With our rogue river trip coming up we wanted to get some more oar time. There is a stretch on the Deschutes with some decent rapids around the Maupin area. PJ came with me to keep company on my boat.
3rd year doing a spring float with a Bible study group that Mark leads through the school year. The raft trip is the capstone before the summer break. This year we did the lower section of the Deschutes from buck hollow all the way to the Columbia River (heritage landing). About 40 miles over the 3-day long weekend. This includes a stretch that none of us have done prior.
We had one mishap with Mark’s boat and he had to do a field repair on the outer shell. Thankfully, it did not puncture the bladder so able to leverage the repair for the remainder of the trip until he can do a more permanent fix.
We just completed a super fun and leisurely 3 day raft trip on the lower Deschutes River, north of Bend putting in at Buckhollow (just outside of Maupin) and taking out at Mack’s Canyon. It was only about 20 miles making for shorter days on the river and lots of fun at camp. This trip was with the Lovejoy family as usual and the Starlings, (Chris, Hattie and their 3 girls) who we have known for years but never had the opportunity to boat together.
We drove north to Maupin and we were on the river around 10:30 on Friday morning.
Camp on night 1 (Friday)
Warm day so the river and the shade along the shore was greatly appreciated.
Starlings hosted dinner the first night. They served flatiron steaks, smashed pesto potatoes with a wedge salad. Chris is a great cook and the presentation was phenomenal.
Classic Donaldson/Lovejoy camp shenanigans.
As the trip was only 2 nights and 3 families, we hosted breakfast Saturday morning since there were only 2 dinner meals. We did up spicy sweet potato hash and scrambled eggs along with fruit salad and OJ + mimosas for the adults.
Camp night 2 (Saturday)
Saturday target was a camp that Chris (has done this stretch of river a number of times) said was the best site by far. We ended up getting the site and it did not disappoint. An A++ site for sure. Big sandy beach, rapids and a great eddy to swim in and park/launch boats. Lovejoys hosted dinner Saturday and made pulled pork tacos which were delish. Mark got things rolling early with the margaritas which made for a fun afternoon.
Sunday was a short 4 miles to the take out. A great weekend trip that was too short.
There is a massive rope swing at one section on the Deschutes river near an area called the big eddy. Noah and some friends went out to try it out. Here is a video of Noah. Some serious hang time when you let go
My good friend mark has been doing a high school boys Bible study since the start of the school year. He wanted to get all the boys out plus a couple of additional boys that will be starting high school next year (our Noah for example). We have been planning it for about a month. In total we had 18 people. 12 boys and 6 adults.
Mark and I would run gear rafts and our friend Justin who works for CRU at the college would run a raft full of kids and the older boys would run in a smaller raft on their own. (Jack and hunter both have familiarity running this one).
Mark and Justin ran the programming for the weekend and I was camp cook!
We were a bit worried about the weather as it had just been snowing a little over a week earlier but we were blessed with good weather. Cool at night but nice spring days during the day.
We did a 3 day run on the lower Deschutes leaving Friday and coming back Sunday. Boys had an absolute blast and it was amazing to see them bond as brothers in Christ.
Dads also had a great time hanging out and bonding with the boys as well. Food was great and always enjoyable to share meals together. Food pics- night 1 - big pot of chilli and second photo is a peach cobbler I did.
We decided to go out for dinner but instead of trying to fight the hordes of tourists at restaurants we packed up food for a picnic and went down to an area of the deschutes called the big eddy. It was nice and quiet.
The lighting was really nice this evening. And of course Noah wanted to get pictures of him mid-air jumping :)
We just got back from our annual fall boys camping trip for 2017.
Previous years:
A little later than average this year - Sept 30/Oct 1 and the weather was a little more cool and unsettled but still a great time. This year we were joined by PJ for the first time! Kelly was a little nervous about this but decided to ok it. The trip this year was via canoe upon request from Noah. The plan was to travel along an ~8 mile stretch of the Deschutes river from Tenino boat launch just below Wickiup reservoir to Wyeth boat launch just above Pringle falls. This stretch has no rapids and is a nice easy down-river float. Here is a map of the route and our selected primitive camp spot (blue dot) along the river.
We dropped one car at Wyeth and had Kelly drive us to the put in point at Tenino. Here we are at the put in and just starting down river.
We selected this camp spot about 2/3 down river to our exit as it was relatively remote. Had a great little eddy to pull the canoe into to unload.
I had a few new recipes I wanted to try on this trip. The first was pizza over a camp stove. I originally learned this with NOLS many years ago but haven't tried it recently. Chose to top it with peppercorn feta, kalamata olives, and arugula on half (for Noah and I). First pic is Hunter helping me by cutting up olives. Of course the trip wouldn't be complete without hot-dogs over a fire which we did later when the wind died down. I also cooked a peach cobbler for desert.
Here is a video of the kids throwing pin cones in the river on a walk for entertainment.
After a cool night we rose Sunday morning with a little rain to start but clearing to partly cloudy with a cool wind but not bad for October. For breakfast I made Fresh sourdough french toast with raspberries and pumpkin spice maple syrup along with a side bacon. It was tasty!
Hunters friend Jack Lovejoy turned 10 and for his birthday party his dad Mark rafted a few of them down a stretch of the Deschutes just south of Bend - how cool is that! Here are a few shots from the afternoon fun. There wasn't quite enough room in the boat so I sat this one out but got some great video of them going through a section of class 3 rapids near lava island!
