July Ends in Pictures

 Yeah, I know:  July ended a few days ago.  But I was on a river trip, and I just got home.  This was my view on waking up:  Snake River from the Idaho side, looking across at Oregon.  Look how smeary my lens is!  Pisses me off!  All of my photos from this trip are smudged.  What's up with that.  My camera is only 9 years old, after all..

 When you pee on river trips, etiquette demands that you pee in the river.  This was my view from my morning pee spot.  The night before, I peed in the middle of the highway before going to bed.  No one uses this road except to maintain the dam downriver, and to start river trips. It was kind of fun to piss on the center line.

 We slept in the tent, because the wind was driving me crazy - flapping the sleeping bag up and down my body.  It was like being shaken awake over and over again.  I finally surrendered and asked Chuck of we could get inside.

 Typical back seat prior to a river trip:  water bottle; whiskey; t-shirt; granola bars; glasses case; camera bag; baseball cap...


Still clean.

 

Looking down on the put-in from the top of Hell's Canyon dam



 For those of you who, like me, are still learning about river running, here is the boat-slide.  The boat is belayed down the metal sliders in the middle, and the stairs on the side are for people to scurry up and down. 


Supplies and gear are sealed up in these rubber dry-bags.



 Here is Chuck's boat, ready to go.  The bigger boats were rigged for oars, but this boat is only 10 feet long, so we paddled it.  It was by far the smallest boat in our group - people were afraid to ride the big rapids with us.  For two of the biggest rapids, we were able to persuade someone else who was a passenger in another boat to ride with us, lending weight and an additional paddling arm. On the last big rapid, no one would do it - Chuck and I paddled it alone.  Hey!  I'm still here to blog about it...

 Chuck and I camped with Chuck's brother, Mike and Mike's friend Larry.  We camped near the put-in and got up early to rig the boats before the day got too hot.  But then, the rest of the people in our group didn't show up at the put-in... didn't show... No cell phone reception, so we couldn't call anyone...  Here is Larry waiting.

 Larry and Mike, waiting...  They finally showed up, almost at noon.  We had imagined death!  Destruction!  Illness!  Car accident!  No... they just like to get a slow start  in the mornings.

They rigged their boats in the heat of the day.  Including a cooler with 400 pounds of ice and beer. 



Life vests on!




Waterproof camera ready!



 We got sick of waiting around.  When the others took a break after rigging their boats and broke out beers, we decided to get our show on the road. 


Lunch break.  Pat caught a nice little bass.




Scouting Sheep Creek rapid




Chuck, looking at Sheep Creek rapid.

  I wish I had a waterproof camera.  We were pretty impressive, doing Sheep Creek in our little boat.  The others said there were times when only our heads were out of the water.   


In calmer water, my day was like this.



 Here we all are, setting up camp on the first night.  To me, as a backpacker, river trips involve an obscene amount of gear.  But big rafts hold a lot of stuff.  Chuck says, "It's like car camping, but with a rubber car."

Dinner, complete with margaritas.

 After that, it got dark, so I couldn't take any more pictures of my day.  Anyway, it mostly involved drinking too much and experimenting with sleeping on the overturned raft.  Nice idea, but it was saggy enough in the middle that after a while, I started feeling like I was trying to sleep in a Chuck-taco.  The beach was rocky, but I was too lazy to hike up into the woods to look for a softer place.  As the night wore on, the rocky beach next to the raft started looking softer and more comfortable.  We tossed our bag down onto the shore and slept great.