Wallowa County kicked off the tourist season during Memorial Day weekend. You know the visitor season is officially in high gear when you find yourself driving through town in low gear. I got behind somebody doing a steady 1.5 miles per hour through Joseph and sure appreciated it because it gave me time to catch up on dusting off the gauges in my instrument panel. 

When you get out here this summer check out the new tipis set up at the Interpretive Exhibit Site next to the Chevron station. The photos include some real gems and it's a satellite exhibit of the Nez Perce Homeland Project, based in Wallowa.

These new tipis are gorgeous and impressive, painted by Nez Perce artist Kevin Peters. 

The 16 and 20-foot tipis were made by Steve and Connie Evans. Connie and Kevin, the artist, are members of the Nez Perce Tribe. Connie's husband Steve is a retired history professor from Lewis-Clark State College and wrote the book, Voice of the Old Wolf: Lucullus Virgil McWhorter and the Nez Perce Indians.

  

Evans' book is an interesting read all on its own, but an excellent follow-up or companion to the extraordinary Yellow Wolf: His Own Story by McWhorter. Yellow Wolf is waaay up on my list of recommended reading for its first-person accounts and Nez Perce perspective of the 1877 war.

Lots of books have been written about the Nez Perce War and I think all of them should carry a sticker on the cover recommending you also read Yellow Wolf. I realize that's not how the publishing world works, but it will if I ever take it over.

Connie, Steve and Kevin showed the proper way for setting up a Nez Perce-style tipi, which was awfully interesting and will save me some time next time I try to set mine up. They're pretty intriguing structures, really. Strong, attractive. I've lived in a few cinder block atrocities over the years that I would have gladly traded for a canvas tipi.

Kayaking Wallowa County

Winding Waters pal Matt King has been playing around with his kayak buddies on Wallowa County rivers lately and they posted the video I'm going to stick on here down below.

Their blog is called Into the Outside and I've gotta say, these guys put together a spiffy video.

Check this shot out of Matt after a drop that shook a salmon loose and sent it upstream while Matt went down. Watch for it in the video about the 1:56 mark.

Here's the video. I'm pretty sure that's also Matt singing the background music.

So get your bad self out here and let's go do us some rafting. We've got boats out right now on the Snake River in Hells Canyon, before too long the Salmon River float season will kick off and the Grande Ronde is prime right now with green stuff everywhere and wild things frolicking.

Oh yeah, and fishing season is back on. Get yourself out there on the Wallowa River for a guided fishing trip while the trout are ravenous.

Attention all units: Rafting season is underway. It's a go. Operation Have A Blast Whitewater Rafting is in progress. Proceed to the Snake River in Hells Canyon, the Lower Salmon and Grande Ronde Rivers for grade-A good times, over.

Two launches hit the water this week, with the Joseph High School Seniors rafting down the Grande Ronde and a Forest Service botany research team scouring Hells Canyon for science and stuff.

Winding Waters gathered the troops for a preseason meeting and work party last weekend so we could practice whistling while we work and eating super good food after a job well done.

The job was picking up garbage along the stretch of Imnaha Highway that Winding Waters heard singing "The Sun'll Come Out Tomorrow" and decided to adopt.

That stretch of road has come a long way in a few short years and is now pretty slim pickin's in the trash department. Which is nice to see.

 Regulators, let's ride.

Winding Waters Farm

The boathouse has always had a nice country feel to it, what with Penny's horses and the big view of pastures and mountains. But things are downright Old McDonald these days with an oink-oink here, a cluck-cluck there, here a garden, there a garden, everywhere a farm fresh something or other. 

I've been on a fair number of river trips with Winding Waters and do not recall anyone ever going hungry or complaining about the food. Ever. To the contrary, there's a real emphasis on good eats and plenty of them.

We try to prepare exactly the right amount, edging toward a little more just in case. And some of that little more, sad to say, has in the past not made it past the leftovers stage as fuel for the gearboat crew.

Well, problem solved. Meet the pigs. They will be cleaning up the leftovers of the leftovers and I daresay they will be eating awfully well.

And since I saw the baby chicks shortly after their arrival at Winding Waters Farm, I can say with confidence that I've solved the mystery and the chickens came first. Then the eggs. Although the chicks must have came from eggs, so . . . I see now why it's hard to solve that one. OK.

I'll leave you with this snapshot of the sun going down in the Wallowas recently. The picture doesn't really do it justice, but those contrails were sort of pouring out from where the sun was and Bruce Macke, who I was looking at this with, announced, "It looks like a river."

Which is exactly what I'd just been thinking.

Bruce has spent a good deal of time on the water and his son Sam is a Winding Waters guide many of you have met.

It doesn't look anything like a river in this picture, I'll admit. But it sure did a few minutes before. Or maybe we were just seeing what we wanted to.

I don't know. But if you want to see a real river, give Winding Waters a jingle and we'll put you on an honest to goodness river, complete with a sunset you can look at and decide whether it resembles anything.

What would you rather be doing?

I know Mother's Day isn't a competition, but still I feel like the little bouquet I got my Mom might come in second compared to the river/bicycle biathlon Linden and Paul arranged for Penny.

A clump of flowers versus floating the Grande Ronde on a sunny day, then riding back to Troy. I mean, they were pretty snazzy flowers, but, hmm.

Here's the Mother's Day cam, showing the bikes stashed behind Paul in the drift boat with Linden navigating for her Dad.

Binky patrol.

There's even talk of adding a 5k run to the biking and river running for a full-blown Grande Ronde triathlon. Stay tuned for that.

Mom's Day in Wallowa County also included the animal world out here in Wallowa County. Here are two baby foxes playing near Wallowa Lake –

At the risk of upsetting the order of things, I'm going to quit even trying to use the term "kit" for a baby fox. You say "kit" and people respond, "Oh, baby fox?" and you say exactly. So those are baby foxes.

Their Mother's Day present to Mama Fox was to play quietly off by themselves while Mom caught a few winks with a siesta by the trail –

Looks like a pillow with ears.

And on the shore of Wallowa Lake we have the Goose family out for a stroll to wind down a busy Mother's Day that included brunch at Wallowa Lake Lodge featuring bird seed with hollandaise sauce.

. . . and then they took to the water.

Which is what we've all got in mind out here. Taking to the water. Come join us why don't you, with a whitewater trip through mighty Hells Canyon, dig your toes in the sand on the beaches of the Lower Salmon River or get in some practice for the upcoming triathlon by rafting the Grande Ronde.

See you on the river.

People like to say carpe diem, but rarely is there any information beyond ordering you to seize a day. This accounts for a lot of ice cream consumption, re-watching Ferris Bueller's Day Off and wearing pajamas beyond a respectable hour.

Fret no more. The Gearboat Chronicles' Guide to Day Seizing removes the confusion with easy to follow steps for squeezing all the juice from a spin around the sun. Let's begin.

To properly seize a day, you first need to sneak up on one. Accomplish this by walking on your toes, hiding behind flag poles, or calling Winding Waters River Expeditions the day before to lay a trap.

Pick your day out of the herd carefully. This is crucial. Avoid the mistake of targeting the sick or injured days, which are often plagued by rain or clouds. You don't want these. They taste gamey.

Wait for a splendid, sun-besotted day you'd be proud to mount over the hearth. A good rule of thumb is any day in rafting season.

For carpe diem connoisseurs, there is a rare specimen that offers more than a normal day would seem capable of holding. It's more than the sum of its parts. It's the clown car of doing stuff during daylight hours. It is the fabled day trip down the roadless stretch of the Grande Ronde River when you can cover 38 miles and be home for dinner.

It doesn't happen often, but it's happening now. River flows are right, allowing us to scoot many miles in few hours. And it's a comfortable flow. Rapids are soft. Wildlife is out. We've got sunny Wallowa County spring days and this 38 miles in one day is one of my favorite ways to seize a day if I'm not watching Ferris Bueller again. Great film.

You won't find this Minam to Wildcat Bridge Grande Ronde day trip on the normal Winding Waters adventure menu. It's one of those in-season rarities. Like morel mushrooms, which are also about to pop up.

So there you have it. Whet your rafting whistle with a cruise through some gorgeous territory while the river level cooperates. And so confident am I that you will see wild things, I'll offer a limited time Bald Eagle Sighting Guarantee, personally paying you a quarter if you don't see at least one baldy. You'll see a baldy.

Act fast, though. These river conditions are fleeting.

So carpe your diem, but remember to seize responsibly. Just a firm grasp so it doesn't get away.

And, hey, to carpe a bunch of diems, come with us for one of our multiday expedtions.

I put some photos up a couple weeks ago that showed one hawk giving another hawk a back massage. Or something. I would re-post one of the pictures here to refresh your memory, except I got threatened with legal action – from my Mom – for contributing to the racy nature of the internet.

I noticed a response to that post from our friend Leigh, who wondered this –

Four question marks. If it had been three, I would have skipped right by this. But clearly she wants answers.

There are scoundrels in the world, Leigh, who would do just about anything to sell you just about anything. Fannypacks, for instance. Sea monkeys. Part ownership in a pyramid discovered in the Ponzi Valley.

The Gearboat Chronicles, on the other hand, is in the business of advertising a little something we like to call: 'Amazing.' The French call it, amazeeeng.

Stuff you just wouldn't see if you hadn't got out in the hinterlands and been there, just at the right time, to lay your eyes on an event you'd only see when messing around in boats.

Exhibit A: Paul, his bro and Jeff Yanke recently see three wolves on the bank of the Grande Ronde River. Ho hum . . . no big whoop, just chillin' with THREE WOLVES.

Exhibit B: Just floating down the river, doot-dee-doo, and – what's that? Morgan has suddenly joined a herd of elk? No, Morgan, you can't go live with the elk in the wild . . . you have all the toilet paper in your boat. We need it.

For more amazingness, I reached out to the Winding Waters River Expeditions guide staff, asking for things they've witnessed on the river that either made their eyes shoot out of their heads on slinky springs like cartoon characters, or were just super-cool.

First up, Patrick Baird. Gearboatman extraordinaire. Seen here practicing for his high school graduation photo, but if he ever releases an album of folk-alt-spoken word-synthesizer jams, this would make a sweet cover.

Patrick writes:

"One thing I never would have seen had I not been in Hells Canyon was a golden eagle kamikaze-bombing a spike bull which sent that there elk a buckin' and a kickin' like a Jo Days bull. Pretty cool sight."

["Jo Days" is shorthand for the Chief Joseph Days Rodeo, a major Wallowa County summer attraction that many Joseph residents who live next to the arena look forward to because they get to leave town.] 

Next up is Mike Baird, Patrick's dad. Seen here in a picture after jumping from Sturgeon Rock on the Snake River in Hells Canyon . . . but it sure looks like he just got done fist-fighting a rapid or wrestling a sturgeon or something. Looks like he means bidness.

Mike was on a Hells Canyon float trip years ago when the folks in the boat in front of him began pointing up on the hillside.

Mike looks up and sees, "two nice bucks, running pell mell . . . " down the hillside.

What makes two big healthy deer shift gears into pell mell mode? Maybe the mountain lion chasing them, maybe they were just in the mood for a footrace. Hard to say.

Both deer got away.

These wildlife examples are out of the ordinary, but honestly even an uneventful day on the river is extraordinary.

"Red Rover, Red Rover, send the deer right over. . . ."

Check out what a typical day of whitewater rafting involves with Winding Waters and match that with a trip on the Snake, Salmon or Grande Ronde. Make sure to bring the camera for the sunsets, wildflowers, cougars chasing down deer . . . pretty shots of the beach, golden eagles swooping down on elk, or, you know, whatever.

Reward: Lost fishing net. Last seen bobbing down the Imnaha River a couple miles below Horse Crick.*

*some know it as Horse Creek*

*depending on where you're from

I’ve never claimed to be the most coordinated fella, but I used to think I could manage fundamental motor skills. Like wading in a stream. Sadly, this has been proven not to be the case, in a somewhat spectacular fashion.

 Pictured: Wading. Notice how everything above the knees is also above the water. 

That's what you're after. Jot that down.

Had another memorable Wallowa County steelhead trip to the Imnaha River with Dave Kesey the week before the closing bell . . . I should probably point something out here, as "Dave Kesey fishing" became rather a popular internet search following Mr. Kesey's letter in his local paper where he suggested new fishing regulations on the Owyhee River. 

The response to that was something to behold. It blew my hair back just reading the comments. Hoowee. So if you got here by searching for "Dave Kesey fishing" hoping to find evidence for the various wrong theories about Dave that materialized after that brouhaha, I'm sorry to disappoint. This is just a happy place on the internet where we talk about fun stuff like whitewater rafting and fishing on rivers around here – which are spectacular, by the way. The Snake River in Hells Canyon, the Lower Salmon, Wallowa, Grande Ronde and Imnaha. Beautiful. Ask Dave, he's been on most of these.

So anyhoo, Dave is not a fishing guide, nor is he a secret agent for Boise fly fishing clubs, or any of the other interesting tales put forward by people named Anonymous in the comments on that newspaper item.

What you need to know here is that Dave's just a nice guy that likes to fish. A lot. And he's quite good at it. He seems to be able to summon fish. He's a fish-catching machine. Fish after fish. It gets old pretty quick.

So he hooks another steelhead down there on the Imnaha – big surprise – and I go to help land the thing. Try. I go try to help land the thing.

Here's the stupid fish that threw me in the river. A 31-inch wild Imnaha River steelhead that fought like Bruce Lee and ran like Mary Decker Slaney in the '84 Olympics and stripped line like a . . . like a . . . thing that metaphorically strips a lot of line.

 I named this fish Zola Budd.

Dave hooks it. Plays it. Brings it in. Out it goes. Back in. Takes off again. This happens enough that we realize this fish has more octane than most. At that point I jogged up to the nearby truck to fetch the net. Then the trouble started.

I can walk, people. I've got some balance. Here's me playing "Gunslinger" on a sandy beach along the Salmon River. It's a fun game. Requires balance. Coordination. I do OK. I challenge you to a best two-out-of-three next time we're on a Winding Waters River Expeditions trip.

Here's further proof I can manage one foot in front of the other – an Instagram photo of me walking with my dog, Boo. Look at that poise, that balance.

I even placed fourth last year in the IronUncle 5k Toddler Relay Endurance Race, where you swim, run and bicycle while carrying a child who needs a nap. It's one of those fringe extreme sports.

The guy in the blue shirt is a referee. Also Anna's dad.

But Dave's fish takes him down to the head of a riffle and it's obvious we need to land the thing now before it gets in the fast water.

I've got the long handle net in my hand. It's black with red accents on the handle, if you happen to have found it and want to collect the reward. A nice net. Coincidentally, it was a gift from Dave and his brother Fargo on an earlier trip that involved my birthday.

"Get it!" says Dave.

In the act of lunging for the steelhead, in a blur of splashing water I jump into action, stumble, fall and throw the net in the river. Just like that. It was beautiful, except the reverse.

The worst part is, I look up and Dave is running after the net in knee-deep water – running – still keeping his rod tip up and playing the fish while charging through the Class I rapid I was supposed to keep us out of.

So I feel bad and shout that I'll get the net, he should play the fish.

But I take a couple steps and give up, whereas Dave had been gaining on it. Yeah.

I don't know. It was the most amazing display of badness I can recall in long while. Bad balance, bad motor skills, bad timing, judgment . . . just spectacularly bad.

Dave lands the fish after chasing it through a raging torrent. Or manageable knee-deep water, depending on your perspective. Here's another look at that magnificent stupid fish that tripped me.

After that debacle I decided to make up for things by leaving Dave stranded for an hour to go recover the net. Drove downstream and saw it bobbing above another small rapid. I got below, waded out where I was sure I'd fall again and waited for fifteen minutes but never saw the net again. It's either sunk on the bottom or floated out to the Columbia by now.

So if you found that thing let's talk ransom.

In other news: let's go rafting. It's far more enjoyable to float over rapids than walk through them so I'm jazzed that boating season is upon us. We've had some gorgeous weather out here in the Wallowas and I can hear my grass growing.

Pick your trip from the Winding Waters rafting vacations and we'll get down to business by wagering on games of Gunslinger. Let's say 25-cents per round. If my luck holds I should be able to pay the ransom or buy a new net after the summer.

See you on the river.

Time for another episode of Birdwatching Gearboat Chronicles-style, which is fun because I don't know anything about birds.

Take this one, for instance. When I first saw it swooping around over my yard I thought: hawk.

But crikey, I don't know. My bird-wise friends are always throwing around fancy words like "ferruginous" and "falcon" and blahty-blaah. I feel good about the hawk part, but what kind I dunno.

My second thought was: Go get your camera. Whatever this creature is, it's flying really low and looks cool.

As you can see in this next photo, he comes in to land on a treetop . . . w-a-a-a-i-i-t just a tic . . . is that . . . are those . . . ?

Oh my.

Ummm . . . I'm not for sure about this, but it appears I may have unwittingly photographed some hanky panky amongst the raptors. Or courtship. Ohhh boy. Who's embarrassed now? Me.

But in the interest of science I feel I must go forward with publishing these images, so shoo the children from the room because while I'm no good at IDing birds, I do have some facility with the art of reading beaks. Similar to lip reading but with less frowning and smiling. 

So I will now translate this exchange going on here.

Looking for mice . . . looking fo– What in the? . . .

Heya! Did you miss me?

Stan, I told you I need time to figure things out.

Belinda, have you done something new with your feathers? Highlights?

Stanley, you know I – what's over there, on your left? . . .

I don't . . . oh, sure, just fly away . . . re-a-a-a-l mature.

I'm going to my sisters nest. Don't call or text me.

Perfect.

I'll just watch sports or . . . are those mice?

They ironed things out enough to have a chat in the top of a dead Cottonwood tree later on. They're working things out. One day at a time. It's tough. But I have a feeling they're going to be just fine. A little birdy told me so.

Hey, look at me . . . I know you can see me. We have excellent eyesight.

[Update: I called Google and asked, and now suspect what we've got here are Swainson's hawks. Could be wrong. It wouldn't surprise me at all.]