"Raw, Windy, and Cold"
This post documents our fourth day of five on our recent rafting trip down the Lower Owyhee River in far southeastern Oregon, four hours from our home in Bend.
I awoke in the early morning to the happy sounds of a Canyon Wren on the canyon wall just a handful of yards from the tent across the river. While the wrens may have been celebrating the dawn, it would be another three-plus hours before the sunshine would creep its way down the canyon walls to finally illuminate our camp and bring some much desired warmth to our bodies.
In the meantime, the sun was creating katabatic winds in the canyon. As the sun would warm the air along the cliff face, it would rise and cold air would come screaming down to take its place. I do not mind telling you that despite five layers (tee shirt, long-sleeved base layer, down vest, long-sleeved sun shirt, and rain jacket) on my upper body, I was still cold.
And all day, we were faced with a stiff headwind out of the north; I would really notice it when paddling. Reaching forward with my paddle feathered, it sliced through the wind. However, when I would square the blade up for a stroke through the water, the wind would slam my paddle toward the rear of the raft before I could dip it into the water. That's windy and a perfect metaphor for today's weather.
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| Sunlight, Teasing Warmth |
As I awaited breakfast, I kept sipping my cup of delightfully warm coffee while walking. In conditions like this on the trail, I would have packed my gear and hit the trail right away to build up some warmth. To combat the cold, I must have walked the extent of our campsite, a matter of 100 yards in total, several dozen times in an effort to warm myself.
The crew outdid themselves yet again with breakfast. In addition to more sliced cantaloupe and oranges, they poached eggs, toasted muffins, fried pastrami, and made roasted red pepper hollandaise for Benedicts. I had mine with red cabbage and without hollandaise. Rich sauces like that give my gut fits and fits in the wilderness, I do not desire. Annie had no problem demolishing it, however.
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| Pastrami Benedicts, Red Cabbage |
After breakfast, I busied myself packing our gear, which took very little time though it was a bit tricky folding up the tent in the wind. Ann was so cold that she put on all her gear and hid in a crevice in the cliff face, out of the wind as much as possible. I continued my wandering and photographed more of the flora at Canyon camp.
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| Seeking Refuge from the Brutal Wind |
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Another Lomatium
Likely Nineleaf Biscuitroot, Lomatium triternatum |
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| A Brassica, Likely Threadstalk Tansymustard, Descurainia longepedicellata |
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| No Blooms Yet on Branching Phacelia, Phacelia ramosissima |
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| New Foliage of a Currant, Likely Ribes aureum |
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| Fernleaf Biscuitroot, Lomatium dissectum, Growing on Cliff Face |
Pushing off from Canyon Camp, we set out on our float of about 14 river miles to Pothole camp on the west side of the river, shown in green on the maps below.
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Day 4 - Canyon Camp to Pothole Camp (green)
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The initial part of our day had us go through more deep canyons, though the walls slowly lowered to the point where the river sides were gently rolling grassy hills.
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| Elena Leads the Way out of Canyon Camp |
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| Back in Farmland Again, Hole in the Ground Ranch |
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| The Third Osprey of the Trip, Why so Few? |
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| Meta Again |
The rolling grassy hills stood in diametric opposition to the massive cliffs of the morning, a contrast that just kept me shaking my head. Just as this peak in the photograph above came into good view, towering above much flatter and rolling ground, Amanda pushed us to the left side of the river in a really nondescript area. When we landed, she told us she wanted to show us the petroglyphs that litter this site. I have written a post just on
these petroglyphs, here.
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| Exploring Petroglyphs Before Lunch |
After we wandered around the petroglyphs for a half an hour or so, Amanda and Elena set about making lunch, Sara having gone on ahead to claim and set up our camp for the evening. I wandered still more taking in the wildflowers on this site, while Ann laid in the weak sunshine trying to warm herself against the brisk and raw breeze.
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| Gorgeous Large-Flower Triteleia, Triteleia grandiflora |
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| Rayless Shaggy Fleabane, Erigeron aphanactis |
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| Tufted Evening Primrose, Oenothera caespitosa |
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Curried Turkey Salad for Lunch
Accompanied by a Meadowlark Concert |
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| A Huge Western Fence Lizard, Maybe 16" Long |
After lunch and immediately following photographing the lizard in the photograph above, in getting into the raft, I made a terribly awkward entry, slipped, and dislocated my fibula, once again. You can thank my parents that I was born without the ligaments that pretty much everyone else has, ligaments which keep the head of this bone in its socket. The pain of a dislocation is excruciating and though I have some recollection of seeing the large magma batholith called Devils Tower of the Owyhee, I do not have much recollection through the haze of pain of taking the remaining photographs in this post.
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| Devils Tower of the Owyhee |
Soon after we rounded the bend at the base of the huge rhyolite spear in the photo above, we landed at our camp for the evening called Pothole.
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