Pictures from outdoor exercise.

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  • alteredsteve175
    alteredsteve175 Posts: 2,716 Member
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    Our captain provided lots of information and stories. That is Guffey Butte - the cairn at the peak is at the far right. I have climbed this butte several times. Time to do it again! The new fact I learned is that the rock projection on the left is called Horse *kitten* Point. Good to know. :D

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    Just a couple shots of the river.


  • alteredsteve175
    alteredsteve175 Posts: 2,716 Member
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    The remains of a miner's cabin on the north bank of the river. Great use of local materials.
  • alteredsteve175
    alteredsteve175 Posts: 2,716 Member
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    Photos of that cabin interior. The beams probably were brought in by boat or overland, but there are no trees of that size in the vicinity of the cabin.
  • alteredsteve175
    alteredsteve175 Posts: 2,716 Member
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    Some interesting rock formations that I saw for the first time.

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    Captain Pat. Thank you for a great day in the outdoors, sir!

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    Jeremy caught a nice catfish. Not much fight for his size, though.

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    The view from the ground.
  • alteredsteve175
    alteredsteve175 Posts: 2,716 Member
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    Bringing up the rear.

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    Petroglyphs. They are carved into thousands of rocks throughout the lower Snake River valley.

  • alteredsteve175
    alteredsteve175 Posts: 2,716 Member
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  • alteredsteve175
    alteredsteve175 Posts: 2,716 Member
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    The life force is pretty strong in a mushroom that survives in this arid desert climate.
  • alteredsteve175
    alteredsteve175 Posts: 2,716 Member
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    Exquisite stone work in the walls of this old mission building. Walls are plumb and straight and have very small gaps, considering they were laid up random stone by random stone.
  • alteredsteve175
    alteredsteve175 Posts: 2,716 Member
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  • UncleMac
    UncleMac Posts: 12,814 Member
    Throwing some darts at the atlatl range at Celebration Park south of Melba. Takes some (lots of) practice. Respect for the natives who survived in that desert 13000 years ago.

    I've never heard of using an implement to throw "darts" which look larger than an arrow but smaller than a javelin... Very interesting!
  • UncleMac
    UncleMac Posts: 12,814 Member
    Exquisite stone work in the walls of this old mission building. Walls are plumb and straight and have very small gaps, considering they were laid up random stone by random stone.

    Remarkable how they managed to build with such precision... and it's stood the test of time...
  • Farback
    Farback Posts: 1,055 Member
    fantastic trips and photos
  • mtaratoot
    mtaratoot Posts: 12,945 Member
    UncleMac wrote: »
    Throwing some darts at the atlatl range at Celebration Park south of Melba. Takes some (lots of) practice. Respect for the natives who survived in that desert 13000 years ago.

    I've never heard of using an implement to throw "darts" which look larger than an arrow but smaller than a javelin... Very interesting!

    Not really darts -- they are more like spears. The atlatl was a great improvement in weaponry over a hand-thrown spear. It could be thrown accurately and with a lot of speed/energy. I remember learning about them in anthropology class as an undergrad... Oh my how that was almost another lifetime. Someone from BLM (or another agency) had some at an event I was staffing once, and I got to throw one. Also in another lifetime, but pretty neat. It's neat they had one out for folks to try.

    Glad someone got a smallmouth. I am having a hard time being back from that river trip, and it's been almost two weeks. I guess I need another one soon.
  • alteredsteve175
    alteredsteve175 Posts: 2,716 Member
    UncleMac wrote: »
    Throwing some darts at the atlatl range at Celebration Park south of Melba. Takes some (lots of) practice. Respect for the natives who survived in that desert 13000 years ago.

    I've never heard of using an implement to throw "darts" which look larger than an arrow but smaller than a javelin... Very interesting!

    Mac - they are really just long arrows. Long aluminum shafts - and carbon fiber for the latest and greatest. The tour guides refer to them as "darts", though. Regardless, would be a tough way to put food in the larder.

    They have held some competitions at this park in the past. The professionals are pretty amazing - they can put them all in the X ring at 30 yards.
  • alteredsteve175
    alteredsteve175 Posts: 2,716 Member
    mtaratoot wrote: »
    Glad someone got a smallmouth. I am having a hard time being back from that river trip, and it's been almost two weeks. I guess I need another one soon.

    Was pretty slow smallmouth fishing. The one in the photo was the only decent sized one. But that's fishing. Still had an awesome day with my companions.

    There's plenty good smallmouth fishing in your neighborhood. I have the Umpqua on my list for a future trip.

  • mtaratoot
    mtaratoot Posts: 12,945 Member
    I can literally walk my canoe (on a set of wheels) about a half mile (actually about 0.62 miles) to a ramp on the Willamette River, ferry across, and have TONS of fun hooking up with Smallies Larrys. This one was from May:

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    That little fishy bit hard on a tiny Hot Shot orange lure on my little rod with 4lb test line. Fun! For bass I generally have lots of fun with a Texas-rigged rubber worm -- snag, free and you have to pay attention. Super slippery barbless hooks so I don't even really have to net 'em unless I want to try to get a picture. I just release tension on the line and the spit out the hook and swim away. Not so much with that little Luhr-Jensen with three hooks -- need to get out the hemostats.

    When I get down to the Umpqua, it's usually the North Umpqua for the whitewater. It's a great Steelhead stretch -- fly angling only.

  • alteredsteve175
    alteredsteve175 Posts: 2,716 Member
    Tiny Hot Shots - I'll have to give that a try. I've used little Wiggle Warts at times. Agreed on the rubber worm - I usually start with something plastic on a jighead or a Texas rig.

    Nice fish. Is "Larry" a name for a big fish?
  • mtaratoot
    mtaratoot Posts: 12,945 Member
    edited July 2019
    Larry = Largemouth (Micropterus salmoides)
    Smallie = Smallmouth Bass (Micropterus dolomieu)

    I swear we must have some hybrids, too. Markings like a largemouth, but red eyes. We are more likely to find smallies in or near the main current and the largemouths in the still backwaters, but we find both species pretty much everywhere. The smallmouths seem to fight harder; the largemouths seem to get bigger.

    We also catch a lot of Pikeminnow. They give one big tug and then pretty much give up. Some people kill them because they eat salmon smolts in the Columbia, but they are native -- I put 'em back. Bass aren't native, and I put THEM back, too. There is no size or bag limit on bass in the area I live. That said, I know that if I fished every day and killed every bass I caught, I would not affect the population. I put them back and hope to see them again on another day. Fun stuff. They are top predators, and there is mercury in the water here (much of it naturally occurring from the Bohemia district and the Row River), so I don't eat them. I take all the barbs off any hooks that have them. Most of the time if I get a fish close to the canoe, I just let off the tension on the line and they spit out the hook. I don't even need to handle them or even net them. Often if I net them, they spit the hook out in the net.

    I use spinners, spoons, and jigs for trout (Rainbow and Cutthroat). I didn't buy a salmon/steelhead tag this year. I still hope to catch some Half-Pounders on the Rogue this fall. They are a unique life history of Steelhead that return to fresh water after one season in the ocean rather than two or three years. They weigh about two pounds, are fun to catch, are delicious, and in Oregon they count as trout. They are only found in a few rivers in southern Oregon and northern California.
  • mtaratoot
    mtaratoot Posts: 12,945 Member
    We had the day off for July 4. Yay! I should have taken Friday off, too, but I'm burning SO MUCH vacation this year, I don't feel like I can afford to take even one more.

    A couple neighbor friends and I did a short paddle trip before they hosted folks for the evening. We put in about ten miles upstream and took out a half mile from our house. We saw surprisingly few Bald Eagles. We did see plenty of Osprey, a zillion Cedar Waxwings, some mergansers, some young buck deer, lots of violet-green swallows, some robins, several turkey vultures, and quite a few other groups in boats. I was in an old whitewater canoe that I took the front float bag out of because it failed. My friends were in a sit-on-top kayak and a paddle board. One of them found a BUNCH of agates, one of which was really thin but hand sized; it was like a window with exquisite banding when you hold it up to the light.

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    I am grateful that this beautiful river runs right through our back yard, so to speak. It has recovered so much from the 1970s when it was subject to so much pollution. It's actually really nice even though some folks still speak poorly of it. They should get out and enjoy it.


    Later we enjoyed friends and food and libations, then wandered out to a field near our houses to get a reasonably decent view of fireworks but without dealing with the crowds, traffic, or smoke. Yeah!
  • mtaratoot
    mtaratoot Posts: 12,945 Member
    Did some work outside today.

    Blueberries are still rocking.
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    Raspberries, too.
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    And now the Marionberries are coming in.
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