The turning point for the third annual boys’ trip, down the Grande Ronde River in northeastern Oregon, comes at the take-out. The trip is over. We coast into the shadow of the highway bridge near Boggan’s Oasis, where we paid to have our vehicles shuttled. It is midday. Hot. No sign of anyone. No traffic. The end.
“I was just wondering,” Geoff from Boise interrupts the humming stillness, “does anyone absolutely have to be back home tomorrow?”
The question hangs there. Do we have to be back? Or, more accurately, are we really ready for the trip to end? That we have all been considering this becomes clear over the next few minutes, as a rising energy to push on for an extra day or two builds.
“Let’s see if there’s someone around who could get the cars to Heller Bar on the Snake,” Geoff from Bozeman suggests. “Even if there isn’t, we can run the shuttle ourselves.”
Our rigs are there, but Boggan’s Oasis could be a ghost town. Still in the first half of May, the floating/fishing season hasn’t picked up yet, which is a good thing until you need a shuttle driver. No matter, now that we’ve revved up enthusiasm, there is no going back.
Bozeman Geoff and Mark take off, grinding up switchbacks out of the massive canyon of the Grande Ronde and then beetling back down into the even greater chasm of the Snake. Boise Geoff and I return to the hot shade under the bridge, recline in the boats, browse our way through the snack food selection and finish off the dregs of a wine bag. We doze. About once every hour a car drives overhead. The school bus pulls up, lets off a scrum of kids who disappear into the heat.
In our wake, upstream, coil 65 miles of remote canyon and fresh current on the Grande Ronde and Wallowa Rivers, back to the put-in at Minam, Oregon. Also, the gathering spell the landscape has worked on us—from deep forest to open desert, a canyon punctuated with entertaining whitewater and really nice campsites, days seeing no one. And then there’s the company.
This Y chromosome tradition began with my friend, Scott, and me. At the start we had no idea it would turn into a yearly event. We just wanted to do a spring river trip and we took on the Little Missouri through the badlands of North Dakota. When next spring came around, we included Geoff from Boise and paddled the Owyhee. This year Scott fell prey to work conflicts, but there are four of us.
The selection of a river is very nearly random, dictated by tangential factors ranging from river gauge readouts from Utah to North Dakota, to where our kids’ soccer tournaments happen to land. In the end, it’s more scientific than throwing darts at a map, but not by much.
There are only a couple of guiding principles. First, the trip happens around Mother’s Day, which means that we end up gravitating to spring flows and arid climes. Second, what happens on the boys’ trip, stays on the boys’ trip, which makes writing this story a tad problematic.
The shuttle duo returns. Geoff and I rouse ourselves. We float on—an inflatable canoe, a small raft, and a ducky kayak—picking up the pulse of the river. More and more the river scribes through high desert. Chukar run in the boulders. Shade trees are scarce and precious. The valley completes the transition from conifer-clad slopes to rocky scree and scrub. When we stop to explore, we think about rattlesnakes.
Along the upper river lovely campsites keep presenting themselves around almost every bend. Lower down, most of the country is private property, sporting No Trespassing signs with Don’t Even Think About Camping Here subtitles.
Our final night, we find a small toe of public land that corresponds with a sandbar and a shady cottonwood. The political debate continues, the one that began the first night between Boise “Libertarian” Geoff, and Bozeman “Liberal” Geoff, aided by rounds of Jim Beam. There are stories bandied about that I’d be risking life and limb repeating, some of them mine. The fact that we are still on the water, under the stars, feeling the heat of the day expire like breath, is like playing hooky. No. It is playing hooky.
More to the point, Geoff’s impulsive suggestion, and the group’s readiness to grab hold, grant us another 25 miles of current, every one of which feels like a gift, and that culminates with a couple of emphatic rapids that are talismans to hang in the closets of our memories.
Later, back at Boggan’s Oasis, back in the heat of another somnolent afternoon, we practice our secret handshake. There are some final shenanigans involving disposal of the poop bags, which don’t bear repeating, and the unspoken promise of next year left in the air when we drive off in opposite directions.

Alan S. Kesselheim writes from Bozeman, Montana. He is the author of nine books and hundreds of magazine stories. His latest book, written with Susan Wicklund, is This Common Secret: My Journey as an Abortion Doctor. This year’s boy’s trip remains something of a secret as well.