Untamed River

I drove out of the Portland area, headed for a stretch of water in the spare reaches of northeastern Oregon. Lights on my dashboard flashed “2 tires low pressure” then “2 tires high pressure.” I weighed the risks of a possible blown tire after dark and decided to push on to Pine Valley Lodge at the foot of Hells Canyon in Halfway. In the morning, I was to meet rafting guide and outfitter John Ecklund with his crew from Hells Canyon Whitewater Outfitters. Our trip would cover about 35 miles in two days, down the Snake River, carved deeply into the solitude of Hells Canyon. The photos I’d seen of the canyon struck in me a sense of awe, adventure and anxiety. It is North America’s deepest river gorge and plunges 4,000 to 8,000 feet. No bridges cross it, so no vehicles cross it, with the notable exception of Evel Knievel’s 1974 rocket jump across the mouth.

I called Ecklund a week before the trip to dispose of the anxiety and reinforce the adventure. Bring a change of clothes and a sleeping bag—his team would do the rest. I’d been on floats before, but nothing of this length, nothing more than a day-long. There would be a couple of Class IV rapids (VI is the highest) on the first day and then the water would flatten on the second day. His voice was steady, intelligent, jovial and reassuring. He had run the Snake so many times over the past five years that he was a captain at ease in his boat.

Formerly in the oil business, Ecklund has traveled more than most people and has become a two-continent snowbird. He spends the summer in Eastern Oregon, guiding trips, rafting, fishing and telling travel stories at fireside. When the snow falls on the peaks of Oregon’s Blue Mountains, he goes south to the emerging summer in Argentina. He has vineyards in the Mendoza wine region west of Buenos Aires, and leads fishing and hunting trips or gourmet tours.

He is passionate about his Oregon and Argentine homes.

“I was just tired of living in bizarre parts of the world,” Ecklund said of leaving the petroleum business behind. His family left California for Pendleton after the 1965 Watts riots in Los Angeles. “We had to be close to the state hospital,” he said. “My mother was the only occupational therapist in the state at that time.”

Ecklund holds in balance a very romantic view of the world and a shrewd business side.

“I was fascinated by Argentina… and fell in love with the food and wine and culture,” he said. “In 2001, when the peso tanked, there were opportunities.”

Driving in darkness into Halfway is a sin of omission. Gone are the sweeping green valleys; gone are the old farms on hillsides and the quaint buildings along Main Street. That sin is repeated if you leave Halfway’s Pine Valley Lodge after only a night’s stay. The old wooden ranch has big leather couches and hammocks on its porches. Morning comes too soon when you’re under an eiderdown duvet in one of the lodge’s big beds. But I had a river to run. A rooster in a field across the street reminded me again and again that it was time to go.

Twenty-some miles up the Snake River at Oxbow Dam, I met Ecklund; his daughter, Mattie; his guides, Kai and Sam. They had already done hours of preparation: loading a truck and trailer full of gear, planning the menus, packing extra items for contingencies, driving in from La Grande and unloading at the put-in.

“You can tell who really wants to be a guide,” he says, referring to the workload, “and who won’t come back the next year.” This crew, though young, had many years of experience between them.

Ecklund’s cheerful greeting was a pleasant contrast to the darkening clouds overhead. Mattie shuttles bags to the rafts while Sam and Kai tell us how to negotiate the rapids if we should go overboard. Kai later confided that only one nameless, very seasoned veteran had ever flipped a raft. It was more embarrassment than danger, he added. Rain spattered a bit and then the sun broke as we shoved off down the belly of the Snake. The sun slid down the western bank over the brown rock and along the green meadow grasses. The river’s dark blue riffles ran ahead of us on our two-day journey.

The area’s wildlife includes bighorn sheep, mountain goats, black bears, elk and rattlesnakes. I searched the canyon walls and rims, hoping for a water-buffered encounter. A young fan of Marlin Perkins’ “Wild Kingdom” program, I imagined a live screening of it this morning. In two days, I saw only one bighorn sheep standing so motionless atop a high canyon wall that I easily mistook it for a rock outcropping. The outcropping moved its head to watch us pass.

Nevertheless, the architectural detail of the terrain itself could sustain the hungry mind for hours on the float. The rocks range from coarse tropical limestone from Southeast Asia relocated by the sliding plates in the earth’s crust, to rounded lava rock, smoothed by thousands of years of water massage. My eyes turned black and brown with the lava rock, opened green to the high meadows and golden beneath the squint of the sun. The first Class IV rapids were upon us before lunch. The first waves are always the most feared, the most exhilarating and the most rewarding.

My eyes turned from the green mountain meadows high along the Idaho rim to the angry section of water below. We hit the rapids head on and spun only slightly. The first wave crashed over the side of the raft. Kai expertly spun the nose back into the waves and picked his way through.

A short time later, we pulled out for lunch on a small strip of beach as rain clouds hung over. Ecklund led us up a trail to rocks where Indians had drawn pictographs before the white man came in search of gold. Some of the drawings had remained intact for centuries but there was no single explanation of the substance used as ink.

He had also talked with tribal elders about the meanings of the drawings and there was little consensus. One theory that fascinated Ecklund was that the original Indian artists used it as therapy to soothe psychological problems.

Above those rocks, in a mountain meadow, sat a dilapidated two-room homestead built in 1905 by the McGaffee family. A family of eight, they farmed the mountainside surrounded by an amphitheater of rock above the Snake. The river was their only feasible artery in and out. The inside walls are covered with pages of The Saturday Evening Post to block the wind. The McGaffees’ dates on their makeshift wallpaper dated their tenure in the canyon. Primitive farm equipment once manufactured in Chicago was overrun with wildflowers and weeds.

Ecklund snapped off small bulbs from one plant and handed us each one. “Tomatillos,” he said. “Have you ever had any?” They are little tomatoes with a trace of bitterness from not quite being ripe.

When we got back, Mattie, Kai and Sam had set up a large rain-fly for protection overhead and a table full of food underneath. Grilled chicken in tortillas with homemade salsa fresca and jalapeno chips.

Rain poured briefly, then the sun again overcame it and we pushed off for the second big rapids downriver.

I scanned the canyon’s small trails and its green draws for signs of wildlife but nothing yet. Even so, you grow tired neither of the natural beauty nor of the conversation.

Kai, a student in the honors program at University of Oregon, aspiring musician and first-rate schemer, told us about how he convinced pub owners in Australia he was a famous country and western musician from America. His empty wallet was soon full again, mate.

The second big rapids came. We spun going through and we came out the other side a little wetter and a little better for the experience.

At 4:30, we took out for the night on a sandy shelf where the river forms a C. We pitched tents while the crew again set up for food production. The Latino influence came this time in a plastic cup. Mattie served mojitos—a drink with rum, sugar, lime juice and fresh mint.

We sat in a circle and let our conversation explore South America, Cuba, politics and then food. Sam was already heating a Dutch oven on a bed of coals. Kai pushed food around a skillet on the propane stove. Mattie prepared a salad with homemade dressing and set the table. Kai added a mixture of vegetables and chicken to the Dutch oven and Ecklund padded it with flour tortillas, hot sauce and onions. Sam cooked cornbread over the coals.

When it all came together, Ecklund announced “enchilada pie.” We ate much and talked little. The sabor, spice, of the meal warmed our hearts and minds.

Tonight we had the best table in Oregon.

Some clouds invaded the darkness and we could see only the Big Dipper as we turned in for the night. But the clouds fled east and by 4 a.m., a million stars poked pinholes of light through the sky’s black cloak.

The Snake River ran gently past my tent, through rocks and on north to the Columbia. I closed my eyes to its soft whisper.