East Fork Owyhee Wilderness Adventure – Our Long Way Home.

Read the other sections here: Part 1 / Part 2 / Part 3

East Fork Owyhee Day 4 – Can you Believe it?

Our final camp was the most relaxing of all. At this point, we believed…or at least I did…that all of the hard work was behind and we had an easy day back to the takeout. We enjoyed some time by the shore and visiting, just enjoying each other’s company. After all, we were experiencing this river, this trip on the East Fork of the Owyhee, together and alone. It seemed like each new day dawned warmer and bluer and more beautiful than the last. This one was no exception.

By this point in the trip, we were good at loading and unloading boats! As I loaded bags for the final time it was clear that we could have left about 30 percent of our gear (by weight) home. More on this later, but we never had time to use sunshades and we simply packed too much gear. It was with a mix of both relief and some sorrow, knowing I’d miss the time with the river and the shared time together.

Thread The needle – Prelude              

Thread the Needle is a tangle of big boulders that many find impassible. I figured maybe we’d take a look and see for ourselves, but we were prepared to portage. As we approached, there was a smaller rock jumble that focused the river between two rocks. Tammy let me know in no uncertain terms it was time for a short portage. I dissented. She pressed her point. I dissented, figuring we already had one portage and I didn’t want two. As the first hidden boulder spun us sideways into the two sentinel rocks, I’d be lying if I said I pondered Tammy’s correct call….

The nose of our boat hit the first rock and only a split second later the stern caught its twin. Something maybe less than a split second later found both of us in the drink upstream of the boat. I came up sputtering and trying to get my footing before being swept under the boat. I later found out that this was precisely a no-no in waist-deep strong flowing water with large boulders for footing. Tammy had already found calm water and was holding onto my life jacket trying to help me stand. She must have contemplated just letting me go and live with my bad choice, but she won’t fess up to that…

Thread the Needle

Well, we finally got the boat unstuck and noticed we were missing two seat pads and a nalgene. I was able to recover one seat pad downstream, but I felt stupid to lose junk into the river that some poor person behind us would have to tolerate. Note to self: nothing can be stowed in the boat that isn’t individually secured. Nothing. I did flush through the rapids in a swim while trying to get the boat squared away, but we were able to recover and line the boat through the rest of the rapid to get to Thread the Needle.  

Thread the Needle was impassible in the water. I mean we couldn’t even find a rivulet. All of the water disappeared under the boulders, looking like nothing less than a rock dam. The portage itself was on just a few very steep rocks and took some technical skills to get everything over but was nothing like the torture of Owyhee Falls. Two hours later we were safely back in the water and floating toward home. The rest of the trip included some cool house-rock mazes and easy riffles and flatwater. A relaxing end.

Takeout, or Take-Out?

The take-out at Crutcher’s crossing on the East Fork of the Owyhee was harder to find than we thought. In hindsight, we could have set a marker on shore when we shuttled the trucks. Pro-tip…consider placing a rock cairn or flagging in the willows to let you know where to take out. We wasted 30 minutes wading around trying to find the road crossing. Believe it or not, we had cold beer left in the Yeti at the takeout and it was heaven. After all of our loading and unloading experience, the reloading of Ken’s truck was a breeze. The trek back to my truck at Garat, however, was long…

Ken stopped at the gate about 400 yards above the river put-in. The last bit of 4WD road was pretty sketchy and I figured we’d probably better leave one vehicle above the gate. I walked down to get my truck and came to the kiosk and my truck wasn’t there! After nearly pooping my britches for a few seconds, my tired/punch-drunk brain remembered that the truck was parked next to the river, not the kiosk! Whew! It turns out my fears were justified..it took me three tries, one at a crawl, one a little faster, and one that lifted my front end off the ground, to get over the rocks on the climb out of there. Yes, I made it, and Ken’s Toyota would have too, but it was too much drama to risk having both trucks down there I think.

Lessons Learned on the East Fork Owyhee

There are so many things this experience taught us. I’m going to just jumble them out there in no particular order, but I think the ones that come quickly to mind were those that I found most important!

1. Safety first. Bring maps, a whistle, cell phones, and a GPS beacon on any wilderness trip. Hypothermia is for reals, and you need enough of the right clothing, so don’t scrimp there. The phones only work in limited areas and the beacons bridge that gap, but occasionally you get the right spot and having the phone could save you. None of us had swift-water rescue training and that is something I think I will need to remedy in the future.
2. Make sure your home team has a flight plan and knows when to expect check-ins and where you will be at the end. The GPS beacon can avoid a lot of stress on your home team.
3. Plan your shuttle carefully and use both topographic maps and various aerial photos to figure out the right route, the road more traveled, campsites, and obstacles. If you see a spot that might be a little sketchy, don’t be afraid to find a few different views from web sources.
4. Don’t bring unnecessary gear. I found that I only really used one pair of pants on the whole trip and didn’t need a bunch of coats and shirts. We could have saved weight if we just skipped the camp kitchen and fire-blanket. On a trip like this where portages were a feature, we could have dropped quite a few pounds to make life easier.
5. Bringing cold beer and a small cooler was worth the weight. Whisky might be a weight savings but a cold beer just is hard to beat at the end of the daily paddle. We opted for both!!
6. On this trip specifically, I would not advise doing the East Fork of the Owyhee at less than 80 CFS. In a perfect world I think 200 or maybe 300 CFS at the Crutcher Gage would make for a safe and less strenuous voyage! We ran this between 110 and 80.
7. On this trip specifically, a 12-foot or shorter boat would have been a bonus. We did struggle at times getting through narrow passages in submerged rocks.
8. We were fortunate to have moderate quality river water to draw from for filtration. It would be worthwhile to seek out springs and better-quality water opportunities along the route.
9. This trip would have been more relaxing if we’d allowed four nights for our trip and maybe had someone tell us that we should allow 5 hours to get by Owyhee Falls, and Thread the Needle would take 2 or three more. Please be hereby so advised!!
10. This is sort of a repeat, but it bears repeating. Only bring the items you truly need. Look for weight savings in food, clothing, gear, unnecessary duplication of gear, etc. Obviously, don’t scrimp on safety items. We had extra matches, lighters, lights, and we brought a GPS beacon and numerous mapping applications. Safety first.