Owyhee River Rafting

With its headwaters in Nevada, and after a big push through Idaho, the 280-mile Owyhee River – which eventually merges with Snake River in Oregon – has gathered enough steam to cut 1,000-foot amber and pearl canyons into the land around it, laying bare the geology of 14 million years of flow that includes the Miocene, Pliocene, and Pliestocene eras. Views from the river of cliffs that http://embarkadventures.com/wp-admin/post.php?action=edit&post=236tower overhead and basalt that mingles with fossil deposits will take your breath away.

Named in the early 1820s as an alternate spelling of Hawai’i, from which three trappers had come to explore the uncharted waters, Owyhee River played temporary host to gold diggers in 1863 but has very few living along any stretch of it now, in spite of its beauty rivaling the far more touristy Grand Canyon. As such, the stretch of the river in southeastern Oregon near the Idaho border is an untouched, rarely visited gem in the region’s semi-desert. Navigate Class III rapids while scoping out the region’s extreme biodiversity, from bobcats and mountain lions to antelope, bighorn sheep, and even wild horses. And steal rare glimpses of Badlands-like moonscape terrain, where sandstone spires jut out of rare rock and clay, their burnt golds and ambers a rare display of nature looking painted.