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.