Gofirstclass
Well-Known Member
Last Thursday GW and I decided to take the boat for a ride. It had been awhile since we’d been anywhere and even though it was a day when the skies were filled with smoke from the forest fires it was a nice day. We pulled out of the slip around 2:30 headed downstream to McNary Dam. It’s about 36 miles each way so we slow cruised down there, running about 10.2 kts. I took several pics and will add them in here because I know the rule: If there ain’t photos it didn’t happen! The quality of a couple of these isn't up to par because I took them with my phone. Sorry, next time I'll take the camera.
Here’s what it looked like as we entered what’s known locally as the Wallula Gap area of the river. You can see some of the smoke in the air but it’s not too bad here.
This is an area on the Oregon side of the river, right at the bend near Wallula. The two peaks sticking up are known as the “Two Sisters”.
Most of the rock formations along this stretch of the river are 600-700 feet high and much of the land on top is agricultural. Lots of irrigation circles to water the crops with the water taken right out of the Columbia.
As we got further downriver the smoke started to get heavier as we ran into the smoke from fires in Oregon.
We hadn’t been down that stretch of the river in a couple of years and we were surprised to see how many vineyards had been planted. It seemed every spot where the land got even close to flat, they put in some fines.
Since no trip report is complete without at least one wake shot, here’s one at 10 kts…
And one on the way home when we were running on plane, about 22kts.
It took us about 3.5 hours to get down there at hull speed and about 1.5 hours to get home running on plane. I won’t talk about the fuel consumption difference!
Here’s what it looked like as we entered what’s known locally as the Wallula Gap area of the river. You can see some of the smoke in the air but it’s not too bad here.
This is an area on the Oregon side of the river, right at the bend near Wallula. The two peaks sticking up are known as the “Two Sisters”.
Most of the rock formations along this stretch of the river are 600-700 feet high and much of the land on top is agricultural. Lots of irrigation circles to water the crops with the water taken right out of the Columbia.
As we got further downriver the smoke started to get heavier as we ran into the smoke from fires in Oregon.
We hadn’t been down that stretch of the river in a couple of years and we were surprised to see how many vineyards had been planted. It seemed every spot where the land got even close to flat, they put in some fines.
Since no trip report is complete without at least one wake shot, here’s one at 10 kts…
And one on the way home when we were running on plane, about 22kts.
It took us about 3.5 hours to get down there at hull speed and about 1.5 hours to get home running on plane. I won’t talk about the fuel consumption difference!
