[TR] something other than hood - lower Owyhee - Rome to Birch Creek 6/13/2010

[shapp]

Trip: something other than hood - lower Owyhee - Rome to Birch Creek

 

Date: 6/13-17/2010

 

Trip Report:

Lower Owyhee River - Rome to Birch Creek (48.5 miles) 1200 cfs at launch, 800 cfs at take out, June 13 - 17, 2010. 113 miles SE of Burns! Me, wife, and dog loving life. Pictorial trip report, highlights included tire bloat out followed by 4 new tires from Less's place in La Grande installed in less than 20 minutes, 2 hots springs, several fun rapids, a big hail storm and flash flood in the creek next to the Teepee, big leg bone fossil found, great dutch oven cooking (pizza, tamale pie, etc.). I love SE Oregon

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Gear Notes:

Aire 14' purple people pleaser, dutch oven, beer, Teepee

 

Approach Notes:

Toyota and 1,350 miles round trip

Edited June 21, 2010 by shapp

[justinp]

Light on the climbing but fawk yeah

[billcoe]

fawk yeah

HELL YEAH! What he said. I stayed on this side of the hill this weekend and got rained on. Felt kind of stupid till I started settling into an outdoor hot spring buck assed naked in a light mist, then it was all good and forgotten:-) No climbing and not much other either. At least you were exploring.

fawk yeah

[111]

well done shapp. how far in did the cave go?

[Cobra_Commander]

 

fossilized ordovician walrus penis complete with intact nutsack - beautiful specimen.

Edited June 21, 2010 by Cobra_Commander

[LostCamKenny]

2 hots springs

awesome! which two were you at? there are only three (that i've heard of) in that area... alvord, willow and mickey.

[stevetimetravlr]

Looks fabulous!

[ARob]

Wow! Looks like a great adventure, I have been looking to do the Owyhee for a while now. Great sunset and canyon pics!

[Stefan]

dude!!! you are supposed to keep this rafting place quiet!!!

 

 

[geoff]

None of those LCK. There are probably hundreds in this area. Most are NOT in the Hike to Hot Springs book, particularly if you need a 14' Aire to get there.

[LostCamKenny]

None of those LCK. There are probably hundreds in this area. Most are NOT in the Hike to Hot Springs book, particularly if you need a 14' Aire to get there.

thanks, counselor... back to work on yer deck now.

[shapp]

Actually I think they are in the hiking hotspring book, The smaller one is Rye Grass hot spring located on the other side of the river from Rye Grass Crossing, and Greely Bar hotspring is the bigger one.

 

 

I actually do have some climbing plans for next year to do about a 5 pitch route on the big tooth-loocking pinnacle in this photo (scoped it quite substantially this year.

 

 

additional pic from 2008:

 

 

Edited June 22, 2010 by shapp

[ivan]

dirty, dirty - nice!

[shapp]

.

Edited May 4, 2011 by shapp

[shapp]

 

fossilized ordovician walrus penis complete with intact nutsack - beautiful specimen.

 

Update:

 

I took the fossil to the Burke Gilman museum at UW. I finally got it back last week. The final conclusion by the experts is that it is a distal end of a left femur of a Camelid (extinct camel species), which could not be identified to the exact species. There are clear tooth gnaw marks on one end that are part of the fossil indicating something large either killed it or made dinner of Joe Camel after his demise from other causes. The fossil is between 2 to 7 million years old.

 

Through the discovery of this fossil I learned that Camels evolved in North America, then dispersed to the rest of the world over land bridges, then went extinct in North Amerrica. There are several extinct species, the fossil I have is from one of the largr onnes that stood around 2.5 meters at the shoulder.

Edited May 4, 2011 by shapp

[ivan]

the rest of the animal maybe, but camel TOES have never gone extinct in north america!

 

holy shit, was gonna put in a pic but instead let me implore you to never google said term

[shapp]

FoSho!