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Those fragilis are not a shy lot were you come from. Nice very Nice.

There are P. Simpsonii on Steens Mountain and around the Alvord Desert, supposedly

Hochstatter calls all the Pediocactus in Oregon and parts north P. nigrispinus. The NCL has tentatively accepted this name. They have rather dark central spines as shown in your photos, strong pink flowers (except ssp beastonii), and a small taproot, otherwise much like P. simpsonii.

The ones in Alvord Desert are further broken down as P. nigrispinus ssp beastonii, which have paler flowers and are nearly always solitary. They are very similar to P. simpsonii ssp robustior although Hochstatter considers them to be completely separate.

Wow, I've never thought of Oregon as cacti growing territory... I've never actually even seen any pictures of eastern Oregon. It looks pretty spectacular.

Yes, people think of rain forests when they think of Oregon. But in fact, 2/3rds of the state is high-desert (and also not-so-high desert considering that the region in which I took these photos is a bit over 1000 ft.). Even Oregonians are oblivious to this desert (they think of Bend which is on the fringe -- more Ponderosa on the West end, sage and sand begins on the East side of town). I can't speak for anyone else, but now that I've found it, I'll go back a lot. Still, I don't expect much traffic. The Oregon Desert (part of which is The Great Basin) is one of the most remote parts of the country.

from what I remember being up there in Montana and some of those parts, it was the most desolate country I have ever seen. In some places you could see for miles and not see a single house or road or car...

It does look pretty and it looks like a neat place to explore. If I was a little closer I might take a peak myself, but for now I need to explore my home state first. There are plenty of places that have cacti here that I havent been.

Great pics, thanks for sharing.

I know this is a really old thread but I wanted to add something for anyone else who might happen upon this. I’ve personally seen the pediocactus mentioned here growing in both Wheeler and Grant County (Oregon), near the John Day River. I’ve also seen them near Mann Lake, which is in the Steens Mountains area. I transplanted some into a home cacti garden a long time ago. I’ll attempt to post a pic, though I know it’s not exciting as seeing pics of them in the wild. I kick myself for not snapping some pics when they were blooming a few weeks ago.

Yesterday I collected some seeds from them and planted them. The seeds are larger than most cacti seeds I’ve seen. I’m hoping to have seedlings here within a few days. I noticed that they smelled a lot like garden peas, when I was getting them out of the pods.

Gregg,
I hope you're no longer in the habit of poaching those plants.