The climate is semiarid with warm dry summers and cold moist winters. The mean annual precipitation ranges from 9 to 14 inches. The frost-free period ranges from 90 to 160 days. Bakeoven soils are less than 10 inches to bedrock and are loamy-skeletal. Encina soils have less than 35 percent rock fragments in the particle-size control section and are deeper than 60 inches.
Lookout soils have an ochric epipedon and have a duripan.
Simas soils are over 60 inches deep to bedrock and have less than 35 percent rock fragments in the particle-size control section. Native vegetation dominantly is bluebunch wheatgrass, Idaho fescue on north slopes, Sandberg bluegrass and Wyoming big sagebrush. The series is moderately extensive. Baker County, Oregon, 1942. Argillic horizon - the zone from 5 to 11 inches.