North Fork John Day

Memorial day weekend is usually a pretty important weekend for Mel and I. This priceless three-day weekend happens during my favorite time of the year and since I've lived in Oregon it has always been filled with some sort of fun trip. I find that these adventures have afforded us a way to celebrate the beauty that has been achieved by the sacrafices made by those people that this weekend honors. This year was certianly no exception, as 6 of us (Anna, John, Sarah, Mark, Mel, and I) had a chance to float through a beautiful eastern oregon wilderness area on the North Fork of the John Day River. The plan came together at the last minute, and a mad scramble to gather the necessary gear and food was made literally the night before the trip. After a 6 hour drive, we were organizing our gear in a forested canyon upstream of the bustling town of Dale (population 2... maybe???). Our trip would end about 60 miles down the river, and the forested canyon slowly changed into desert grassland over the course of 4 days.

This is the first camp in the forested canyon upstream of Dale

Fast forward to our second campsite about 20 miles downstream

Apollo entertained himself by destroying pinecones throughout the trip

We had no shortage of firewood at any of the camps

Mark brough along a pole, but I'd say our fishing effort could have been stronger

The little lady decked out in her paddling attire

Pretty typical mid-day break.

My kayak and Mark's canoe... Mark found an elk shed at our second camp.

Yep, pretty rough.

John manned the oars on the raft for the first 2.5 days.

I got a chance to paddle everything, including Mark and Sarah's single person canoes (I want one!!!)

Pretty typical scene... The raft was generally slower than the others, but packed all the gear...

Dry-bag shenanigans

John drinking in the scenery at our last campsite

Pretty amazing to wander through the grasslands in such an area that we essentially had to ourselves.

Where's Marko?

Just downstream of our camp.

We wandered around for a couple hours pretty much blown away by the view.

The Middle Fork of the John Day (we came down the N. Fork)

Mark n Sarah back at camp

Apollo was pretty much wrecked by this point, having destroyed most of the pinecones in E. Oregon

Another feeble attempt at evening photos.

This one came out a little blurry, but I thought it was neat cause everyone was in it.

This one was better...

AM view of our camp... By now we were starting to be a little more organized with our stuff...

The confluence of the N. Fork and the Middle Fork and some neighbors we didn't notice until after setting up.

A so-so panorama I tried to stitch together. Tripod would have helped...

Our campsite was down at the end of the ridge on center right... Amazing...

Looking back up the Middle Fork... Perhaps another trip for another time.

More winter and spring catchup

With Jennie and Brooke at Alta

Aaron's Powercats lift. :)

Inside the small cottage we stayed at for Eric's bach at Little Cottonwood Canyon

The little cottage itself

Waiting in line for the snowcat trip at Powder Mtn.

Snowcat stoke!

The "Powder Shuttle" picks you up from "out of bounds" and drives you back to the resort

Lineup on the Bookends Traverse.

Road to Provo

Pretty typical stoke after yet another powder run.

Ox catching some cornice air.

Mark and Sarah at Smith

Mel and Anna on the Morning Glory wall

Again

Apollo and Anna stoke

Sarah shreading on one of the classic morning glory wall lines.

Pretty nice to get two climbs next to each other at this super popular spot.

Pretty cool rock features!

Sarah and Mark

The next 7 pics are from Lindsey Clunes, who was the photographer for a recertification exercise for two of our sibling mtn rescue teams. We had to scout all around Heyrick Butte to find an area with safe enough avalanche conditions for the exercise.

Stihl Timbersports at OSU (Hotsaw event!)

Three pics from Jackson Frasier Wetland, right around the time everything was flooding.

Four pics from our second annual spring campout near Klamath with Chris, Amy, Beth, and Andy

Five pics from a suffer-fest-length motorcycle ride through the oregon coast range. Thankfully I was able to ride through that landslide on the left. :)

Eight pics from a quartzville creek paddling trip. This is the one that hooked me back on whitewater trips!

Twelve pics from our bike trip on the McKenzie river trail... Neatest Mtn. Bike trail I've ever seen!

My first kayak trip on the Little North Santiam with Mark, Sarah, and Kathleen.

The next six pictures are from a SAR mission we had in the Drift Creek Wilderness. Sarah and I got to kayak through the wilderness area looking for two missing canoeists. About an hour into the trip we found their boat wrecked and abandoned. The pair was found shortly after by a different team after they walked about 8 miles of trail-less and very brushy wilderness. Good for them!

One of the rapids on the North Fork of the Middle Fork of the Willamette (another kayak trip)

I got a kick out of this: Mark and Sarah had to hustle to a mothers day dinner that afternoon, so here's Sarah, all dressed up, dumping dirty water out of her kayak...

Finally is a batch of pics from a backcountry ski trip with Aaron, Jennie, Sarah, Brian, John, and Apollo.