"Rain, Rain, Go Away!"
This post documents our first day of five on our recent rafting trip down the Lower Owyhee River in far southeastern Oregon, four hours from our home in Bend.
As we headed east out of Burns, OR, where we spent the night in a hotel, towards the Rome Boat Launch under cloudy skies, I worried about the upcoming weather for the day, not that I could do anything about it. The NWS had been forecasting a rainy day for the previous week, but the certainty of rain had been steadily falling from higher than 70% to 20%. We drove out the day before from Bend through quite a lot of rain, but most of that, knock on wood, seemed to have blown through during the night.
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Ann and Trip Leader Amanda as We Left the Rome Boat Launch
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Seeing many showers on the horizon, we drove through a few brief ones, not very good omens in my book. At 9:00am local time, we arrived in Rome under largely gray skies with showers visible to the west. The weather was still looking like we might get wet which would be a bummer but not the end of the world; we packed plenty of cold- and wet-weather gear for the whitewater.
After finding a parking place among dozens and dozens of vehicles at the BLM boat launch, we hopped out to reconnoiter and hopefully connect with our guides from Momentum River Expeditions out of Ashland, OR and the other guests in our group, unknown in number. Momentum guests have the option of spending the night in Boise and taking a shuttle to the river or they, like we, can meet in Rome. Rome is significantly closer to Bend than Boise, so meeting at the boat launch was a no-brainer for us.
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| Rome Boat Launch Looking North |
As we walked the surprisingly large parking lot towards the action at the boat ramp, with a constant Western Meadowlark concert from across the river, the scads and scads of people milling about had me worrying about how much seclusion we were actually going to have. In point of fact, though we did see other groups from time to time, it felt for the most part that we had the river to ourselves. I needn't have worried.
On the way back from the boat ramp towards our car, Ann spotted a young woman in a Momentum jacket and we hooked up with our trip leader, Amanda. Amanda was a bad-ass vision with shoulder-length straight pink hair, mirror shades, XtraTuf boots, and flat-brimmed trucker cap, which she would lose to the wind and the river on day 4. Amanda so reminds us of our dear friend Kayli that we had to fight calling her Kayli for the entire trip. Apologies to both Amanda and Kayli; you'd really like each other. When Amanda is not guiding trips in the US or in South America, she snowboards.
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| Shooting the Breeze; Waiting on Laird |
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| Personal Gear Waiting for Us |
As it turns out, Amanda had set up PFDs and other personal gear for us on a picnic table directly in front of our car. We transferred our personal gear from the car into dry bags and our beers into an ice chest. Then Amanda gave us a quick briefing, fitted us with PFDs and wet suits, and told us that we were waiting on one other guest, Laird, who was also coming in from Bend (small world, eh?). About the time Laird arrived, Sara came up from the launch and introduced herself to us. Sara would be rowing a gear boat on this trip.
Ultimately, we schlepped our personal gear, ice chest, and so forth down to the launch so that Amanda and Sara could stow it. There we found out that Elena, the third guide on our trip, had left earlier to secure a camp site, hopefully the small site known as Hackberry on the east bank of the river, some 15 miles downstream. We would meet her there or at whatever campsite she was able to secure for us.
While we were at the launch, there was a lot going on as a much larger group from another outfitter was getting ready to go as well. We would leapfrog with them all trip and would end up getting lashed into a chain of rafts with them as we got a welcome tow down the flatwater of the Owyhee Reservoir to the Leslie Gulch boat ramp where we would take out.
I had a few minutes to mill about, shoot photos, and generally observe the loading process of our group and the one from the other company; it sure looked like they were herding cats trying to get their larger and much older group motivated.
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| Rome Bridge from Boat Launch |
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| Whorl of New Growth on Invasive Cotton Thistle, Onopordum acanthium |
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| Bullock's Oriole Nest in Launch-Side Cottonwood |
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| Ready to Hop in and Get Started |
Soon enough, Amanda and Sara had our gear stowed and we got in, ready to depart. I brought two small personal dry bags with me: a 10-liter one for our day-use gear such as sunscreen, mini-binoculars, and neoprene gloves; and a tiny 4-liter bag for my camera, filters, and so forth. Once I secured these to a D-ring in the raft, we backed away from the launch, getting away before the larger group.
Once out on the water, Amanda went over how to secure ourselves in rough water and her commands for how she wanted us to paddle in big rapids. That done, we set off downriver with Sara's gear raft behind us. The maps below show our route for the day in fuchsia: 15 miles from the Rome boat launch to Hackberry Camp.
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| Day 1 - Rome Boat Launch to Hackberry Camp (fuchsia) |
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| Amanda Pulling us Away from Rome Boat Launch |
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| US 95 Bridge, Cliff Swallow Mud Nests on Pillar |
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| This Section Characterized by Sedentary Soil with Lava Cap |
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| Red Wing Blackbird over a Duck Blind |
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| Old Ion Highway Crosses on Owyhee River Bridge |
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| Soft Sedimentary Rock Pillars; Swallow Nests on Face of Middle Pillar |
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| Cliff Swallow Nests, Cups of Mud Harvested from River Banks |
Swallows would play a big role in our trip in that we were seldom on the river without them and their constant noisy conversations among themselves as they hawked bugs out of mid-air or gathered mud from the river banks. While back in Bend, the vast majority of swallows are Violet-green Swallows, we do have many other species that ply the Deschutes river for bugs. By contrast, almost every swallow that I saw on the Owyhee was a Cliff Swallow, though I did see one Purple Martin, for the first time in decades.
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| Sara Hauling our Gear in Front of Pillars |
Rome, Oregon takes its name from an eroded sedimentary stone formation that reminded some vivid-thinking settlers (early stoners?) of the Roman Coliseum. We stopped for lunch directly opposite this formation. I was pretty shocked to see Amanda and Sara whip out a table, a table cloth, and lay out a feast of hummus and crudités along with sandwich fixings. I would get over my shock in the days to come where this scene would unfold over and over again. Kudos to the folks back in Ashland who organized, packaged, and labeled all the food and provided explicit instructions for each meal. The chef in me, having catered any number of outdoor affairs, is impressed.
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The Pillars of Rome, Reminiscent of the Roman Coliseum
Roughly 100 Feet High |
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| Sara and Amanda Hard at Making Lunch |
Back on the river after lunch, the scenery changed. Behind us were the soft sedimentary pillars and in their stead were highly figured cliffs of folded and textured lava. I am guessing that this must be rhyolite, the really thick and sticky lava that makes for huge explosions as it traps gasses. The thinner basaltic lavas flow evenly and make smooth layers, as opposed to these highly twisted and convoluted formations.
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| Common Riverside Scene: Big Sagebrush and Arrowleaf Balsamroot |
After passing the initial farmland, along the eroded cliffsides that form the river, we started to see the common flora of the Owyhee: Big Sagebrush (Artemisia tridentata), Antelope Bitterbrush (Purshia tridentata) not yet in bloom, and providing cheerful yellow blooms, Arrowleaf Balsamroot (Balsamorhiza sagittata). These are the same plants that dominate similar landscapes near us at home in Bend.
At this point, the redder rhyolite rock forms large buttresses and spires jutting from an otherwise sedimentary hillside capped with basalts. The harder basaltic cap rocks, old lava flow over old lake bed, protects the lower sedimentary layers from erosion.
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| Rare Trees in Otherwise Treeless Landscape |
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| Laird and Ann as We Near Class-4 Bulls Eye |
After miles of tame water, we finally got to play a little bit as we passed Long Sweetwater, Upset, and the Class-4 Bulls Eye in quick succession. We had a couple of miles of quicker water before we rounded a big righthand bend and pulled into an eddy right at Hackberry Camp, where we saw Elena's raft waiting, with a tarp already pitched.
Setting off before we even arrived at Rome, Elena had got the camp that she intended, Hackberry, named for a small group of hackberry trees that frame the pretty, but small site. It seems that there is some negotiation among the leaders of the various groups about where each is headed for the night, as sites are first-come, first-served. Even so, there are any number of private boaters who are not part of the conversation.
We would meet Elena, a tiny little pixie and dynamo with twin dark-haired braids under a ball cap, as soon as we came ashore. As we spent more time with her, we would come to know that she is from Montana and trained as a wildlife biologist. Like all three ladies on this trip, she seemed to be looking for her career path in life. This isn't a criticism; it's a fact of being young, unencumbered, and having so many paths open to you. I think back on my own path: lawn and yard maintenance, bicycle mechanic, computer operator, software engineer, software executive, chef and restaurant owner, and wine marketeer.
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| Arriving to Hackberry Camp |
The first order of business was to set up our tent. Momentum provides tents, sleeping bags, and sleeping pads at no extra charge, but Ann and I have all our own gear. The upside is that your tent can be waiting for you, already set up, when you arrive in camp, thanks to the gear boater(s). My ritual, however, is to pick a tent site to my liking and orient the tent just-so considering the terrain, the weather, and the wind. Pitching my tent is my welcome-to-camp ritual, if you like, and something that I don't mind doing.
It had been some time since I pitched our tent and I discovered that over the winter, the shock cords in the tent poles had deteriorated to the point where they were useless. This had me fuming for a bit until I took a deep breath, looked at the beauty around me, said "F it!", cut the old shock cord out, and got the damned thing pitched.
Not realizing (rather, not thinking it through beforehand) that we would be pitching on what amounts to basically sandbars, I brought along my short, lightweight tent stakes, not the longer stakes that I would use for pitching in soft ground. After I pitched the tent, I joined the others down by the river for a beer as a reward for struggling through the shock cord issue.
Minutes later, the wind got up something fierce and nearly ripped the dining fly and its massive stakes from the ground. It took many of us to subdue the tarp in the face of the violent wind. In looking over my shoulder, I could see our tent upside down, several feet from where I pitched it. It took several people to corral the tent in the whipping wind and to locate the tent pegs scattered all over the brush.
Finally with the aid of rocks on the tent pegs, I got the tent re-pitched. I would not pitch the tent again without rocks assisting the tent pegs in holding the tent down. Though the winds would test the tent again and again, it stayed where I put it for the rest of the trip.
After this mini-ordeal, I took my beer and my camera and scampered, as much as I am able to scamper at my age with a bum foot and bum knee, up through the lava to the bench above our camp. This gave me the ability to get perspective on where we were as well as to have a good look at the wildflowers in bloom on the hill: desert parsley, phlox, paintbrush, and balsamroot.
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| Hackberry Camp Below, Our Ill-Fated Tent Bottom Center |
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| Netleaf Hackberry (Celtis reticulata) Not Yet in Leaf |
I have a fondness for hackberries of the western US. They seem to thrive in pretty miserable places where no other trees will grow. They never attain the massive size that their cousins of the southeast do, but they have a rounded handsomeness that appeals to me. I also really love the forms of their branches which seem sculptural as well as their winged bark which lends a lot of texture.
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| Cliffs Opposite our Camp |
The scudding clouds gave way to more and more highly welcome sun as we sat around trying to stay warm. Even though we could see rain in various clouds around us as we had all afternoon, we only got really gusty wind and no rain. For the balance of the trip, despite highly variable and changeable weather, rain was not a concern. I feel like we dodged a bullet. Today, the rain did in fact go away, though I doubt that my wishing it away had any effect. The night skies would be totally clear with brilliant stars before the moon got up and lit our entire camp.
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| Belting out the Tunes Using the Teva Microphone |
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| Ann "Supervising" Dinner |
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Delicious Appetizers: Avocado Toasts with
Smoked Salmon and Pickled Red Onions |
The three ladies managed to impress us with super tasty appetizers of avocado toast triangles topped with smoked salmon, pickled red onions, and cilantro. After appetizers, none of the three of us guests needed any dinner, a continual theme of our trip: too much food. If we had had an active day hiking, it would have been a different story, but sitting in a boat, we were far less active than usual and needed far less to eat.
Somehow I failed to get photos of dinner: carnitas, shrimp, and grilled veggies for tacos with all the fixings, chipotle, cabbage, cilantro, and radishes. I only ate the veggies, but Ann assures me that the meats were good as well. As a veggie-centric person, I really appreciated all the fresh vegetables on this trip. At this point, I do have to mention the flying tortillas. The wind, still being a pain in the ass, decided that while the ladies were heating tortillas on the griddle, to hurl a bunch of them all over the camp. What are you going to do but laugh?
If I was full after appetizers and stuffed after dinner, what was I to do when sitting around the fire warming myself against the chilly wind, I was offered a tray of dessert? The finest dessert of the entire trip was shortbread cookies topped with blueberry jam, lemon whipped cream whipped à la minute, and a strawberry slice. Normally, I would have demurred because I don't eat sweets and I was overfed, but I ate two of the small desserts to honor all the hard work that our crew put in to making them.
I was beat from waking up at 4am, but could have sat around the fire for a while longer. It was Annie that made the call at ten minutes after eight to call it a night. I have to say that snuggling under my down quilt and getting toasty was quite a highlight after dealing with the chilly wind all evening. I stayed awake thinking through the day and anticipating tomorrow until perhaps 9pm.
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