Whitewater Packraft - Deschutes River (Lower): Warm Springs to Columbia River

The first day was 24 miles, from Warm Springs to the Davidson Flat camp. The first ten miles were quite flat, so we had to paddle a lot, but they were scenic. Tons and tons of people fishing. Below the Trout Creek rapids, there were lots of houses on the bank and it was difficult to find a place to lunch that wasn't on private property. We scouted the class III+ Whitehorse rapid, and it was as long as promised. It was very difficult to recognize scouted markers once we were back in the boats, and many of us took different lines than planned, but everybody paddled well and stayed in their boat for a fun and exciting rapid. We did have one uneventful swim on a class II elsewhere. Davidson Flat was an excellent sandy beach camp, and we played bocce before dinner. 

The second day was 19 miles, from Davidson Flat to the Wapinitia Campground, which was a small but also excellent campground (only 5 spots but we tucked in close together). We had a swim on the last section of the very long Four Chutes rapid, which was a class II that felt a lot harder than the class III Buckskin Mary rapid right before it. More bocce and we walked down to scout the Wapinitia rapid before bed.

The third day was just over 9 miles to the Sandy Beach takeout, with lots of rapids on deck. Besides the class IIIs and the class IV Oak Springs, there were many unnamed IIs and II-s - tons of fun to be had. We had a swim on Wapinitia to start the day, and we scouted Boxcar before running it, which went smoothly. Oak Springs at class IV was the crux rapid of the trip, near the end. We scouted it (the spot to pull over sort of snuck up on us) and one paddler chose to portage. The rapid was long and the line to enter it was pretty precise to go between a hole and an island with a downed tree coming off it into the water. There were many shallow and exposed rocks below, so it would be a high consequence swim. We paddled the most conservative line, hugging the left side of the right channel, and it went well. A few more fun class IIs and we were done! The shuttle was a long drive - in hindsight, we probably should have paid for a shuttle service (Jeannie you were right!) and we all got home later than I expected. 

A great trip with fun all around and the chance to push ourselves on some more difficult rapids. It's really cool that the Deschutes runs at such a good flow this time of year, and the permits and campgrounds are relatively open and accessible. There are enough people, roads, and buildings that it doesn't feel super wilderness-y, and the first day had an awful lot of flatwater, but the rapids are great, there are tons of birds, and there are still some cool basalt cliffs to look at. We had a strong and experienced group who had done a bunch of trips together and made everything go well. I'm sure we'll be back to the Deschutes!