It’s been on the river list for years. Finally the stars aligned, the flows held up and we were Owyhee bound. We arrived at the put in about 1 a.m. to find an overflowing parking lot. We found a spot off the road to spend the night and before we knew it the sun was up and it was time to get on the water. We made our way through the usual antics and congestion that is the put in without too much pain and agony and got on the water.
After the first few miles we started to get into the scenery.
The first day zoomed by pretty fast, the river moving us right along. Before I knew it sun was going down on our first day.
As remote as the Owyhee is, there is no light pollution and it makes for some stunning starry nights.
Our perfect weather continued on the second day, sunny with temps in the 70’s. We went through Artillery rapid without a problem and then the views started getting interesting with Pruitt’s Castle first up.
One of the highlights I was looking forward to was the view of Chalk Basin from the river. We saw it last fall from above.
The views did not disappoint.
Chalk Basin went by way too fast and before long we were through Whistling Bird, our first class 4, without a hitch and pulling into camp 2. We were able to watch several people go through from our spot in camp.
We made pretty good progress the first two days so that left us a pretty short trip for day three. Not long after leaving camp we were dropping into Iron Point Canyon. It’s just one of those places that is impossible to capture in the scale that it presents itself in real life.
About halfway through we successfully navigated Montgomery Rapid and then we made our way out of the canyon.
Camp was at Jackson Hole for the last night. Not too far from camp we were able to see a few petroglyphs and get up on the ridge above camp for some views.
Day four was our final day. We still had some great canyon and river scenery to look forward to.
We arrived at Birch Creek mid-day but we had the luxury of another day to get home so we could spend the evening at the ranch. After being there last year we couldn’t just take out and leave. We had a nice quiet night watching the sun set and listening to the birds.
