Lower John Day, 2017
Well, a three day turnaround between the Owyhee and the North Fork John Day river trips was pretty luxurious for prep time so we shortened it down to one day back home before we were headed to our third river in three weeks, the lower John Day. The Clarno to Cottonwood float is about 70 miles and you can’t have any appreciation for the country you float through unless you see it from the water.
You start out in some pretty, well, lets just say, agricultural, country. Country infested with noxious weeds, showing lots of signs of erosion, plenty of cows eating down the riparian area and broken down abandoned equipment.
But before the end of the first day you start to get away from all that and you float into paradise for the next 4 days.