After our tour of several southern Utah National Parks it was time to settle in to Canyonlands for a few days. We left our camp along the Colorado River outside of Moab fairly early and stuck out for the White Rim Trail.
November brings some colder and wetter days to central Oregon. It was time to head south, for a week, southern Utah was the destination. It’s a bit of a drive to get there so the first day was all windshield time. We ended the day just as dark settled in at Cathedral Gorge State Park in Nevada. It seemed like a nice spot but it wasn’t until morning that we were able to get oriented. The sun was just up as we headed out but we stopped to take a look around before hitting the road. It looked like an interesting place surrounded by highly eroded hills.
A sign indicated that this picnic ramada was built by the CCC’s in 1934. 1934! They have apparently done a bit of maintenance on the willow thatch roof every so often, but what a testament to the value of the work done in those days.
After that it was on to our first destination, Zion National Park. Arriving on a Saturday we found the typical crowds encountered in most national parks these days. We were still able to find a place to camp that allowed a place to base a days worth of exploration out of.
The view from camp was entirely acceptable.
November typically signals the end to river floating season. In the past, seeing November roll around was a bit depressing. No more floating, fishing is pretty much over and the days are really short on daylight. It seems nowadays there’s no shortage of things to get done in November, so it’s not all that depressing, but it still marks the end of river floating season. And wow, was 2017 a season for floats.
I feel very lucky to be able to live in a place that I can float 7 rivers in a year (some multiple times) all within a one day drive of the doorstep. So these are my thoughts reflecting back on a year of being lucky enough to float over 360 miles on 7 rivers in Oregon in 2017.
How amazing is it to have the Deschutes as your backyard river? 1.5 hours to the put in, abundant permits, amazing trout fishing with bonus steelhead in the fall, and great camping and even hiking if you make the time for it. Trips to the Deschutes are kind of the bookend to the floating season. It is typically one of, if not the first trips of the season and is also commonly the last trip. It seems like it is always a good time to float the Deschutes with a wide season of good weather, predictable flows and great fishing, I don’t know what else to ask of a river. Fishing seems like it is on the decline, but I don’t ever see a year in the future without the Deschutes.