Submitted by Tom Riggs

In this year when there is a dearth of permits to match the low snow pack prudence dictated we plan an early extended raft trip.  The prediction models showed the North fork John Day as being viable, then updates came and it was going to be too low by launch time, then the wind shifted direction and it was going to be somewhat on the high side at 11300 cfs at Monument but we had already committed to the Grand Ronde which the NOAA forecast site projected the flow to be 13000 cfs at Troy on launch day.  
There are two gage reports that come out of Troy; USGS and NOAA.  USGS had flows 2500 cfs lower than NOAA which explained why Frank Mayer and I could not agree on the numbers.  Member Paul Diaz who works for the USGS got me an answer from his peers on this discrepancy noting one of the gages had filled with gravel during a high water event in mid March.  I should have recalled that “Froude Number” calculation while on the foot bridge at Troy.  My river experience says it looked closer to the 8180 cfs from NOAA than the 5640 reported by USGS.Anyway, the river was bankful and moving along at 6 mph giving us short days for the 90 miles to Heller’s from Minam.

Launching about 11:30 we decided that a tire and rim washed up on the banks of the Wallowa had no business being there, and since Jenny King decided to stay home and pray to the weather gods on our behalf, Kyle and I had room on our boat for this 16” wheel and tire.  Kyle figured he could have a more well rounded converstion with our new passenger.  I thought we should name our new passenger “Wilson” but we settled on Hancook.  I hadn’t even started in on “bald” jokes.  The tire was meant for the wilderness as it has a Ram logo in the center of the hub.  So now we were a group of 6, Bob Mosier, Blair St Denis, Frank, Kyle Riggs, Hancook, and me.
We grabbed a nice camp at river mile 78 on the right and were midway through unloading and setting up camp when they found us. Two Oregon State Policemen in a drift boat pulled in. In order to spare my comrades in arms I approached the officer with my arms extended ready for the handcuffs figuring Frank could flee to Canada, Kyle could run uphill, Blair could talk his way out of it by blaming Bob who would be slipping away on his cat boat.  Apparently their database must have corrupted as they were mostly checking on bear hunters and tags.  He asked who was the trip leader and I had an audible “gulp” and raised my hand.  He asked if I had filled out the permit and when I confirmed yes he was satisfied.  Blair decided he was proud of his waterway access permit and asked if he wanted to see those.  His reply was indifferent but ended up as ok. I dug out my phone receipt, after Blair had shown his.  Bob missed the cue to escape while we distracted him and pulled out a pile of expired permits from Oregon, Idaho, the DMV, concert ticket stubs, and a dry cleaning receipt for a “onesey”.  The officer looked at him and said are you ready?  He then shook his index finger at him in a “naughty you” fashion.  Cool huh?  I asked why his partner was not coming up to discuss elk hunting, river conditions, campsites, wildlife  etc but was told he was holding the boat.  My guess is he was double checking the shotguns for scatter loads, bean bags and tasers given the appearance of our gnarly crew. The officer bid us adieu and drifted downstream to check on hunters and eventually set up a camp.
Chow that night was meat loaf, scalloped potatoes, and brussel sprouts, followed by a drizzle, then rain that drove us into our tents until morning when the sun broke out to dry our tents and present us a view of four elk crossing the ridge opposite our camp.  Lucky for them they weren’t bears or I’d a given ‘em a knuckle rub.
We passed a couple of hunting camps as evidenced by the large canvas wall tents and some were empty (hunting) and others were occupied (telling hunting lies to each other).  There are some nice camps along this section.  Martin’s Misery Rapids at this flow and as far as I recollect at any flow is just a long wave train with two rocks on the right to avoid. 

The two plus hours to our next camp gave us time for the bocci tournament and more importantly after dinner, the technical papers disccussions.  And we wonder why we cannot get women to come along on these trips.  Each technical reading was maxed to one timed minute thank god but there was important information disseminated during those moments unlike the usual palaver in corporate meetings.
First came Bob who shared that “China’s industrial policy has a profitability problem”. We all knew that because we were driving American made boats.
I was next with “acoustic wave propagation through compressible media” or for the layman, “gas dynamics”. This too is related to river cuisine especially when dinner is cheap beer paired with bean burritos.
Kyle had the first aid segment of the technical talks. “ To cure the patient of The Plague pluck the feathers from the bottom of a live chicken then put the anus on the afflicted’s pustule.  The chicken’s bare rump will extract the poisons from the victim and if the chicken dies it will have sucked all bad ethers from the patient who will now live.”  Handy huh?
Blair chose a subject close the Steve Herring’s heart; and maybe one that could save it someday “ How to calibrate an oscilloscope”.  Since we all carry an oscilloscope in our pelican cases, it served as a refresher for our daily nerd hour.
In another topic that was related to river trips Frank read about the Doppler shift when trying to communicate with the space station.  We all knew the importance of this if the IN REACH failed to connect us to conventional communication; we could rely on astronauts to get word to NASA to make sure the beer truck restocked the store at Boggan’s Oasis.
For the evening campfire we tested the limits of Kyle’s home made firepan that had been modified with burner holes for better stoichiometric air to fuel ratios.  Some impressive heat I must say, but the consensus amongst the doctoral observers was that larger diameter holes would produce a faster BTU crescendo.  We melted some of the aluminum components of his fire pan leg connection pins but his Amazon fire blanket performed flawlessly.  Thank god for a large ash can.  When we got up in the morning and took roll call, Hancook was missing.  He had gone to heaven.

Our goal today was to float to Troy and stop at the pedestrian bridge for lunch and saunter across the road to buy some beer at the store.  “Closed Permanently” read the sign.  I smell a business opportunity.  Crossing the bridge back to our boats we noticed a metal cone pointed at the river connected to an electrical box.  It must be one of the gages for monitoring river levels.  The river at Troy is at its widest with a number of islands and several channels that shallow out enough to require an “African Queen” move if you chose the wrong one, even at 8180 cfs.  Continuing past Troy we floated by a nice spread on river left that at one time belonged to John Fogarty.  Rollin’ on the River. Spotted three herds of sheep all on river left that day.

We passed campsite at rm 39 referring to my notes as rm 37 being better.  It was not.  Kyle hacked some weeds down at this overgrown site and Bob plucked spikey Ponerosa Pine cones from under his tent spot.  Frank and Blair helped with the limited flat geography by opting for cots that night. 
Washinton is funny in that along the Troy access road and beyond there were about 7 outhouses;  which was one for each car we saw that day.  Along Highway 12 from Clarkston to Wallulla Junction there were two.  Speaking of Washington we were approaching Boggan’s Oasis to restock our beer.  I held the boat while Kyle walked up to the store.  Either the Doppler Shift was misaligned or the Space Station crew did not relay our urgent beer request message as he was only able to return with 6 beers.  I’m guessing Russian cosmonauts intercepted the message and retransmitted the required beer count to a lower number to mess with our troop’s morale.  Im sure this is a violation of The Geneva Convention. Fortunately Kyle had a gut ache and we did not have to resort to the extreme rationing plan.  Dad gets all and Kyle gets none.
A surprise came around the corner while we were floating by Boggan’s in the form of three big jet boats.  Apparently they had come up from The Snake navigating the high water of The Grand Ronde.  They were courteous and slowed as they passed on their way upstream to the Oregon State line where further powered travel is forbidden.
To add to our list of wildlife sightings we checked off pelicans, a coyote, deer ,peregrine falcon, eagles, herons, dippers, and maybe a buzzard or two waiting below The Narrows. About 7 miles below Boggan’s we came upon a tunnel that had a road that dead ended 100 yards beyond.  It was puzzling that someone would bore through that much rock just to end the road so nearby.  I guess if you have spare dynamite… wait there is no such thing as spare dynamite. 
Brenda Bunce and her crew had run to the Snake the week prior and she gave us some good Beta on campsites for the last day.  Go to the second Ponderosa near RM 11 for a decent landing and a flat bench. I broke out some sardines and kippered snacks and unlike a bunch of picky teenagers the canned fish was devoured.  We brought up the last of our wood for the firepan and talked of Doc Sarvis, Bonnie, Seldom Seen Smith, and Hayduke.  Where’s that dragline I need to drive over a cliff?
The last day we had only 12 miles to cover but planned to scout The Narrows, nemesis of Joe Von  Drak (0-2).  Bob did a read and run through the fun standing waves of the first part then caught a nice eddy on river right to scout the hole while the rest of us walked down the entire length of both segments on river left.  Bob’s idea was better but 20 20 hindsight is a blessing.  We all skirted the hole on river left and barely got wet throughout the whole escapade.
The Heller’s Bar boat ramp was uncrowded although a couple of jet boats pulled off while we were down rigging and packing. We all had to get home to re calibrate our oscilloscopes.