High Desert (Oregon)

Oregon high desert
"Oregon Outback" and "Great Sandy Desert"
Region
The Oregon high desert near Frenchglen
Country	United States
State	Oregon
Municipality	Crook, Deschutes, Grant, Harney, Lake, and Malheur counties
Part of	Columbia Plateau (north) and Great Basin (south)
Borders on	Cascade Range (west) Blue Mountains (north) Idaho border (east) Nevada border (south)
City	Bend, Burns, Lakeview, and Prineville
Highest point
- location	Steens Mountain
- elevation	9,733 ft (2,967 m)
Length	130 mi (209 km), north–south
Width	200 mi (322 km), east–west
Map of Oregon's high desert region

The Oregon high desert is a region of the U.S. state of Oregon, located east of the Cascade Range and south of the Blue Mountains, in the central and eastern parts of the state. Divided into a southern region and a northern region, the desert covers most of five Oregon counties and averages 4,000 feet (1,200 m) above sea level. The southwest region is part of the Great Basin and the southeast is the lower Owyhee River watershed. The northern region is part of the Columbia Plateau, where somewhat more rainfall allows the largest industry on private land to be the cultivation of alfalfa and hay. Public land within the region is owned primarily by the Bureau of Land Management (BLM), which manages more than 30,000 square miles (78,000 km²), including five rivers designated as Wild and Scenic.

While the high desert is somewhat dry, it is only arid relative to Western Oregon. The region averages 15 inches (380 mm) of annual rainfall; the Alvord Desert, however, gets only 7 inches (180 mm) of rain each year. Contrary to its name, most of the high desert is not dry enough to truly qualify as desert, and biologically, most of the region is classified as scrubland or steppe.

At 9,733 feet (2,967 m) above sea level, the summit of Steens Mountain is the highest point in the high desert. The broad fault-block mountain is characteristic of the basin and range plate tectonics of the high desert. About 16 million years ago, during the early Miocene epoch, lava flows from volcanic eruptions covered about half the surface area of Oregon. The Earth's crust then began stretching, giving way to further volcanic activity from 15 million to 2 million years ago. Several ice ages over this time formed the large lakes in the high desert.