John Day River - May 2025

Submitted by Jeff Edwards

Looking for a multi-day raft trip and not having any luck with lotteries, I decided to try to John
Day River permit system. I was not able to get a Clarno put-in spring permit from the BLM, but I
was able to get a "Long Distance High Season" (Service Creek to Cottonwood) permit for May
17, 2025. I recruited my friend Walter to accompany me on my cataraft; just one boat in our
"group". He flew in from Colorado for the trip.

Since the Service Creek Lodge was closed, we got a room at the Fossil Motel and RV Park -
which was nice and roomy. Rained hard at night but next morning was only overcast. Drove to
Service Creek put-in (RM 157.1) and set up the cataraft. We used "JT Shuttles" (541-771-0341)
to deliver my truck to the take-out at Cottonwood.

By the time we were on the river it was rainy, windy and cold. Flow was about 3800 cfs. We
needed to get warmed up so did not go too far. Camped at RM 148.8L (as shown on the BLM's
JDR "Recreation Guide" book). Lots of fire wood so we made a nice warming fire. This camp
was a pretty good, so I rated it a "B".

Day 2 was another cool and windy day (upstream of course) but only a little rain. We camped
at RM 129.6R, which was a little less decent (rated "C") but good enough. At this point we
debated about cutting our trip short and taking out at Clarno.

Day 3 the weather improved, and we floated under the Clarno bridge - we were committed to
carry on. No good camps between the bridge and Clarno rapid (Class 3), so we ran the rapid in
late afternoon. Went a bit over the rock on the right but no damage done. There are some
good camps on river right just past the rapid where I had camped before, but they were posted
with numerous NO TRESSPASSING signs, so we floated on down to RM 103.1L? camp ("C").

Day 4 we got my usual late start on the water and noticed a lot more boaters - and occupied
camps - now that we were below the Clarno put-in. But since there was only 2 of us in 1 boat,
we did not need much room. Found a nice camp (B") a little downstream of the RM 81.5L
camp.

Day 5 we entered what John Garren refers to as the 2000 ft deep "Great Basalt Canyon". From
Service Creek down there are beautiful rock formations of columnar basalt, but they are
especially sublime in this section. I somehow managed to go over another rock in Basalt
Rapids (Class 2+). Some great camps in the deepest part of the canyon, but they were all taken
by the time we floated through. Continued down to RM 65.6L, which is not shown in the BLM
map but is pretty nice (B"). We named this camp "Cock Rock" back in 2021 when I also floated
this with Walter (see photo to see why we called it Cock Rock camp). In 2021 we took a layover
day here and hiked to the top of the canyon, which was a little challenging as there was no trail
and lots of loose rocks - good boots and walking stick are highly recommended. The view from
the top down into the canyon was spectacular.

Day 6 we saw a large herd of bighorn sheep on river left. Lots of nice camps around Hoot Owl
Rock, but it was too early for us to stop so we floated on down to the camp at RM 45.4L, which I
know is nice (stayed there in 2012), but it was full. Managed to get the camp at RM 44.5R ("C"),
which may be the last decent camp before the take-out. It was bit overgrown with vegetation
but just big enough for 2 tents. In the evening lots of flying insects and in the morning lots of
birds, including an elusive Yellow Chat.

Day 7 floated down to Cottonwood bridge to takeout (RM 39.7R) and the river trip was over.
Flow was down to 2800 (at Service Creek gauge). Truck had been delivered as promised. We
were lucky because the weather seemed to improve with each day.
I first floated the John Day with Tom Hansen way back in 1998. Back then (and even in 2009)
we hardly saw any other boaters, and although there are more boaters now it’s still not too
crowded and a great way to spend a week - would have been even better with a layover day or
two!

Important note: many of the camps shown by the BLM map did not seem to exist.
Walter made a nice video and posted it on you tube if you have never been and are interested
in what a JDR trip would be like, or you just want to remember your last trip down:
https://youtu.be/wxBfC7EPgX8