Travel

Whitewater Rafting

Penobscot River

Whitewater Rivers

Owyhee River

Whitewater Class -

Description - 

The headwaters of the Owyhee River are in Nevada.  After flowing through Idaho, it crosses the Owyhee uplands of southeastern Oregon, eventually flowing into the Snake River.  The river has cut deep canyons into the landscape which reveal a geologic history beginning nearly 14 million years ago. 

The river exposes strata of miocene, pliocene, and pliestocene eras.  The Owyhee offers breathtaking towering cliffs, above the river, picturesque multi-colored geological formations of basalt flows interspersed with sedimentary rock and fossil deposits. The Owyhee River is a tributary of the Snake River, approximately 200 miles (320 km) long, flowing through northern Nevada, southwestern Idaho and southeastern Oregon in the western United States.

It drains a remote area of the arid plateau region on the north edge of the Great Basin, rising in northeastern Nevada and flowing generally northward along the Oregon-Idaho border region to the Snake River. Its watershed is among the most sparsely populated areas of the contiguous United States, flowing through remote spectacular canyons in its lower course.