The Cactus Mountain fire burned around 8,000 acres, last I heard, on the Oregon side of Hells Canyon just a week or so ago.

Here's the view from the Snake River, floating by just below Dug Bar.



Lines of reddish-pink fire retardant around scorchy black grass fire remnants . . . should be nice and greened-up next year.

Morgan, myself, Forest Service botanists Jerry, Gene, Sabina, plus volunteer Lindsey and swamper Joanne caught a great weather window for this Hells Canyon tour.

The botany mission was locate populations of....uh.....I want to say 'spartina.' Some grass with, well...it's special, somehow. And has some thingies on top.

To be honest, I just row the boat and let the science talk wash over me because these botany folk speak a different language and I don't comprende much.

Here's a photo of Jerry with said grass:

I do really dig these science floats down the river. We get to pull in to eddies and pockets we wouldn't normally stop at and see some new aspects of the canyon.

Speaking of aspects, here's one from the beach at Ragtown Bar, down from the Copper Creek Ranch.


That was about 40 feet from where I'd spread out my bedroll and I was banking on this not being a usual corridor of travel for Mr. Bear. No evening visits, so it worked out.

Good wildlife trip. I fumbled for my camera when we floated in on an otter who had just got a carp or sucker in his clutches, but wasn't quick enough on the draw and just ended up with this shot after he dove with his catch underwater.


But I did get a nice action photo at dawn of Morgan Jenkins heading for the kitchen to put the coffee on. He's awfully cheery for the moon still being out and no caffeine yet.

Hot enough to swim during the day and just right for t-shirts at dinner....mid-September treated us just right this time for conditions in Hells Canyon.

Now if the weather will just stay clear until I cut firewood for winter, the rain can open up and flush the steelhead up the river and everyone will be happy.

We here at Winding Waters strive for a perfect Leave No Trace camping record for each whitewater trip on the Snake River in Hells Canyon, Idaho's Lower Salmon and our Wallowa and Grande Ronde backyard rivers . . . every patch of water we row we want to leave pristine. Sadly, this summer our rafting season was marred by one error. Here it is, pictured below.


We picked this image up via satellite. After our crews sweep the camp and brush away footprints before pushing on down the river, Penny engages the uplink with our orbiting camera on Satellite XV411 back at headquarters and scans for anomalies. Rest assured, the person who left this trace has been relieved of duty. We run a tight ship.

Todd Kruger can be thanked for much of the ship-tightening. In the past he stayed closer to home, running the boathouse until he had things so organized on land there was no choice but to do more river trips so he could find more things to organize.

Here he is excavating for the new Winding Waters squirt gun bunker, where all Super Soakers are bored out and retrofitted to provide maximum flow during water fights.

His crew is a little on the young side, but Brady Brown is widely regarded as the finest Tonka operator in the Northwest.

The rafting season is winding down and some of the crew are back at school. Patrick and Dane are climbing the rungs of higher education. Mike Baird's back to teaching high school. Joseph is attending high school. And Linden is learning her ABCs.

For the rest of us, we gaze fondly at our college degrees and are thankful we don't need to sit in classrooms anymore or ever buy another three-ring binder. Except for Morgan. He's fond of Trapper Keepers and buys a new one every September.

This time of year, the crew that isn't in school reviews game tapes from the whitewater season much like a football coaching staff, drawing little circles and making comments. For instance, Paul, Morgan and myself spent two hours analyzing this next photo, trying to plot how we might have adjusted the entry angle of the raft to disperse water droplets in a more efficient spray pattern, splashing the passengers who desired to get splashed while leaving the one passenger dry who wished to stay that way.

So as Fall teeters and we look back on another sweet summer, we thank you for rafting with us and look forward. . . .


Wait, what am I saying . . . there's steelhead arriving already. If you haven't caught a steelhead on a flyrod you're missing a particularly strong trigger to the adrenaline delivery system.

Our fishing guide Tom Farnum turned me from a reluctant steelheader who doesn't care for being cold into someone who doesn't notice the chill because there just ain't nothing like catching a steelhead on a fly.

Give us a shout if you hanker for a first-class multi-day steelhead float down the beeeeutiful Wallowa and Grande Ronde, or a day trip to get you warmed up.

Okey-doke. Be seeing you.

Quick survey: What's the worst invention ever?

There's lots of great ideas out there that have changed the world for the better. Like nachos, duct tape, remote controls. But I'm looking for what makes your life worse while allegedly being utilitarian, helpful and good. Something that makes you curse.

My answer is: trailer lights. I'm convinced the patent for trailer lights is held by Satan. In the line for 'purpose' on the paperwork he wrote: to inflict misery. Well, good job Satan. Your little plan is working perfectly.

Here's a pretty picture of calm water and boats. The kind of happy place I "try to go to" while I'm "sweating my ears off," trying to "track down the problem" and seeing a trailer light that "won't work."

Here's another picture. It's of a blaster. Todd calls it a rocket ship. We use it to boil water and bring charcoal up to temperature. That bucket there is approximately what my brainpan undergoes while troubleshooting trailer lights, aka The Devil's Own Lamps.

It's also how hot it was in my yard while I was crawling around under the trailer, banging knuckles and also my noggin.

I've had two run-ins just this week. Borrowed two different trailers from friends and while I *thought* both sets of lights had issues, in classic trailer light trickery, it was a faulty ground on my truck all along.

Well played, Mephistopheles.

Did I mention the angry bees? Yes, bees. As I'm nearing my limit of patience, the yellow jackets got their signal from their commander, The Dark Prince, to erupt from the frame of the trailer, inches from my head, and commence swarming and trying to sting me.

For defense, I had only a bottle of WD-40 and my wits. I switched from the little red tube to fully automatic and sprayed frantically to keep the yellow jacket swarm at bay.

For the record, none of these trailers are Winding Waters-related. Happily, when you plug in the work trailers the lights magically work. I don't know if Paul maintains them with holy water or what, but the lights on the Winding Waters rigs actually work.

So I grinded and drilled and got out the rusty screws and tapped some new ones and tightened and half a day later was on the road. Just like that. Oh, and I aged four years in the process. Half a dozen more trailer light projects and I'll be eligible for Social Security.

I'm salvaging a 90-year old log cabin from Wallowa Lake that was going to be torn down. It's the kind of project you know will be far too much work but you do it anyway telling yourself it will be worth it and then you have to rewire some trailer lights and know you were wrong. But we'll see.

So. I leave you this week with a calming portrait of life on the river. Where I wished I was instead of under a trailer getting stung by bees.


The great thing about rafting is even when you tow a ducky behind your boat, no trailer lights are needed.