Vale 8/29/26

Vale High School has had a really good football team for a long time.  The Vikings took to the gridiron for the first time in 1928.  It took them a few decades to find their groove, but they’ve gone on to win 12 state championships, with another 5 runner-up awards, including one in 2024.  One of the secrets to their success is that they schedule a home preseason game each year against a good team from the western part of the state as a tune-up for their regular season. They haven’t managed to win a championship in the last ten years, but they’ve only lost 9 games over the past five seasons so it’s hard to argue with their scheduling strategy.  Fortunately for us, teams traveling from the Willamette Valley need a little extra travel time so those games are played on a Saturday, and this time we just happened to be in the area. 

Vale was founded as the first stop in present-day Oregon along the Oregon Trail.  By the mid-1850s there was a trading post located there along the banks of the Malheur River, and when the railroad came to town 30 years later it became an important shipping point.  A post office was established in 1883, Vale was designated the Malheur County seat in 1887, and was incorporated two years later.

The Malheur River, from which the county gets its name, was christened by Peter Skeen Ogden in 1825.  Ogden and his band of Hudson’s Bay trappers had cached several loads of pelts along the river, but when they came back to retrieve them they found that someone else had found them first.  The literal translation from French is “bad hour”, but it’s also a general term meaning bad luck or misfortune, and I’d guess it was probably one of the milder terms that escaped Ogden’s mouth at the time. 

I had heard that there were some pretty impressive wagon ruts in the hills outside of town, so we took a pre-game jaunt to the Keeney Pass Interpretive Site a few miles to the south, and I’m still not sure what to think about it.  Most of the signs are faded and were probably impossible to read even before a recent wildfire came through and burned the entire area.  There are a few Oregon Trail markers around, but if there are actually any ruts they are much less pronounced than I’ve seen in other places.  If you stare long enough you can convince yourself that you’re seeing some ruts, but if you have to talk yourself into it, is it really worth the trip?

I had decided not to climb the path all the way up the hill to see what was on top, but then I read Elizabeth Wood ‘s letter on one of the few legible signs, and I felt she was calling me out personally.  She’d been walking for months, and I couldn’t take a few minutes to walk up one little hill?  Thanks, Elizabeth.  There was no more to see on top of that hill than there was at the bottom, and I think the whole thing might have been an elaborate scam played by the local ranchers so they could watch unsuspecting outsiders have heart attacks climbing their silly path to nowhere.  I was not amused, but I got my steps in for the day, so the joke’s on them. 

We drove north into Vale and within minutes I was disappointed that we would not be spending the night there.  They have a real-life Bates Motel that looks just the way a Bates Motel should look: Like you wouldn’t survive the night.  Judging from the sign, I would say the motel predates the Pyscho movie, and I wonder whether the movie provided a temporary boost for the business or whether that was the beginning of the end for the motel.  It would be interesting to know.

On a different note, Vale must be the mural capital of eastern Oregon.  Or all of Oregon.  Or the whole country.  Or the world, maybe?  There are no blank walls in Vale and there are Oregon Trail-themed murals everywhere you look.  It’s awesome, and some folks in town must have some serious artistic skills.  I found one next to the drug store that I imagined was Elizabeth Wood, staring at me with that reproachful expression: “Git your weenie butt up that hill, dadgummit!”.   Get off my case, Lizzy.  I walked up your dumb hill.  Vale has a lot of personality, though, reflecting the farming and ranching community in the Malheur Valley, and those murals help make the connection to its historic past in a fun and attractive way.

At about this time I remembered that Malheur County runs on Mountain Time and the game would be starting soon, so we drove to the west edge of town, not too far behind the Bates Motel, and found the high school that was built in 1954.  Though it’s been added onto since that time, it looks to have retained the original Viking on the side of the old gymnasium and it still gives off those 1950s vibes.  Speaking of 1950s, guess who used to be Vale Vikings?  If you said the Wilcox brothers, you are correct, and I suspect you of having cheated.  John graduated from Vale, played for both Boise State and the U of O, then won a championship with the Philadelphia Eagles.  John’s little brother Dave graduated from Vale in 1960, followed John’s Boise/U of O route to the NFL, and became a Hall of Fame linebacker for the San Francisco 49ers.  Dave’s sons Justin and Josh also played for the ducks, and Justin was the head coach at Cal until last year. 

I’m a fan of alliteration myself, but given their Oregon Trail history you’d think Vale could have a more original mascot than the Vikings.  Not that there’s anything wrong with Vikings but…  Trailblazers? Wagoneers?  Pioneers?  Trappers?  But Vikings are fine.  And while I’m making some helpful-and-not-meant-to-be-at-all-critical suggestions, whose idea was it to play a football game at high noon in August?  Yes, I know.  The visitors from Estacada needed to play a Saturday game early enough to get home, etc.  But the heat was brutal. The thermometer said 86, but it wasn’t sitting on those aluminum bleachers. 

Anyway, in the school parking lot just off of F Street on the east side of the field, we carefully parked The Bucket in the shade of a massive RV that someone from Estacada had painstakingly driven over the mountains.  There wasn’t much shade as the sun was directly overhead, but every little bit helped.  The $6 each that we paid for admittance was reasonable, and came with a roster and little VALE stamp on the back of our hands, and we walked around to the home grandstand on the opposite, west side. 

The uncovered aluminum stand is a good size with a large press box above the bleachers topped with some kind of covered viewing deck.  I wasn’t sure who you had to be or what you had to pay to gain entry to that little place, but I’m pretty sure it wasn’t meant for us.  We chose seats in the middle of the home crowd with some space around us that shrunk as the opening kickoff neared.  Across on the east side of the field the visiting fans had a less substantial, but still large, aluminum stand to themselves.  The field is natural grass surrounded by a rubber running track, and the large concession stand is located just north of the grandstand. 

A beautiful rendition of the Star-Spangled Banner by a Vale student got things going, and the Vikings in their all-black uniforms and the Rangers in grey-and-white took the field.  Vale plays in Special District 5 of the 3A classification, while their opponents from Estacada compete at the 4A level, but it was the Vikings who seemed to have a size advantage at most every position, and this turned out to be one of the strangest games I’ve ever seen.

The Rangers from Estacada used a disciplined running game to open the scoring and lead 8-0 after the first quarter, but midway through the second quarter the tide started to turn.  Vale began to identify the defensive secondary as the weak link in the Ranger defense, and the Vikings exploited that weakness a few times for big plays, coming back to lead 18-14 at the half.  

The game was entertaining, but I was in a battle of my own against the relentless mid-day sun.  A ball cap and sunglasses were no match for the big ball of fire, and the wispy little puffs of water vapor that occasionally came between the two of us were few, far between, and far too tiny to be of much help.  Each fleeting moment of relief was gone in a few seconds, and the sun seemed to return even hotter each time.  In an attempt to evade the heatstroke I could feel coming on, we spent the second half in the small sliver of shade afforded by one of the lamp posts off to the side, or leaning against one of the equipment sheds on the other side of the grandstand, enjoying our popcorn and cold diet pepsi from the snack bar.  My hat is off to the players, and the Viking cheerleaders who were also active throughout the game. None of them wilted at all.

That snack bar, by the way, was just what they all should be.  It was large enough that the line never got too long, and the volunteer workers were fast and polite.  They have a well-oiled team of their own going on in there, and I wish they were all like that.  Again, there was no band to entertain us through halftime, and no other opening-day entertainment, but it wasn’t long before the Vikings were bursting through their paper barricade and the two teams were back on the field with the result still very much in doubt. 

The Vikings continued their passing success in the third quarter and led 25-14 by the end of it, and scored again early in the fourth quarter to stretch the lead to 32-14, and the Rangers were having a true “mal heur” experience of their own.  Estacada continued to run the ball well and their defense was very good, for the most part.  But each time Vale would need a big play they’d throw it long, and the Ranger defensive backs were beaten time and again.

But just when it looked like the Vikings had things well in hand, Estacada, as if divinely inspired by the ghost of Peter Skeen Ogden, scored the second of two successive touchdowns with just a few minutes left in the game, closing the gap to four points.  From there, the Vikings were able to run out the clock and preserve the 32-28 win, and a game that I had expected to go down to the wire actually had. The final statistics tell the story of a truly crazy game.  Estacada had outrun the Vikings 280 yards to 72, but the Vale quarterback had completed 9 passes for 241 yards and five touchdowns, all to the same receiver.  Next week the Vikings play Siuslaw, and maybe the Siuslaw coach should have his players cover that one guy.  

It was an exciting game to watch in the pleasant little town of Vale, and the Ednolds are now 2-0 to open the new season.  Actually, make that 3-0; despite the sun’s best efforts we were able to walk back to The Bucket under our own power with only second degree burns to our faces and legs, so I’m calling that a win also.  I may not have stuck it out without the wisdom of Elizabeth Wood stuck in my head, so thanks, Lizzie, for your little lesson in perseverance. We got ourselves back on the longest road in the country and raced the sun to the horizon, and that was our first loss of the season.