Try floating the Owyhee River with friends or an outfitter - it's spectacular!

My son Drew is ready to roll at the Rome put-in for the Lower Owyhee River.

Bonnie, Rico, Kelley and Lawrence enjoy hanging out in camp on the afternoon of Day 3, below Montgomery Rapids.

Spectacular spot for our camp on night 3.

Hi all,

I managed to get out of town last weekend for a 4-day trip on the Lower Owyhee River. We launched on the warmest day of the year last Friday, when the mercury hit 80 degrees, and amazingly enough, there were a ton of parties launching on the river as well! Imagine that!

Because of deep snow in the Owyhee and Jarbidge-Bruneau river basins last winter, this spring offers a rare, and great chance to float those rivers when the water is high enough to go (April - June). If you don't have your own raft and whitewater gear, consider going with an outfitter. I'd recommend Far & Away Adventures, Wilderness River Outfitters, Barker River Expeditions, and ROW Adventures. Please see press release that I wrote for the Idaho Outfitters and Guides Association.
 
One of the big advantages of floating the Lower Owyhee is that you follow a paved road (U.S. 95) to the boat-launch site in Rome, Ore. To float the upper forks of the Owyhee, you have to drive for many miles on unimproved 4WD dirt roads that turn into major quicksand-like gumbo after lots of rain. So we had no worries about being able to reach the river last week, even though it had been wet.

Dad and Drew are bundled up on the morning of Day 3.

We took four days to float 48 miles to the Birch Creek takeout, upstream of Owyhee Reservoir. At a flow of 4,000 cubic feet per second (cfs), it should have been quite easy to make our river miles. But that isn't how things turned out. After a beautiful, warm and tranquil day on Day 1, we had driving rain, headwinds, thunder and lightning on Day 2. High temperatures were probably in the 40s. Then we had big headwinds on Day 3, but luckily, the skies were clear -- just a cutting Northwest wind. Good thing we came ready to dress very warm!

At 4,000 cfs, the river is comparatively wide and most of the rocks are covered. So from a whitewater perspective, it's a pretty easy and mellow level with good current and fun waves.

The Lower Owyhee has mostly Class 2 rapids, with a few Class 3's and one Class 4, called Montgomery. I would rate that Class 3+ personally. Montgomery is not that hard. You have to pull away from a left-side wall as the current races around a left-hand bend. It's a pretty straight-forward maneuver, compared to Class 4 rapids that require multiple maneuvers around rocks or holes.

We had four major highlights on our trip:

1. Birds of Prey were everywhere! Golden eagles, kestrels, northern harriers, prairie falcons and other hawks were flying around the cliffs, diving toward the water and nesting in the cliffs. Plus, we saw pairs of geese on virtually every corner, some with goslings, a few pairs of mergansers and some mallards.

2. Volcanic rock formations on the Lower Owyhee are spectacular. The types of rock spans from black basalt lava similar to the Jordan Craters, to rhyolite red cliffs, basalt cliffs and many spires, hoodoos and other formations. It's fun to just stare in awe at these features and feel small.

3. Recent rainfall and good snowpack made the desert landscape the deepest shade of green imaginable. We must have caught the green-up at its peak. But the flowers were just starting to pop because it's been such a late spring. 

4. Camping out, campfires, S'mores, great meals and great people. I love camping out in general, and we brought a bunch of firewood for a campfire every night in my fire pan. For the night I cooked, I brought all of the key ingredients for S'mores, and everyone really enjoyed that. I got to bring my son, Drew, along for the trip, and he's really turning into an excellent river camper. Great bonding time for Dad and Drew.

Cool nooks and crannies to explore.

If you go, make sure you have enough time to do some side-hiking. The area around Pruitt's Castle is a great place to hike, Hike-out camp is another sweet hiking spot early in the trip, and below Whistling Bird Rapids, there's a sweet campsite with a way to hike to the top of the rim and enjoy big views of the canyon. From that viewpoint, it's amazing how small you can feel, being a tiny little speck amid the giant Owyhee River Plateau.

All I can say is getting away on an Owyhee, Bruneau or Jarbidge-Bruneau trip is good medicine for the soul. And you know, right at that moment, that you're extremely fortunate to experience it.
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A few notes on happenings this weekend:

• Idaho Whitewater Association used equipment sale 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. on Saturday at Cascade River Gear.  
• Sheep in the Foothills - A band of sheep is moving through the Boise Foothills as we speak for the next week or so. Watch the Life on the Range Facebook page or Ridge to Rivers Facebook page for sheep locations. 

The sheep were north of the Corrals Trailhead and Miller Gulch Trailhead on Wednesday, April 24.

- SS

Seize the day and plan a trip on the Owyhee River! You've got a little over a month to do it!

Wendy and Huck as we leave camp on Sunday morning ... the sun came out a few minutes later ... 

Now we can see some sunshine deep in the Owyhee River Canyon ... 

Caves to explore next to a potential camp site a few miles from the Birch Creek take-out

Hi all,

Spring is finally coming to SW Idaho after such a long winter ... and all of the luscious powder we enjoyed in the mountains is flowing down the mountains and into our favorite rivers. Last weekend, Wendy and I saw a decent weather window opening up last Friday-Sunday, so we seized the day and floated the lower Owyhee River, from Rome to Birch Creek, a 45-mile scenic trip just across the Idaho border in Eastern Oregon.

We had three rafts and six people. It's always cool to float with a small group when you're doing an impromptu trip. That makes the prep so much easier -- especially if you're going with experienced people who have all the necessary gear.

It's a 1.5- to 2-hour drive to the BLM put-in by the Owyhee River bridge on U.S. 95 in Rome. We stopped in Jordan Valley to buy 2017 invasive species permits at the hardware store. That was a smart move because an Oregon State Police officer was checking for them at the put-in ... didn't see anyone from the BLM.

We launched on a sunny day on Friday, with temperatures in the low 70s, and the river was running in excess of 6,000 cubic feet per second -- a sweet, fast flow. The Owyhee already has peaked this year in February, when it rocketed to 20,000+ cfs when we had that big warm up period, and rain on snow. That melted a lot of the low-elevation snow.

Last year, the Owyhee and the Bruneau rivers had a nice long season, but I was busy running off to my son's out-of-state hockey tournaments or work trips. So this year, I was not to be denied! And if you run the Owyhee in March, chances are you might be able to run it again in April or early May!

If you've always thought about running the Owyhee River, this is a great year to do so. The river may be peaking about now, according to the snow survey experts. The Mud Flat Snotel site has melted out, and more than 30 percent of the snow has melted from South Mountain -- those are the typical indicators when the river peaks, according to the experts. But the Owyhee should have boatable flows through April, and possibly early May, depending on how much more precipitation we get, how warm it gets and how fast the river runs off.

Why float the Owyhee? To see and experience the Owyhee Canyonlands, a vast landscape full of hidden caves, slot canyons, big canyons like the Owyhee River, spires, hoodoos and more. The scenery and geology are spectacular ... be sure to bring a book along like "Roadside Geology of Oregon," to learn about the volcanic episodes that dominated the Owyhee region for millions of years, plus the various basalt lava flows and rhyolite lava flows and outcroppings.

And bring your camera and video camera to document your trip.

For me, another key attraction is camping out on the river. It's so easy to haul all of that stuff on your boat, and you can camp in style with the big camp table, Dutch oven meals, lawn chairs, iced coolers full of your favorite drinks, and dry boxes to carry all of your dry goods.

I just love camp fire in the evening on a March river trip ... the regulations are to pack-in your own firewood.

The Rome-to-Birch Creek section is pretty friendly in terms of whitewater ... the rapids are mostly Class 2 and 3 on a scale of 1-6, with 6 being a steep waterfall. Because the river was moving so fast, and bank-full, we made great time on the water, traveling at least 5 mph without even trying to push downriver. With fast pushy water, however, you do need to anticipate your moves well in advance, and sneak the inside corners when you can see hazards on the outside corners when you're approaching rapids. Whistling Bird and Montgomery are typically the biggest rapids on the river, but at 6,000-7,000 cfs, Whistling Bird was super easy, and Montgomery was the typical pull to the right to avoid the wall and hole at the bottom.

The BLM has an excellent map booklet available that provides a mile-by-mile guide to the lower Owyhee River, as well as the other forks of the Owyhee and the Jarbidge-Bruneau. You can find the river map at the BLM State Office on Overland and Vinnell in Boise, or also at Idaho River Sports. I highly recommend it. The map marks all the rapids and the designated campsites.

If you don't have your own river gear, there are a number of outfitters that do Owyhee River trips, including Far & Away Adventures, Barker River Expeditions, Wilderness River Outfitters, and ROW Adventures. All of those outfitters are really solid and put on great trips! Be sure to get in touch and reserve a date before their trips fill up.

For vehicle shuttles, we used Eva Matteri, 541-586-2352. The cost was $160/vehicle. Well worth it!
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Notes: In case you missed the Facebook post earlier this week, my blog, Stueby's Outdoor Journal was selected as one of the Top 20 outdoor blogs in the Northwest by the Outdoor Authority. I thought you'd enjoy seeing some of the other blogs mentioned in the top list. They all sound really good. My friend Mike Lanza's The Big Outside always has quality content, featuring world-class trips and a lot of tips about outdoor gear.

Greenbelt underpass closures and flooding closures: If you're been looking for a comprehensive list of Greenbelt closures, the Statesman had a story in today's paper with the latest closures. The river is supposed to go up to 8,000 cfs today ...

Bogus and Brundage winding down: Brundage's last day of operation is Sunday, April 9th, with a pond-skimming event set for April 8th. The last day of operations at Bogus will be Sunday, April 16th. The last opportunity for night skiing is this Saturday. Nordic operations will close following this weekend as well.
- SS