John Day: 67, 16, 4, 25, 1, 8, 6, 20, 2, 72, 300+

(Originally written June 20th 2006)

Perfect squares?  A new math sequence?  Nope, just integers that describe my rafting trip down the John Day River.

• 67 miles were rafted from East Clarno to Cottonwood Bridge
• 16 people participated
• 4 inflatable rafts were used for 4 days on the river.  It’s also the number hours the raft-dude had to wait because WE waited at the wrong put-in.
• 25 seconds of “hard rain” fell on us the whole trip
• 1 oar was broken and 1 oarlock was lost
• 8 bottles of liquor were consumed
• 6+ cases of PBR were consumed
• 20 miles to the nearest town (Fossil)
• 2 cameras were brought with me (Digital Rebel and Pentax SPII, in a waterproof case)
• 72 slides were taken by me
• 300+ digital pictures were taken by me

What a trip!  The river was not very difficult to raft, even for a group like us not having a guide. The one set of rapids (Class III) that we could have had some fun with…we botched.  Totally missed the chute and the ride was hardly bumpy.  We had a better time on some Class IIs the next day. It was so peaceful being out on the river for so many days.  We just lay in the sun and lazed our way down the river.  The river could have been a bit faster moving, but some days we covered over 20 miles.  The “short” day was only 12 miles long.  The five mosquitoes that happened to be in our 67 miles managed to find me and bite me, but no one else (naturally).  My left shoulder is really buff now, since I sat on the left side of the boat 75% of the time.  We had water wars and ganged up on boats. A few times we roped all 4 rafts together and created a “party barge” and literally rolled along the shore (insert unfortunate incident with the oar here).  Oh, and NONE of my belongings got wet in my dry bag (unlike many others!)  Yea!  =)

Central Oregon is *gorgeous*.  The whole weekend I could think nothing except geology.  The John Day River carves through layers and layers of  basalt that accumulated over thousands of years.  The basalt came from different areas as well as in different amounts, so you can really see the different layers in the hills.  The John Day region is especially known for its geology.  We were able to visit the Clarno Unit of the John Day Fossil Beds National Monument at sunset on the way to put-in of the trip. I could really go on and on about geology, but it would be easier for you to just pick up a book on the area. =)