McCully Basin
The McCully Basin is a geologic structural basin in the northern boundary of Eagle Cap Wilderness in northeast Oregon. The basin is the topographic drainage of McCully Creek. Several Alpine Huts and campsite are located throughout the McCully Basin, which are used as a base camp in the winter for telemark skiing.
McCully Basin starts at the wilderness boundary and runs north–south towards Big Sheep Creek and Tenderfoot Wagon Road. The East Fork of the Wallowa River runs parallel to the McCully Basin to the West of the ridge formed from East Peak, Hidden Peak and Aneroid Mountain.
The McCully Basin is named from the Creek which takes its name from Frank D. McCully, a sheep rancher and US representative, notorious supporter of Chief Joseph.
Geology
While the Eagle Cap Wilderness is characterized by high alpine lakes, there are no lakes within the McCully Basin. The geology of the peaks surrounding the McCully Basin are basalts that resemble more the strata in the Columbia River Gorge than to the distinctive slopes of marble and granite in most of the Wallowa–Whitman National Forest. Some of the more prominent peaks that border the McCully Basin are Mount Melissa to the East and Aneroid Mountain to the Southwest.Ecology
The hydrographic McCully Basin contains two neighboring ecoregions, with unclear ecological boundaries throughout. Surrounding the creek shores and its riparian zones are alpine forests which overlap extended meadows and flatlands that contrast the surrounding peaks.Flora
The McCully basin starts in the north with formerly diseased forests composed mainly of Engelmann spruce, western larch, scrappy woods of lodgepole pine, Douglas fir, and an underbrush of Sitka alder, Labrador tea, lupin and grouseberry.Fauna
Great Basin wildlife includes snowshoe hare, Red Squirrels, Columbian ground squirrels, and other small rodents, which are predominantly nocturnal. Mule deer are plentiful in the McCully Basin as well as large elk herds. The high elevation ridges are grazed by mountain goats.The American dipper is also very common in the McCully Basin. Northern flicker, Clark's nutcrackers, Canada jay, Steller's jay, olive-sided Flycatchers, hermit thrushes, spotted towhee, ruby-crowned kinglets, winter wrens are other common bird species.
Sheep and cattle graze throughout Eagle Cap Wilderness, including the surroundings of Mount Nebo. Shortly after World War II with the impact of the wool industry, the number of sheep nearly disappeared in the Eagle Cap Wilderness, while at the beginning of the 1900, their numbers exceeded the carrying capacity of the wilderness.