Wallowa County cowboys race to build rockjacks in one-of-a-kind competition

A rockjack is a wooden cage of split tamarack posts laden with 300 pounds of rocks. It anchors a fence where the rocky ground is too bulletproof to sink a post. Rockjacks are built 30 feet apart and joined by four stands of barbed wire. Wooden "stays," or slats, every eight or 10 feet keep the wire separated. "The idea of a rockjack is, if an elk hits a fence, they'll tip up and fall back down," explains veteran rockjack builder Casey Tipett, who ranches near Enterprise. In celebration of this curious cow country artifact, the Ranch Rodeo at the county fairgrounds in Enterprise offers the World Championship Rockjack Building today. The noon event qualifies as the world championship because it's the only one of its kind on the planet and only the second one ever held here, organizers say. End-of-summer ranch life in Wallowa County sometimes seems dominated by rockjacks. Cattle are on summer range, and ranchers finally have time to fix fences in the empty landscape -- essentially basalt canyons "with a little layer of dust on them and a little grass growing out of the dust," Nash says. A single packhorse can carry enough split tamarack rails for two rockjacks and eight stays, he says. Rocks are less of a problem: "You don't have to search hard for them, they are there."...more