The three miles between Wild Sheep and Granite rapids disappeared in a flash at the high flow. We made a mad paddle for a campsite on river right, just above Granite. The site featured a gravel beach with a flat-ish area for the kitchen and a row of tent sites on a partially wooded bench above and to the right. A trail hugged a granite wall downstream to a view of the rapid.
The first camp was a bit chaotic as we struggled to remember where we had packed certain items. It took me several hours to round up everything Scott and I needed to make breakfast the next morning. The Cattertons served up a tasty meal of hamburgers, green salad and potato salad. It was clear and warm, so Scott and I opted to forego the tent and sleep on our tarp under the stars again. We had a few minutes to regret this decision when it sprinkled a few drops in the wee hours, but it stopped before we could rouse ourselves.
After breakfast (Spanish eggs with corn tortillas and orange slices) we began the arduous process of getting all the gear back into the boats. Why is it that gear always seems to expand beyond the capacity of the storage space that it came out of?
We hoped to run Granite before the river came up, but we timed our launch almost perfectly with the high flow. We were able to confirm this at Pittsburg Landing a couple days later when we could look at a flow chart and mentally insert our position on the river at various stages. We scouted the giant wave train that formed a "green room" mid-way down. It seemed possible that the overhead curlers could flip the smaller raft. Cindy decided to hike around which meant ferrying across the river to let her out on the opposite bank where she could follow a trail and then bushwhack through a poison ivy thicket to the shore below the rapid.
When it was all said and done, Granite gave us more fun than fear. We relished the memory as we sat in the poison-ivy-laden eddy to wait for Cindy. After watching us float through, I think she regretted her decision. She and Mike lathered up with Technu as soon as we were back on the water.
The rest of the trip was much more relaxing if less exciting. Day two featured lots of Class II and III water with epic canyon scenery. We spent two nights at the second camp, enjoying the layover day with no packing, loading and unloading. I hiked, others napped, swam, and chilled out. Although we had tied the boats up in two feet of water, we admired the 10 feet of beach that had appeared between them and the river when the river abruptly dropped and never rose again. On Day four, lunch at Pittsburg Landing meant the end of the whitewater.
The rest of the canyon was mellower, but no less beautiful. After three days of seeing few people other than a few jet boats and a small guided raft party that took out at Pittsburg, it was a bit of a disruption to begin seeing jet boats in greater numbers. We were nearing Fourth of July weekend and the motorheads were laying claim to the best beach campsites. The last night, we squeezed into what I named the "barefoot camp" since the sandy kitchen area made it easier and more comfortable to go without shoes--at least until hopping across a rocky creek to the tent sites on the other side.
The last day we stopped at Kirkwood Historic Ranch for a quick tour of early American life in Hell's Canyon (we got a brief glimpse of late Indian life two days earlier when we passed the point where Chief Joseph led his tribe across the river during spring floods when the early Americans chased them from the Wallowa Valley). A few hours later, we all groaned in disappointment when we rounded a bend to see Heller Bar--the end point for our week-long adventure.
