So, right now the Grande Ronde is flowing crazy high-10,000 cfs (Cfs is the measurement by which water flow is determined. It literally means "cubic feet per second" and for the Grande Ronde that is HIGH!) and there really isn't a choice but to run down it in a raft-or a cataraft that we borrowed from some friends. We borrowed pretty much everything for this trip. One thing we will not take on this trip ever again-BJ. Nope, we will never do that again!
At this flow, no way does it actually take 3 days to raft down this river! Maybe 8 hours-tops. But, so what! Keith had three days off in a row! That never happens and to be honest I really didn't feel like backpacking for a few days so I suggested a river trip.
We got started super late on Sunday evening. We didn't take off from the take out in Minam until about 7 pm. At least it was still light out! But around here, as soon as the sun goes down the temperature drops from about 80 to the 40s. This isn't too bad but the water is only about 50 degrees-pretty cold! Especially when you're in the front of a boat getting hit by big waves and rapids, like I was. Needless to say we had not been on the water very long before I begged to stop and camp for the night. At least it was a pretty nice place to camp.
When we decided to stop for the night, we noticed a little boat doing fishing around in the big weeds on the other side of the river-we had no idea what was going on. A couple minutes later a (kind of odd) kid walked up to us and explained what was going on. He was in a drift boat that had been taking on water and flipped in the rapids that we had just gone through. What!?! The boat had just been fished out and everyone was OK. This better not happen to us!
The first day was short but full of the biggest rapids we would see the whole trip. And BJ wanted OUT of the boat NOW!!! He had two speeds on the boat-velcroed to my lap or desperately trying to escape the whole situation-into the water. I had a Mama-death grip on him most of the time-he hated me and the whole trip. But only until we got on land-then everything was just fine!
The second day was very relaxed. There is only so much river and we were going a little too fast. We had an about 2 hour reading/nap break at about 11am. At about 3pm we found the best camp site ever. It was so incredibly peaceful and quiet that it seemed a little magical. More hours spent reading and napping-we were all in a little slice of heaven!
The third day was short and beautiful-as all the other day had been!
We only had one slight accident that last day. During a particularly still part of the river, I was going to paddle a little bit. Keith and I were switching places so I could sit where the oars were. During this switch, BJ freaked out a little (a lot!) and some how just slip off the boat and into the river. He was fine, but freezing and not happy at all!
We will absolutely be doing this again! But next time there will be no dogs allowed. If anyone would like to join us next year we would love it. May or June would be the best time to raft the river-even though this year we could even do it in July!
No comments:
Post a Comment