I bought a new (to me) canoe at a garage sale the other day so I decided to go for a paddle before I drive the truck (with the canoe on top) to Portland tomorrow. Dusty and I put the canoe in at Spring Shores then paddled up the More’s Creek canyon. The canyon is flooded by Lucky Peak Reservoir. Above the reservoir, More’s Creek rushes down from Pilot Peak and More’s Creek Summit, through Idaho City until it hits the backed up water in the mouth of a beautiful canyon. The canyon is lined by volcanic cliffs which are home to several species of raptors as well as tons of other birds and rodents.

I paddled up about 5 miles or so until we found a cool side canyon. We turned up the side canyon and I let Dusty get out. We then hiked up to the top of the bluffs. As we neared the rim, a juvenile bald eagle jumped up out of the sage and flew across the creek to a big pine tree. We descended back down to the canoe (picking up about 5 gallons of trash along the way…yay Idaho!) then paddled back out. I spent about 10 minutes watching the eagle through my binoculars. He was just sitting in the tree waiting for lunch. I could see that the feathers on his head were just starting to turn white, which I think means he’s about 5 years old or so. He also had 2 or 3 white tail feathers that i could see.

It took about 45 minutes to paddle back to the truck. Along the way back, we saw a marmot, some Canadian Geese and a bunch of magpies. The canyon we hiked up was full of elk and deer tracks. I never saw them though. The probably go down at night to drink.

I wish I could have paddled up higher to where More’s Creek actually becomes a creek. But the sun was going down so it was time to head back. I watched the sun go down over the mountains just as I got the boat loaded back on the truck. Hopefully there’ll be a ton of cool places to paddle around Portland.

Dusty in the boat.

Cool columnar basalt.

Looking up the reservoir.

Looking down on the canoe and the tree where the eagle flew to.

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