Canoe + Camp on the Willamette River
If you’re the least bit outdoorsy, put a canoe + camp trip on the Willamette on your bucket list.
Our two day Canoe + Camp on the Willamette remains one of the coolest experiences we’ve had doing either.
Our itinerary:
The night before:
We flew into Portland, OR, rented a car, and stayed overnight at the AC Hotel in downtown Portland. AC Hotels (by Marriott) are some of my favorite. They’re decorated in the style of a European hotel - very modern, clean, efficient, and comfortable. I travel to Orange County, CA once/month for work and always stay in the AC Hotel in Irvine. This hotel actually has a nice selection of food/snacks (thankfully, as we arrived quite late at night) so we just ate at the bar, had a glass of wine and went to up to our room.
Day One:
We woke up early, piled into the car, and set off to meet our friends in Corvalis, OR. We quickly discovered we came grossly under-prepared for this trip. We relied on our friend to bring us a tent, sleeping bag, and…well…every other single thing you would need to camp. So, in this instance I’m going to ask you all to do the total opposite of what we did.
Along our canoe adventure down the Willamette, we had no shortage of spectacular scenery to take in. A raft of ducks, a gaggle of geese, a few schools of fish, a beaver, a river otter, an Osprey, a convocation of eagles, and a siege of herons were our rowing companions.
Can you tell I like collective nouns?
After about 6 hours of rowing (although it felt like 5 minutes), we realized it was getting dark. We found a relatively flat, dry beach to set up camp and spent the night among the stars.
Be sure to pack:
Handy wipes (for hands and butts)
Toilet paper (a lot of it)
Your favorite array of spirits
We brought wine and beer and kept them cold in the river
Bug spray (a bunch of it)
Sunscreen
Plenty of snacks and things to cook over an open fire
More bug spray
Day Two:
We woke up early the next morning and got back on the River. We canoed for 5 more hours stopping only to use the “restroom” or eat lunch. We ended our journey in Independence, OR and went, dirty as we were, to a local pub for a few beers, a visit to a real washroom, and eat some much needed fried food.
That night, we went back to the AC Hotel in Portland where I took a two hour shower, drank a bottle of wine, and fell asleep between the softest sheets I had felt in recent memory. As someone who is less into roughing it than the average Coloradan, I strongly suggest book-ending any camping trip with a stay in a nice hotel.