Sweat dripped from my forehead to the dirt below. It was starting to pool at my feet as I sorted through dry bags, a combination of heat and anticipation. We were getting ready to run the Owyhee River, and the whole trip had a lot of uncertainty.

Though it’s a classic run, the Owyhee is generally only done in the spring runoff when river levels fluctuate between 1,500 and 10,000 cubic feet per second (cfs). As I looked out over the river, it was sitting at 175 cfs. I’d heard whispers that packrafting was hypothetically possible at such low levels, but there wasn’t much information to go off. People just don’t run it that low.

Pulling into the put-in, it looked like the river was flowing south, not north. With the lack of current, the afternoon winds were effectively blowing the river upstream. I felt my anxiety building as I slipped my dry bags into my packraft. We had almost 70 miles to cover and only five days to do it. It didn’t help that it was already 2:30 in the afternoon. I’d been hoping for an early start so we could make good mileage the first day. Instead, it was looking like making it even eight miles to the first camp would be challenging.

We inflated our boats and pushed out onto the water. The wind had died down and the river was just deep enough for a paddle blade. Well, I thought I’d wanted an adventure, and it sure seemed like I had found one.

We pieced our way down braided channels as the river weaved through agricultural fields. Each split presented more unknowns as we tried to guess which channel would be best. Sometimes we guessed right, other times we had to get out and pull our boats.

It was a completely different river environment. We could see the spines of large fish breaking out of the water in the shallows. Every so often, one would startle us as it splashed away from our boats.

The canyon felt more wild than during the spring flows when everyone rushed to the river. Deer dotted the shoreline. Great blue herons flew ahead of us, but I was struggling to stay present. After three hours we’d only covered six miles. As two otters poked their heads out of the water, I found myself calculating how early we’d have to get up the next day.

My shoulders ached, and I had already developed a blister on my thumb. I wasn’t used to this much paddling on river trips.

As we sat on the shore and ate dinner, I worried about the mileage ahead. We had over 60 miles of river remaining—and while there was plenty of wind, there didn’t appear to be any current. Normally, you could rely on the river to do most of the work, but so far, it had felt more like paddling uphill than downstream. We needed to cover roughly 20 miles a day, and I was already sore from the first eight.

On the second day, we started to feel the river changing. Scattered bits of current turned into small riffles. After about an hour of paddling, I could hear a rapid in the distance. A line of rocks jutted out of the river ahead. There was a small opening on the right, but we weren’t sure what lay in the rock garden below, only that it was bigger than anything we’d encountered so far.

We pulled to the side and got out of our boats to consider the puzzle in front of us: We would have to catch the eddy behind the first row of rocks and use it to traverse to the left side of the river. Then, we’d have to go over a drop and move back right. It was feasibly possible. Now, we just had to do it.

I hopped into my boat, cinched my thigh straps tight, splashed water on my face, and pushed off from shore. The roar of the water grew as I approached the rapid.

I lined up on the right and waited for the current to pull me into the first drop. I aimed left to catch the eddy but the current caught me. Quicker than anticipated, I was moving past the eddy towards the line of rocks. Instinct kicked in. I turned upstream, paddled hard, and caught the end of the eddy. Then, I ferried over to the left side of the river and looked at the next drop.

I’d need to hit it with momentum to miss rocks on the bottom left. I moved as far to the left side of the river as possible, nosed out into the current, and paddled towards the drop, my momentum carrying me past the rocks to safety.

I let out a big sigh. The trip was starting to feel possible. We had runnable rapids.

The current was almost continuous for the rest of the day. Though most of the rapids lined up with the map, their descriptions weren’t useful at our current flows. We had to scout each one to make sure that it wasn’t sending us into a sieve.

As the sun lowered on the horizon, the river split around an island. I could see whitewater up ahead. Once again, we pulled over to scout. On the left side, multiple drops lead to a flip rock right before a large pourover. It looked possible, but I found myself hoping there was an easier path on the other side of the island.

We pushed our way through tall grass to find serene water with barely a ripple at the top of the channel. The river had to shed gradient somewhere, so we worked our way downstream to the end of the channel, where the river dropped into a pile of rocks. It was a no-go—we’d have to run the other side.

We walked back to our boats to figure out the line. First, we’d need to move towards the middle, then paddle hard right over a series of drops to get safely past the pourover.

I felt myself shaking with adrenaline as I entered my boat. The line was clear, but it wasn’t going to be easy. I topped off my boat with air, cinched my helmet tight, and took a few deep breaths.

First, a boof stroke to clear the first drop. I paddled forward as I moved into the middle of the channel, keeping an eye on the pourover ahead and the flip rock lined up to my left. As I hit the final drop before the pourover, my momentum stopped abruptly, my packraft absorbing the impact.

The drop had created a slight hole. A couple of backstrokes moved me right as the current pulled me forward. As I approached the edge, I noticed a tongue of water on the right. I aimed toward it, pulled onto it right before the drop, and it carried me around the pourover. Success!

The wind picked up as we paddled towards camp. We were back in flatwater, and I was fighting to gain ground with all my strength.

We had been using the day as a test to see if it was possible to average 20-mile days. Though we’d had more current than the day before, we weren’t there yet. Scouting took a lot of time, and we’d been on the move for almost 10 hours. At mile 18, I saw a camp on the left. That would to have to be enough.

We got up early and were on the water as the morning sun lit the chalkstone spires of Pruitt’s Castle. Another big day lay ahead of us.

The rapids continued from the day before, and we settled into our crafts. Packrafts were the perfect boat for this kind of low-water trip. We could slide over shallow rocks without tipping, easily hop out if we got stuck, and we were low enough to get the cooling relief of each new wave.

As we paddled on, the walls of volcanic tuff narrowed. Light streaked down illuminating caves hundreds of feet above. We couldn’t see the top, over 1,300 ft above. I knew we had a lot of ground to cover, but I didn’t care. We took our time through the canyon, venturing into caves beneath boulders and enjoying the reprieve from hours of constant paddling as we took it all in.

When we finally exited the canyon and paddled to camp, I felt relieved to have made it through the major rapids, but the trip wasn’t over yet.

For our last day, we had flatwater. A lot of flatwater. Below Birch Creek, the Owyhee River slows until it ends in the Owyhee Reservoir. Our take-out was eight miles into the reservoir. In the spring flow, you can rely on a slight current almost all the way to the take-out, but soon after leaving camp, we ran out of current.

The river had transformed from cliffs and canyons to agricultural fields. As I tried to maintain a consistent cadence, I couldn’t help but notice the difference. This wasn’t the untouched wilderness we were paddling through before. Wire fences dotted the shoreline, and cow patties bobbed in the water.

By noon we had covered 12 miles. But, in the last couple of hours our pace had slowed. I was hitting a wall. My arms were burning, my lower back tight. I couldn’t find a comfortable position. It was hard to imagine another few hours of paddling.

My mind was racing with everything that was going wrong. Blisters covered my hands. Sunburn covered my face and legs. We were in a wide, open reservoir and I didn’t think I could paddle against the wind—especially if it grew stronger as it often did in the afternoons.

It was then that I realized I was exactly where I wanted to be. On any other day sitting at my desk, I’d have wished to be out on the water. I’d wish that my muscles were sore from a day of paddling. I’d wish that I had exciting challenges to face.

I took a breath and started to notice all that was around me. It was an open desert landscape. I could see for miles. There were buttes in the distance below a deep blue sky. I accepted that I wasn’t going to be paddling as fast as I was at the start of the day, but I could keep paddling.

With the new mindset, everything got easier. A half-hour later, we approached the final bend in the reservoir for the day. In just two miles, we’d be at camp. I stuck with my new rhythm and peered around the corner.

There were whitecaps. The wind was whipping over the water. But in an unexpected boon, the waves were falling away from us, the winds blowing down the reservoir.

As I rounded the corner, I could feel the wind push me forward. I summited the crest of a wave and rode down it. I couldn’t help but smile as I surfed the rest of the way to camp.

The trip had been everything I’d hoped for. There had been hard moments, but the low water had turned a standard trip into an incredible adventure. We’d gone 70 river miles without seeing anyone, and we never knew what was hiding around the next turn. As I pulled my boat onto shore, I was already plotting where to go next.

***

Guest contributor Ben Kitching is an adventure photographer, climber, skier, whitewater enthusiast, and outdoor athlete. Says Ben, “Adventures and expeditions evoke feelings of resilience, joy, heartbreak, and freedom. I capture those authentic moments and craft stories that inspire people to get outside and strive for the best of their own capabilities.” Learn more at BenKitchingPhotography.com.