A River Runs Through It

We arrived at Metolius River Resort late Tuesday afternoon after stopping at the Ray’s grocery store in the town of Sisters to pick up fruit, yogurt, and other goodies so we could have breakfast “in.” We’re in Cabin #7, one of eleven craftsman-style units sit on the edge of a broad lawn that runs a hundred feet or so down to the river bank.

The next day we met Al who has helped managed the resort for the past fourteen years.  He told us that the resort’s architect had won an award for the design of the place and that although the floor plan (an upstairs loft above the kitchen and first floor bedroom and bathroom looks down on the combination dining/sitting room) for all of the cabins is identical each is individually owned and decorated according to that owner’s tastes.

After spending most of two days behind the wheel of our CR-V, we opted for a day of sloth on Wednesday, hanging around the cabin all morning before walking across the bridge to the Camp Sherman General Store on the other side of the river.  The store stocks some food, “camp” apparel like T-shirts and baseball caps, a reasonably good selection of wine and beer, and more varieties of flies than either the average trout or fisherman could encounter during a lifetime of fish or be fished.

We picked up a couple of deli sandwiches at the store and had lunch out on the deck of our cabin. Clouds came and went, keeping the temperature down to just over 70 degrees, and fooling Nighthawks into thinking it was nearly evening.  These insect-loving birds repeatedly swooped back and forth over the river, making tight turns like F-15 fighter jets.  At first we thought they might be falcons, but their flight behavior suggested that their prey were air-borne bugs, not small birds.

In mid-afternoon we hopped into the CR-V and drove eight miles downstream to the Wizard Falls Fish Hatchery.  There the slow moving Metolius gets squeezed into a frothy, aquamarine colored jet of water that shoots under a bridge before it begins to flatten out a bit on its way northward.

After checking out the sturgeon and trout in the long, narrow holding pens, we went in search of the river’s headwaters near the foot of Black Butte, a large volcanic cone that is the most prominent feature of the landscape near the resort.  The river just suddenly appears from a brush covered slope.  Al told us that millions of dollars have been spent in a futile effort to trace the path of the water through the underground aquifer to the spot where the Metolius springs from the earth.

At the end of the afternoon we took the twenty-minute drive back into Sisters to buy food for dinner and lunch for the remainder of our stay, then returned to the cabin for a quiet night “at home.”