorers arrived in the 19th century. It is the site of Fort Warner, built by the United States Army in 1867. The fort was used as a supply depot and administrative headquarters during a protracted Army campaign against Northern Paiute bands in eastern Oregon and northern California. Today, livestock ranching is the main commercial activity in the valley. The Warner Valley offers a number of recreational opportunities including hunting, fishing, bird watching, and wildlife viewing.

Geography

The Warner Valley is located in south-central Oregon. It is approximately long and wide. Most of the valley is in Lake County; however, the north end of the valley extends about into Harney County. The valley has two regions commonly referred to as the South Warner Valley and the North Warner Valley. The two areas transition between Crump Lake and Hart Lake at a point where the valley narrows to about in width.Whistler, John T. and John H. Lewis
"Location and General Conditions"
''Warner Valley and White River Projects'', United States Reclamation Service, United States Department of Interior in cooperation with the State of Oregon, Washington D.C., February 1916, pp. 16–19.

Both sides of the South Warner Valley have steep cliffs rising from above the valley floor. The eastern cliffs run the entire length of the valley, while the western wall turns into rolling hills at the north end of the valley. The Coyote Hills are the western boundary through the middle of the North Warner Valley, with the Rabbit Hills bounding the northwest corner of the valley. From the hills, the ground slopes up to the crest of Abert Rim. The eastern boundary of the valley is Hart Mountain, a massive cliff face that rises above the valley floor. Warner Peak is the highest point on Hart Mountain. The summit is above sea level.Gottberg, John Anderson
"Pronghorn Paradise"
''The Bulletin'', Bend, Oregon, 16 August 2009.Jackman, E.R. and R.A. Lon
''The Oregon Desert''
Canton Press, Caldwell, Idaho: 1964, p. 361.

The valley floor is occupied by a chain of lakes known collectively as the Warner Lakes. The entire valley was once covered by a single vast lake; however, the water level gradually receded, leaving a chain of lakes at the low spots with marshland between the lakes. Starting at the south end of the valley, the largest of the Warner Lakes are Pelican Lake, Crump Lake, Hart Lake, Anderson Lake, Swamp Lake, Mugwump Lake, Flagstaff Lake, Upper Campbell Lake, Lower Campbell Lake, Stone Corral Lake, Turpin Lake, and Bluejoint Lake. Because the valley slopes away to the north, Crump Lake is higher in elevation than Bluejoint Lake.McArthur, pp. 1010–1011.

Geology

The country to the north and east of the Warner Valley is a high volcanic plateau which has undergone considerable erosion. The Warner Valley was probably a similar high plateau before massive faulting dropped the valley floor and uplifted the land around it, forming high valley walls. The Warner Lakes formed in the valley bottom after the faulting stopped.Whistler, John T. and John H. Lewis
"Geology"
''Warner Valley and White River Projects'', United States Reclamation Service, United States Department of Interior in cooperation with the State of Oregon, Washington D.C., February 1916, p. 21."Warner Wetlands Area of Critical Environmental Concern"
(PDF), Lakeview District, Bureau of Land Management, United States Department of Interior, Lakeview, Oregon, 26 August 2005.

The Warner Valley is bounded by high escarpment walls on the east and west. The main line of perpendicular displacement is along the foot of the cliffs to the east of the Warner Lakes. This scarp feature is known as Hart Mountain. The main cliff face of Hart Mountain towers above the valley floor. It runs the length of the valley, eventually being lost in a series of smaller fault scarps at the north end of the valley. These smaller scarps generally run from the east side of the valley to the northwest. The south end of the valley is more complex. In that area, the valley floor is bounded on three sides by perpendicular cliffs from high, the result of numerous fault events. These cliffs expose hundreds of feet of Miocene and Oligocene lava flows and ignimbrites, which include Steens basalt and various andesite, trachyandesite, and tuff flows. The mountain mass forming the western border of the South Warner Valley is a steep fault scarp. This cliff face rises over above the valley floor.

Warner Valley is an alluvial basin containing numerous lakes, remnants of a single great lake that covered the valley floor up to a depth of during the Pleistocene epoch. Today, steep cliffs rise above a chain of endorheic lakes.

Climate

The climate in the Warner Valley is typical of the high desert country of south-central Oregon. However, the high escarpments forming the western wall of the South Warner Valley tend to protect the southern part of the valley from the prevailing westerly winds. The absence of a high rim along much of the North Warner Valley increases the harshness of the fall and winter seasons at the north end of the valley.Whistler, John T. and John H. Lewis
"Climate"
''Warner Valley and White River Projects'', United States Reclamation Service, United States Department of Interior in cooperation with the State of Oregon, Washington D.C., February 1916, p. 20.

Air movements brought about by the uneven temperatures in the valley and on the surrounding higher plateaus and mountains give rise to local winds. These winds are strongest at places where canyons, such as Deep Creek Canyon, open into the valley.

In the Warner Valley, frost is common until late spring and begins again in early fall. As a result, the growing season in the valley is limited to about 100 days. The Warner Valley gets most of its rain in May and June, while the summer and fall months tend to be very dry. The winter snowfall in the valley bottom is generally very light; however, winter temperatures can get very cold. The higher plateau country above the valley usually gets several feet of snow and the higher peaks can get much more. In most years, the high peaks have snow on them from early fall until mid-summer. This snowpack feeds the streams that drain into the valley.

Ecology

The Warner Valley provides a number of unique animal habitats. These include lake, marsh, riparian, grasslands, sage steppe, dry forest, and rimrock. They range in elevation from approximately above sea level at the valley floor to over at the summit of Warner Peak. Marsh grasses are common along the lake shores. In the riparian areas, wild roses, choke cherry, wild plum, cottonwood, and willow are found. Beyond the wetlands, the valley becomes quite dry. Much of the North Warner Valley is semi-desert, where dwarf sagebrush, greasewood, and Western Juniper are the dominant vegetation.Rakestraw, John
"Hart Mountain National Antelope Refuge and the Warner Valley"
Morris Book Publishing, Kearney, Nebraska, 2007, pp. 20–22.

The valley’s wildlife includes common high desert mammal species, resident birds, and migrant waterfowl. There are forty-two mammal species that live in the Warner Valley-Hart Mountain area. These include pronghorn, bighorn sheep, elk, mule deer, cougar, bobcat, and coyotes. Smaller mammals include jackrabbits, ground squirrels, and chipmunks.

There are 239 species of birds that live in the area or migrate through the Warner Valley. Species that nest in the areas around Crump Lake and Hart Lake include American white pelicans, double-crested cormorants, willets, Wilson's phalaropes, Canada geese, gadwalls, northern shovelers, black-crowned night herons, and numerous varieties of ducks and terns. In addition, sandhill cranes, white-faced ibis, great white egrets, and American avocets are found in the marshes and along the lake shores. At the Warner Wetlands Area of Critical Environmental Concern, administered by the Bureau of Land Management, there are observation blinds where American bitterns, black-necked stilts, cinnamon teal, tundra swans, Brewer's blackbirds, western meadowlarks, swallows, and nighthawks are commonly seen.

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 sage steppes and grasslands, summer residents include horned larks, Brewer's sparrows, vesper sparrows, common ravens, sage thrashers, sagebrush sparrows, black-throated sparrows, and greater sage grouse. In the rimrock areas, there are chukars, rock wrens, canyon wrens, cliff swallows, and barn swallows. The valley also hosts mountain chickadee