Flows were looking good in mid May, which isn’t always the case on a river as fickle as the Owyhee. Snowpack was good over the winter, and flows were slowly declining to what would be ideal for a trip, 2700 CFS. We packed our bags, hooked up the raft and headed to southeast Oregon for our second trip on the Wild Owyhee.
Following day 2, we were up on the morning of day 3 on the road to the sound of songbirds. We lingered over some coffee and then headed south along the byway. We had a hike we really wanted to get to way upstream on the Owyhee. I wasn’t to sure about fitting it in since it was so far out, but after reviewing the maps we ran across the road past Crutcher Crossing then up the other side of the Owyhee would get us there. Or so I thought. We had an entire day of exploration to get to where we might take off for a hike. Plenty of time even if the road was slow going. It started out beautiful, full of wildflowers and absent of people.
May was quickly approaching and rivers in Oregon were closed. Our trip down the Owyhee River we planned for 6 months was doomed. Time to make other plans. It is pretty easy to find remote spots in the Owyhee country, so it seemed like the logical choice was to head for the same country, but switch from a river trip to a truck camping trip. Before we knew it our days off rolled around. It…