Rafting the Owyhee

Well, after six months of putting our noses to the grindstone, Mission:
Epicocity is finished. I will never get to actually give birth to a child, being male and all, but I think I have some idea of what it’s like now. The video is done, and we’re really happy about how it turned out. We will always think back fondly to all the super sick adventures we had while filming and editing the video and how much we can’t wait to do it all again.

Last weekend however, I (Trip) took this opportunity to get on the water in a slightly different style and raft the Owyhee with a bunch of friends. Let me start by saying something that I’ve said before many times, that overnight river tripping, is the most fun thing I’ve done with my clothes on -- Be it class V creekin’ on Upper Cherry creek, or raft class V on the Owyhee, it’s fun.



Rafting the Upper Owyhee, Eastern Oregon.
To check out more of Trip's photos, click here


The Upper Owyhee is a 35-mile run that as we found out, is actually mostly flat water. It’s got a few class IVs and one heinous class V called "Widowmaker." Everything the Owyhee lacks in whitewater, however, it makes up for tenfold in aesthetic beauty. The river corridor drops out from an uneventful desert landscape, which looks almost boring from the rim, but upon dropping into the canyon one is immersed in a breathtaking desert canyon carved by millions of years of weathering. The scenery is full of caves, prehistoric remnants, amazing rock spires, birds, reptiles and almost no other people.



Amazing scenery
Photo by Trip Jennings


Eight hours from the Willamette Valley, the Owyhee’s Wild and Scenic stretch only attracts the dedicated and somehow I was able to put together a crew of 11 such paddlers from Eugene, Seattle and Truckee. We put in early Friday morning on the June 2nd and were quickly dwarfed by the 100-foot vertical canyon walls. The first rapid, “The Ledge” starts off the run with a bang. One of the most difficult rapids on the run, it didn’t allow much of a warm-up. After many spins, one small pin, and a few rocks later we emerged unscathed and with all of our gear. The rest of the day was full of more amazing scenery, small amounts of great whitewater and plenty of PBR. Just as we began setting up tents and camp, the only time of day where our dry gear wasn’t in a dry bag, the day turned into one of the 10 days of rain eastern Oregon gets each year. I have never been so glad to have a River Wing, a self-suspending tarp, which we used for our cooking area.


Stunning 100-foot canyon walls
Photo by Trip Jennings


The next day brought significantly more whitewater and Widowmaker. Widowmaker is a solid raft Class V that we had plans to run, until we actually saw it. Not too intimidating in a kayak, but I had only rowed a raft one time before this trip (a year ago on the Illinois River). Instead we spent three hours portaging our supplies and supply rafts past the 100 feet of river the rapid blocked.


Running the river in kayaks
Photo by Trip Jennings


Before leaving I got to run the rapid in a kayak and, realizing how easy it was, decided to paddle captain it in our paddle raft. Entering the first two foot ledge that turned out to be more of a four foot ledge, we were perfectly online to make it in between the two rocks that formed the pearly gates to safety, when I (the guide) got sucked out as the raft bent almost in half. I got pulled back on and we paddled to the eddy swimming in adrenaline. At this point in my life of paddling, kayaking a class IV/V rapid may not be super exciting, but navigating a raft through one is usually a super challenging and really fun experience.


Portaging the PBR was worth it
Photo by Trip Jennings


After Widowmaker, the whitewater is all but finished and portaging all that PBR finally seemed worth it. We spun fire, ate, drank, and had great conversation around the campfire until we all passed out, completely spent from a super fun and hard day on the river.

The third day was still fun, still through a beautiful canyon, still worth it, but it’s pretty much all flat water. On this particular Sunday it was flat water with a 20 mhttp://www.blogger.com/img/gl.link.gifph headwind and it took hours of rowing full speed just to make it from one rapid to the next. We did finally emerge, sandy, tired and very happy, fired up to plan the next overnighter.

The Epicocity Project
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