It’s been almost 2 months since I finished school and a lot of these next few posts are being written from distant memory so the good majority of this original stuff will be best told based off pictures. I’ll set the scene: March 17th, St. Patties Day, “Chemical wood modification: Dimensional Stabilization of Viscoelastic Thermal Compressed Wood” – The defense was made, I passed, I quickly moved on to Irish Car Bombs and we made an evening of it.
March 18th: Shaun and Jacqui Arrive from New Zealand, Emma comes in from Seattle and we have a bit of a Kiwi Reunion at Dusty’s house, Duty Free G&T’s are enjoyed by all and we start planning the first great adventure: A multi-day raft support on the Owyhee. The river was awesome, the company was even better. 4 nights 5 days of mild spring weather, cold nights, a deep desert canyon, fun whitewater, a night with hot springs, some Jeager, a few cases of beer and some sweet camping spots. Pictures do it better justice. And for a bit more of a read up on it, Shaun and Jaqs put a post up at the Team Extreme Blog.
The 8 hour drive from Corvallis to the river ended with an hour of off-road rallying. The road was smooth and fast with plenty of half frozen mud puddles and small creek crossings. We did have one large river to cross and after driving into it a bit to test the depth we found it to be acceptable and I stuck it in reverse and proceeded to give myself a bit of run-up room. Recommendations claim slow speeds for crossing any large bodies of water, I claimed 3rd gear with ACDC blaring and 5 of us singing our guts out as the most effective way to cross large bodies of water.
The Crew: Me, Shaun, Emma, Jacqui, Richard and Jeff
An outdoor leadership high school group ahead of us decided to portage this rapid, it took them 2 days to get their rafts around it. Ugh!
Our Cave campsite on the first night, awesome place especially when the full moon came out and lit up the canyon walls.
Widow Maker - the big daddy rapid on the trip, if you look close you can see the raft in the crux on center right of the river.
Taking advantage of some tail wind, this doesn't happen often but we were obviously prepared and bagged wine was being enjoyed by all!
A nice side hike after a day on the river which was then followed by a dip in the hot springs.
Sunset
The Crew: Me, Shaun, Emma, Jacqui, Richard and Jeff
An outdoor leadership high school group ahead of us decided to portage this rapid, it took them 2 days to get their rafts around it. Ugh!
Our Cave campsite on the first night, awesome place especially when the full moon came out and lit up the canyon walls.
Widow Maker - the big daddy rapid on the trip, if you look close you can see the raft in the crux on center right of the river.
Taking advantage of some tail wind, this doesn't happen often but we were obviously prepared and bagged wine was being enjoyed by all!
A nice side hike after a day on the river which was then followed by a dip in the hot springs.
Sunset
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