Trip Report: Summer Bumping down the Grande Ronde

By Ted Housen, Mike Duncan, Alex McNeily, Paul Norman

Most local paddlers know what a gem the Grande Ronde River is. The 40 miles from Minam to Powwatka run through a lovely deep forested and roadless canyon with abundant great campsites, continuous current, and lots of playful rapids up to 2+. Nitpickers will point out that the first 10 miles are on the Wallowa River and they are right. There are no regulations on usage so all that goodness means big crowds in the peak season of May, June, July but trailing off to virtually no usage once it drops to summer low flow.

So why a trip report on such well-known run? Unlike many popular rivers that dry up in the summer, the Grande Ronde is runnable for suitable small craft all summer long. It typically drops to around 500-600cfs on the Troy gauge in August and stays there until fall rains start. River usage declines when the gauge hits 1500 cfs and the low end for most rafters is around 1000 cfs.

Suffice it to say that when four of us launched on August 15 at 500 cfs we had this gem of a river all to ourselves. See the picture (below) of the empty launch area at Minam which in July would be swarming.

Empty parking area at Minam

We were in a tandem canoe, solo canoe, and IK. These were good craft for this water level since they are pretty shallow-draft. Regular hardshell kayaks loaded with gear might be more troublesome in the shallows. We saw no one else in 40 miles over 3 days (well, one guide taking a raft down to Rondowa). None of the usual daily scramble for campsites -- we had our pick. Warm water so no drysuits or wetsuits. No bugs. Loveliness around every bend. We spent two nights on the river. Three would have made it more chill.

We saw the occasional bald Eagle, one golden, and two groups of mountain goats (we think), each with youngsters. It is common to inadvertently chase mergansers down the river but the numbers this time were exceptional – we counted 150 in one group.

Of course the price of admission to all this was dealing with a lot of bumping and scraping due to the low water. The first 10 miles were the worst in that respect. There was much pushing with paddles over shallows in those miles. Also a handful of times where we had to get out and drag for a few feet. The second day, below the confluence of the Wallowa and Grande Ronde at Rondowa was far better with only a few scrapes and bumps. The third day was sort of intermediate, bumpiness-wise. Even with all the shallow water we averaged 3 to 4 miles per hour with pretty constant gentle paddling effort. We spent a total of 11 hours on the river in three days to cover the 40 miles.

Sunny days floating a quiet Grande Ronde river

Fortunately rocks on the riverbed are not exceptionally sharp so boat damage happened but was not terrible. That said, this is no run for fiberglass boats – not possible to ‘baby’ your boat all the way down. We have done this trip in canoes at 800 cfs with little rock-bumping so it seems clear that even just another one or two hundred cfs would make a big difference.

The most important skills needed to make this particular trip fun are the ability to recognize the threads of deeper water when the river shallows- out, which is not always easy. Also the ability to maintain tight boat control to avoid rocks once you find those threads.

There are still rapids to create some interest, but nothing more than Class 2+. At this flow the most excitement was at a relatively steep and rocky drop less than a half-mile below Blind Falls (called The Chute in some guidebooks). The rapid just above the Mile 74 marker in the 2017 BLM Guide also deserves respect at flows a little above ours.

Alex and Ted run Blind Falls

The big fire in 2021 scorched much of the river and camps from below Bear Creek at mile 66 down to mile 57. The first 25 miles are not much affected by fire and within the burn zone the very nice large camps at mile 66, mile 59.5 and mile 57.5 are not much affected. (River miles are from the BLM Guides of 2012 and 2017.)

The Minam Store no longer runs shuttles. We used Joining Waters out of Elgin.

For paddlers who love getting out on a beautiful wild river in the summer and are not overly addicted to adrenaline, the Grande Ronde in summer is one of the great blessings of living in the PNW. Below 800 cfs you will probably have it to yourself. Check it out.