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- Apr 20, 2013
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I am putting this one in On the Water, because we did spend quite a bit of time on the water. Perhaps it really is more a Camping broken up and cooled down by being on and in the water.
I was originally invited to go to Bear Lake for a few days of hiking, boating and swimming. This changed last minute to a few days of tubing, camping and swimming.
It was a great time.
The location was the Oneida Narrows, a nice, short stretch of the Bear River in Idaho. I had tubed here before during my time at USU, including a run at sunset and into the darkness, which had been awesome.
I ended up doing most of the runs in an inflatable kayak, bringing up the rear as a little bit of a safety net, and thus enjoyed a lot more freedom than a tube, albeit for a bit more paddling work. We rented all our stuff from the ORC at USU (now in a much bigger and nicer space than my days when I used to rent a sleeping bag or tent there 15+ years ago).
We were not at a very high altitude, so the days were still in the 80s and the nights I do not think even went below 50. I dislike established campgrounds, and this one, although nice with a fair bit of shade, was still dusty, noisy, buggy, pit-toilet stinky...etc. The host though, she was an excellent and amiable character.
Needless to say, we spent most of the time for two days on the river, running it over and over.
We did drive up past the dam in the evening one night, and on the other night we played some soccer and kickball, yes kickball, over at a park in Mink Creek. Mink Creek is one of those great small farming towns in Idaho.
This view from camp was nice.
The first night I lost a little sleep thanks to a lame mistake where someone in the group had left out some trash, and at 230am I had a little face to face with a perturbed skunk who was happily fattened on campers who had done similar over the years. Not sprayed-luckily! but when I first heard it, I had thought, or maybe falsely hoped, it was a raccoon.
I had closed in pretty close before he stood up his tail in a defensive position and smiled at me with his green eyes reflected in my headlamp.
Everyone kept a clean camp after that.
The next morning was really the only time I took photos, besides when I took my phone on one of the runs.
Predawn from the put in that was right by camp.
Pepe le Pew's tracks continued far up the shadow of the main road. He made good distance to visit during the night.
Gorgeous clouds overhead that would soon burn off after a 30 second sprinkling.
There was beauty in the morning shadows and leaping fish.
While one of the guys caught his very first fish, a nice 15-16" Cutbow. I watched the golden light dance on one of the braids of the river.
I wandered off upriver and went through this big meadow as it got touched by sunlight.
The Oneida Narrows if taken from where we camped was about a 2 mile run to a takeout. There are several takeouts farther down, but there are a couple spill overs to navigate, so we did not go over the spillovers. We also ran from right below the dam, but it seemed the best parts were about 1.5 miles of the 2 from camp, so that was the one we repeated over and over.
We had no real incidents. Besides once returning to camp short one tube that had fallen off the back of the truck (3 had actually fallen, but only 2 were immediately found), the other had gone down the bank off the road and we had to go back and search for it. We had a scraped shin. We had a boy maroon his tube under a straining tree. We helped a few other groups out at times.
Otherwise, we spent a lot of time both on and in the water.
There were also cormorants, a heron, vultures, bald eagles, cows, voles, deer, a small garter snake struggling to carry a tadpole/metamorph, and of course the skunk. We saw him later run across the road.
Here are a few from the run where I took my phone. There really was beauty in the limestone crags, especially running in the evening in the long shadows and white rice grass catching the last rays of light. During the day, it was best to fall out and soak in some of the water.
During the quiet moments there was no sound but the water and the unmistakable drone of thousands of gnats clouded overhead in the shade.
I liked this ridge.
Just enjoying the last, calm bit before the take out.
I was originally invited to go to Bear Lake for a few days of hiking, boating and swimming. This changed last minute to a few days of tubing, camping and swimming.
It was a great time.
The location was the Oneida Narrows, a nice, short stretch of the Bear River in Idaho. I had tubed here before during my time at USU, including a run at sunset and into the darkness, which had been awesome.
I ended up doing most of the runs in an inflatable kayak, bringing up the rear as a little bit of a safety net, and thus enjoyed a lot more freedom than a tube, albeit for a bit more paddling work. We rented all our stuff from the ORC at USU (now in a much bigger and nicer space than my days when I used to rent a sleeping bag or tent there 15+ years ago).
We were not at a very high altitude, so the days were still in the 80s and the nights I do not think even went below 50. I dislike established campgrounds, and this one, although nice with a fair bit of shade, was still dusty, noisy, buggy, pit-toilet stinky...etc. The host though, she was an excellent and amiable character.
Needless to say, we spent most of the time for two days on the river, running it over and over.
We did drive up past the dam in the evening one night, and on the other night we played some soccer and kickball, yes kickball, over at a park in Mink Creek. Mink Creek is one of those great small farming towns in Idaho.
This view from camp was nice.
The first night I lost a little sleep thanks to a lame mistake where someone in the group had left out some trash, and at 230am I had a little face to face with a perturbed skunk who was happily fattened on campers who had done similar over the years. Not sprayed-luckily! but when I first heard it, I had thought, or maybe falsely hoped, it was a raccoon.
I had closed in pretty close before he stood up his tail in a defensive position and smiled at me with his green eyes reflected in my headlamp.
Everyone kept a clean camp after that.
The next morning was really the only time I took photos, besides when I took my phone on one of the runs.
Predawn from the put in that was right by camp.
Pepe le Pew's tracks continued far up the shadow of the main road. He made good distance to visit during the night.
Gorgeous clouds overhead that would soon burn off after a 30 second sprinkling.
There was beauty in the morning shadows and leaping fish.
While one of the guys caught his very first fish, a nice 15-16" Cutbow. I watched the golden light dance on one of the braids of the river.
I wandered off upriver and went through this big meadow as it got touched by sunlight.
The Oneida Narrows if taken from where we camped was about a 2 mile run to a takeout. There are several takeouts farther down, but there are a couple spill overs to navigate, so we did not go over the spillovers. We also ran from right below the dam, but it seemed the best parts were about 1.5 miles of the 2 from camp, so that was the one we repeated over and over.
We had no real incidents. Besides once returning to camp short one tube that had fallen off the back of the truck (3 had actually fallen, but only 2 were immediately found), the other had gone down the bank off the road and we had to go back and search for it. We had a scraped shin. We had a boy maroon his tube under a straining tree. We helped a few other groups out at times.
Otherwise, we spent a lot of time both on and in the water.
There were also cormorants, a heron, vultures, bald eagles, cows, voles, deer, a small garter snake struggling to carry a tadpole/metamorph, and of course the skunk. We saw him later run across the road.
Here are a few from the run where I took my phone. There really was beauty in the limestone crags, especially running in the evening in the long shadows and white rice grass catching the last rays of light. During the day, it was best to fall out and soak in some of the water.
During the quiet moments there was no sound but the water and the unmistakable drone of thousands of gnats clouded overhead in the shade.
I liked this ridge.
Just enjoying the last, calm bit before the take out.
