Named for the Rivers

 Late yesterday afternoon, I acquired five spots for today, for spay neuter.

Coincidentally, Silverton Cat Rescue had been contacted by a Crabtree couple needing spay neuter assistance.   I still have five to catch at the Lebanon 35 cat colony and one to catch, at least, at the ditch colony, and now helping the Harrisburg vet student with cats she catches at a trailer park there.

But since the Lebanon colony caretaker is gone again today and the weekend, and the ditch colony has just the one to catch, so that will be a long wait for one type of adventure, I went on out to the new Crabtree colony and caught five cats in about an hour.

For records, at whs, I name the cats.  This time I named them after Oregon rivers.

Meet McKenzie.

Muted torti McKenzie

The McKenzie River is a tributary of the Willamette river.  It starts as outflow from Clear Lake.   Clear Lake is cold, very deep and very clear.  I love the campground, Cold Water Cove, at Clear Lake's south end and from there  you can hike the McKenzie river trail.  I've hiked a good share of it.  I love to walk the trail from Clear Lake to Sahalie and Koosah Falls.  

Here's a link with photos to the falls.

Farther down the river runs underground for three miles and comes out at Tamolitch Falls which empties into Tamolitch Pool, better known as Blue Pool.  Unfortunately, many folk have died jumpiing from rocks high down into Blue Pool, unaware how suddenly hitting that cold water will affect them.  

Article about deaths, accidents at Blue Pool. 

The south fork joins up with the north fork near Trail Bridge campground.   After my campsite at the far end of Cougar Reservoir was stolen by some Eugene aholes once, while I was off  hiking, I was given a free spot at Trail Bridge, right by the river, just before it joined the north fork.   I took my raft that trip and had a grand time out on Blue Lake Reservoir across the highway.

I love the McKenzie River!

Meet Santiam!

Santiam, a buff and white female up being fixed.  

Oregon's Santiam river is in my backyard.   I go to the park located along its banks, not far down from Foster Reservoir, that contains its south fork flow, then releases its waters to control flooding, to help fish and for irrigation.  We drink water from the Santiam here where I live before it joins the Willamette.

The Santiam has its north, middle and south forks too.  The south fork is the branch I most often encounter.  Both the middle and south forks come into Foster Reservoir.  I kayak up both rivers, although rapids bar me from going too far up the middle fork.  The north fork of the Santiam collects in Detroit Reservoir and travels in glorious beauty down past the towns of Mill City and Stayton and on to to become drinking water for Salem residents and join the Willamette River before it joins the mighty Columbia.   The Little North Fork of the Santiam River had many beautiful camping sites and swimming holes until those terrible fires of two summers back destroyed the area.  Five deaths occurred during the fires among residents of Little North Fork road.  Far far up that road was one of my favorite hiking areas---Opal Creek, lies along the Little North Fork of the Santiam.  So does one of my favorite campsites, which is just beyond Three Pools Swimming holes, and features, or did before it closed after being burned up in the fires, sites right along the Little north fork of the Santiam river.  

Check out Three Pools swimming holes, before the fires that destroyed it too.

I once floated the north fork of the Santiam, from the bridge outside Jefferson to the Jefferson boat ramp, with Julie from Brownsville.  About halfway through the float, you come to what's called The Y, where the south Santiam meets the North Santiam.  At this juncture, debris often collects during the winter and it can be hazardous there.  On this float, we were on innertubes and it was just strange.  Julie had brought lunch and I thought she'd mixed pot into something it got so wierd.  She swore she didn't, that it was something in the water.   We lost time and the trip seemed to take days.  It did take hours.  Just past the Y, we saw something very strange, bubbles shooting up from the middle of the river.   We could not manuever in innertubes to see what was causing this, so we yelled at a guy on a fishing pontoon raft that was highly manueverable to go check.  He came back over to us and had a quizzicle look on his face.  He said it was a diver down there, and appeared to be wearing a rebreather.   Rebreathers are rather rare and somewhat dangerous and do not produce bubbles but apparently he had some kind of a machine under there, like a vacuum the guy said.  My guess is he was illegally mining for gold and wanted to avoid detection, if that was the case.   We finally reached the Jefferson boat ramp, and drove back to the other car, at the bridge.  We were startled to see a huge home made sign, hand painted with red letting on plywood, had been put up that stated "Danger!  At the Y."  Yikes.  I never floated that stretch again.

Meet Metolius!

Metolius, a gray and white female getting spayed today

The Metolius river is a tributary of the Deschutes River.  It's headwaters are not far from Camp Sherman, near Sisters.  It then flows east and ends by emptying into Lake Billy Chinook.   The Metolius is known to anglers for its most excellent fly fishing.  

Metolius River, taken back about four years

Camp Sherman

I love the Metolius River.

I am less familiar with the Owyhee and Wallowa Rivers.

Meet Owyhee.

Owyhee, a young calico, up being fixed today

The Owyhee River is a tributary of the Snake River and originates in Nevada, flows through Idaho and joins the Snake River in SE Oregon, near Nyssa.

Meet Wallowa.

Wallowa is a male.  Gray and white.

The river begins at the confluence of its east and west forks, which rise in southern Wallowa County, in the Eagle Cap Wilderness of the Wallowa–Whitman National Forest.

The Wallowa Valley was home to Chief Joseph's band of the Nez Perce Tribe. Chief Joseph asked the first white settlers to leave when they arrived in 1871. The U.S. government expelled the tribe and seized their property and livestock in 1877 when non-Indian farmers and ranchers wanted to settle the fertile Wallowa valley.

The above two paragraphs are from Wikipedia.  Wallowa river and lake are way over in NE Oregon.  I've only been over there a couple of times in my life.

The river is a tributary of the wild and scenic Grand Ronde river and flows into Wallowa Lake.
 

I've only been to Wallowa Lake once but I want to go again.

Check out the beauty of Wallowa Lake!

Lets wish McKenzie, Metolius, Santiam, Owyhee and Wallowa luck today at the spay neuter clinic and thank our lucky stars for these beautiful rivers too, their namesakes.