2025

Floating 70 Miles of the John Day River | Clarno to Cottonwood

Our trip started at Clarno where we departed on a 6 day trip down 70 miles of the John Day River. The deserted boat ramp at the put in was a good sign. River trips normally start with a lot of chaos as people who seemingly have no clue that the boat ramp is for rigging your raft and then moving out of peoples way mill around eating breakfast and watching their kids splash in the water. Having absolutely nobody at the boat ramp never happens. Until this trip. We received a peace and quiet bonus by getting to the ramp early, and we shoved off to the sounds of blackbirds instead of screaming kids. It’s going to be a great trip!

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Scenery and Storms on the Smith River, Montana

I made the call at 7:01 a.m., (being 8:01 in Montana, expecting a busy signal not an answer, and definitely not expecting a positive answer to my question. The question being, “Do you have any available permit cancellations?” After the ring and the pickup, the response came, “Yes, our furthest one out is May 11.” I quickly responded, “We’ll take it” and just like that we were headed to float the Smith River in Montana.

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Touring the Ice Age Floods of Washington, Part 2

After an evening watching the sandhill cranes, and a night of listening to coyotes we were back on the road from Potholes Reservoir heading north to see more pieces of the Ice Age Floods puzzle. Our first stop of the day was the Ephrata Fan. We were essentially working ‘upstream’ following the floods, and the Ephrata Fan is an alluvial fan of sorts where massive debris settled after being ripped out of the basalt as the Grand Coulee was formed. There is a mixture of house size basalt rocks and Volkswagen sized granite boulders spread out for miles across the fan. Yet another testament to the power and volume of water that these floods contained.

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