The Tules, East Fork Owhyee River

Not the Tules, but 50 feet away
(Click for larger view)

The Tules.  East Fork, Owhyee River, Idaho

This spring I backpacked with friends into the East fork of the Owhyee River.  The destination is a landmark called the "Tules" (prounounced 'Toolies') and is part of a newly-designated wilderness area.

This is high-desert with sage, lava, a bit of grass, and if you are smart enough to hike in the early-spring, before the heat of the summer, wild flowers are everywhere.

The land is relatively flat, compared to our normal alpine hikes but don't let that fool you.  The terrain is challenging.  But there is no doubt the river is the star attraction.  It carves a curving path through the lands, leaving spectacular canyons and draws.

Wildlife was sparse, both on the upper-plains and in the valley.  Reportedly, deer, antelope, cougars, and coyotes can be found, but we saw none.  Nor were there any chipmunks, squirrels, or mice.

There is a small squadron of bats, an occasional skittish snake, small lizards here-and-there, and frogs. 

But it was the bird population that was remarkable.  Thousands of sociable (American Cliff Swallows), along with turkey vultures, raptors, herons, geese, owls, hummingbirds, and chukars.  The whole area was alive with birds. 

Hiking Directions:

On foot, hike to:  42.207600, -116.502900 (42 12'27.4"N  116 30'10.4"W)  See below for driving instructions.

There is no trail, but the direction is easy.  Travel ESE from the parked car.   With a full-pack, the transit from car-to-camp is only 4 miles, but the hike is tiring and it took four hours.

There is an almost a clear line-of-sight to the destination -- almost, but not quite.  A half-dozen gullies and small hills block your view and must be traversed.  Pick a landmark on the horizon and go towards it.  The canyon is not visible until you reach the rim. 

From the top, looking down, the valley is an oxbow channel, where the river carved its old course (the oxbow is nearly dried, swampy with spring run-off).  A tall monolithic island stands in the center.  The left-side of the island is impassible and uninhabitable with rock slides, brackish water, and cliffs. 

From the top, look to the right, along the canyon, and find a dirt and scree slope that drops you down the canyon walls.  It is a 400-foot non-technical descent that is steep but manageable.  Again, there is no trail.  When you reach the bottom, cross a shale scree, staying on the right (South) side of the valley.

(The view from the car to here looked remarkably similar)
Click for larger view

At the bottom, approach the island and look for the first tall stand of Aspen trees.  There should be dry-land near by.  Cross over to the island and continue circumnavigating counter-clockwise around the island, staying in sagebrush and shale.  There will be swampy water to your right, and tall cliffs to the left.  

Walk along the bottom, staying just above the brush and muck.  (We found this route on our second day and this beats the painful hour we spent bush-whacking the other side of the valley-floor when we first arrived.)

First approach to the Rim, facing ESE

As you reach the east end of the island, look for the change from Aspen back to sage.  At the last Aspen, cross over to the right, and return to the valley floor, weaving through tall sage.  Camp will be at the river, a few hundred yards ahead. 

The Tules - a finger of rocks near the water's edge
(Click for larger view)

The goal is "The Tules," a rock formation at the far-side of the island and is not visible from the rim.  The camp will be just below and to the left of the Tule's rock pinnacle.  This is the only good place to camp.

Non-polarized, facing North.  Note the sky color.

The campground is mostly used by rafters and rarely by backpackers.  It can hold a (dozen) people in 4 or 5 spots.  Travel further up or down the river is blocked. 

Sunrise, looking West
A hard time controlling the contrast.  Post editing was needed.

Along the entire 32-mile drive, the hike, and the camping, we saw nobody else -- save for one surprise visitor on our second day.  While taking an afternoon nap, a BLM Ranger popped out of the river on his two-man pontoon river boat and he was clearly happy to see us.  In-season, he said he floats the river 20-days out of the month.  We were the first backpackers he has met at this campsite and he has been doing this for 23 years.  He was clearly proud of us.

(He went on to talk about the wildlife we had not seen, and spent several minutes talking about the decline of the bighorn sheep in this area.  The sheep were essentially dying because of a lack of genetic diversity -- inbreeding -- the area being cut-off from other herds.)

Underexposed -1.00 stop, 400 ISO, non polarized

One final backpacking note:  If you arrive mid-to-late-May, river flows are high, and the water is dirty (I suspect the water is always brown, looking at how sinuous this river is).  Pumping and filtering water was a problem.  Our filters plugged and were unusable after two days.  Perhaps, if we were doing this again, we would have a basin to let the silt settle, and then pump from that?
 

Driving Instructions:
4WD  Parking Destination: 

42.230027, -116.539069  ( 42 12' 48.1"N  116 32'20.7"W )

Google maps can direct you to this destination.  Download a cached version of the region locally before leaving.

The drive is state highways, until the last 32 miles.  Expect about 1hr 30 minutes on unpaved roads.  The road gets progressively more primitive the further inland you go and it becomes tenuous the last couple of miles.  Not recommended when wet. 

Polarized, facing North. 
(I should brighten this photo a stop or two)

From Boise, Idaho, drive I84 to Mountain Home.   Take the first exit. 
Follow signs for Idaho Highway 51, Bruneau, Idaho.
Drive through Bruneau and arrive at the Duck Valley Indian Reservation.
(Shoshoni, Tokkapatih, Shoshone-Paiute Tribes)

Drive just across the Idaho-Nevada border and arrive at a gas station.
Zero your tip odometer at the Gas Station.  Buy some gas and an ice-cream bar.

Drive a (quarter-mile) south and turn right on Boney Lane. 
At 2.9 miles, on pavement, turn Right onto 9 BIA (Pleasant Valley)
At 6.1 miles, turn left onto 14-86 TIE/904 BIA (this becomes State Line Road)
At 10.1 miles, road swings West and is now called Pleasant Valley Road

The road meanders, gradually turning North West
At 16.8 miles, road name changes to Garat Xing Rd (continue Northerly, by NW with no major turns)

Lichen

At 26.3 miles, continue straight through (swing right at the signage showing "East Fork Owhyee River").  The road is now called the Owhyee River Wilderness Road.

At 26.8, pass Piute Creek Reservoir (on your right, may not be visible from the road); continue straight, traveling still NW  At 29.6, pass Kimball Basin Reservoir, with signage and visible on the map, and oddly, there is a large unmanned Natural Gas Pumping station near here with a tall microwave transmission tower.

At 31.3, note Petition Reservoir on your left, which is little more than a cow pond.
Turn Right (this part of the road is 4WD).

At 32.2 is a gate, blocking an older road, still visible on the map.  The gate forces a turn left.
Drive another 1/4 mile and park at the end of the road.  Expect to be lonely.
The canyon is straight ahead - but this is not your destination.

At the rim on the climb out, with backpacking buddies
-- proud members of the Geriatric Backpacking Association.
Wide-angle, cropped horizontally

Photography notes:

All photos taken with a Nikon Z5 and a 17-24 zoom -- almost always set to 17mm.  This was my first outing with the lens.  I expected most shots to be at 20mm, which was my first love, but I found myself always at 17.  The width was a blast.   

Because of my backpack's weight and space, this was the only lens I took, so all photos are expansive.  Look for wide-angle distortions in these photos -- you will be hard-pressed to find them.  The lens was near-perfect. 

In the old 35mm days, my fixed 20mm F4 was a pancake lens, barely two inches deep and had wild and creative distortions.  Compare the two lenses.

Admittedly, there were no trees, buildings, or other vertical lines to give-away the distortion.  Next week, I will be photographing a ghost town and we'll see how vertical lines behave.

Because of the wide-angle, all photos were taken at F8, using auto-exposure, with an occasional compensation of a half-stop here-and-there.   Photos taken NEF/RAW, then converted to JPG using Corel's Aftershot Pro.  Typical editing was needed for the conversion -- nothing fancy.  With that said, the group photo directly above clearly needs more work.

A polarizer was sometimes used when photographing to the North.  Polarizers are ineffective when facing directly East or West.  Additionally, they get weird with these wide-angles, showing as inconsistent color graduations and fall-off at the edges.  As you can tell, I am shy with a polarizer with these focal lengths.  More practice is needed.

The camera's color-correction Picture Control was set to "Standard", and I was not happy with some of the baby-blue skies.  No amount of editing can fix this.  Unclear how much of this was due to the setting, or my inexperience with the lens.  Next time I'll take comparisons using the "Auto", "Landscape" and "Vivid" settings.  Hopefully I can tame the sky color without resorting to a polarizer.  Your comments welcome. 

You may have noticed no bird pictures.  A 17mm photograph of a bird 20 feet away results in a bird the size of pin-prick.  I didn't take any flower pictures for no other reason than I didn't try.   And with this lens, portraits become caricatures. 

As much as I like HDR photography, none were made -- for one obvious reason:  Tripods are heavy and my pack and back said, "No."  I treated most of these photographs as snapshots because I have a hard-time taking serious pictures without a tripod and a grey-card.  But still, fun was had.

-end