Oxbow

Although only eight-thirty in the morning, the sun heats the pavement as swarms of flies hang over the road. There are clouds of them, down here by the river, that I ride through, careful not get one stuck in my eye. I took a wrong turn already and wasted precious strength climbing over a hill that led to a long road into Hell's Canyon, a beautiful place, but not where I am headed. I am on the right road now, the one that climbs first over the Oxbow Dam, then the Brownlee Dam, and finally up the long haul out of the Snake River Canyon that will lead to lunch in Cambridge, Idaho, many miles above.

 

The rivers here are bloodlines, oases, green fingers surrounded by high desert. The hills are so steep they defy any sense of angles of repose. Looking at them, I expect all of the high ground to come sliding down in a tawny massive mess, but they hold firm. Oxbow hosts river rafters, fishermen (and women), speed-boaters, and many others seeking recreation, mostly with some form of motor. 

Oxbow has been a lesson in accommodation. No longer can one just show up at a campground with hopes of registering for tent camping or overflow. Now, one has to reserve a space on-line, navigate the web, plan far in advance. The campground is run by the electric utility company that also runs the hydro-electric generators in the dams. It is all business.

Luckily, some other cyclists had done this and were willing to share the small tent site with extra vagabonds.

Here, space is tight, and the grass is coifed to a crew-cut, and watered daily. Most of the campground is filled with monster RVs, some with cars in tow. They have more stuff stacked up outside under shade and rain structures: refrigerators, TVs, crates of beer, folding chairs, and on and on.

I pitch my little tent right next to the road on a sliver of grass just big enough to hold my sleeping body. Then I share what food I have with some of the other cyclists, many of them "through-riders," riders who are going all the way across the country. They are tough, seasoned, wind-dried. I like them and their stories. Like me, they started touring in the 70s. Unlike me, they did not take a thirty-year hiatus. Unlike me, they likely don't have cramps at night, their quadriceps knotting into a skein from the long climbs of an eighty mile day.

I am the newbie now, the newbie again.

We drink some tequila and talk about the great rivers of the Northwest: the Snake, the Salmon, the biggest of them all,the one that swallows everything flowing west, the Columbia. All of them are our passageways, our meandering companions. And we leave them all at some point to move away from their westward flow.

So today, here, this morning I climb after following the great Snake, out of the depths, and onto the desert ridge, heading east.