The plane climbs steadily into the sky, and far below, the fields and pastures of Eastern Oregon scroll by in a languid, green procession. Soon grasses give way to forests and hills. Great granite peaks loom on the horizon.
This is day one, hour one, of a four-day trip I’ve signed up to do with Go Wild: American Adventures, a La Grande-based outfitter that specializes in showing outdoor lovers of all abilities the wonders and natural beauty of Eastern Oregon. The company — founded by a friendly, supremely knowledgeable local, Dan Sizer — offers dreamy, guided trips that pair five-star service and cuisine with backpacking and hiking in places like the Wallowas and the Blue Mountains.
“These are not your typical wilderness trips,” Sizer told me earlier. “If we can help people have a great time outside, I firmly believe they’ll come away with a deeper appreciation for these places and will see the value in protecting them.”
Even so, this Go Wild adventure is particularly special. We’re flying to the Minam River Lodge, a gorgeous collection of luxurious cabins only accessible by air, hiking or horseback. That’s where the adventure will begin.
Somewhere tucked in the belly of this tiny plane sits a small armada of rugged, inflatable kayaks called packrafts that are light enough and small enough to carry in a backpack. Packrafters typically spend days backpacking through remote areas to reach a river, where they’ll inflate the boats and ride the currents out. Instead of hiking in, we’re flying. From there we’ll paddle the packrafts about 20 miles to the Minam’s confluence with the Wallowa River near Minam State Recreation Area, camping along the way. Horses will carry our gear from site to site, leaving us blissfully nimble by day but with no shortage of cocktails, steaks, chairs and cushy camp gear come evening. Go Wild is the only outfitter to offer this one-of-a-kind trip — flying in, paddling out and camping in style — and we’re one of the first groups to sign up.
Learn How to Packraft in the Eagle Cap Wilderness
The plane touches down and I settle into my room — a spacious, hand-built log cabin — then spend the morning wandering around the property’s 123 acres that sit entirely surrounded by the 361,000-acre Eagle Cap Wilderness. There’s a wood-fired hot tub and a wood-fired sauna.
Paddling a packraft is a pretty straightforward affair with a very low center of gravity. One person in our group has never been in a kayak before. That afternoon Sizer and his guides — Cori Callahan, Gus Hansen and Dan “Carlos” Valenzia — want us to practice maneuvering the boats and learning what to do should we capsize. Since the Minam is quite cold, we wear drysuits on loan from Sizer.
One by one, Callahan shows us how to paddle the boats across the current without getting swept downstream, a move called ferrying. We practice tucking the boats into eddies formed by rocks in the river for rest breaks. Eventually, Callahan makes us fall out of our boats on purpose so we know what to do if it happens for real.
One of Oregon’s Most Ecologically Rich Rivers
The next day we’re up early and hand over our luggage to a horse-packer, who will carry our gear on horseback down a trail that runs along the Minam to tonight’s camp, Sheep Ridge, set in a grassy area about 9 miles from the lodge. Sizer has some tough news: The guides have found a dangerous log jam about 2 miles downstream. The swift currents also afford almost no opportunity to rest. We opt to hike to camp instead.
This is no compromise. We stroll among the giant ponderosas and stop for charcuterie. Sizer shows us where the Nez Perce people harvested sap. The tribe has lived and foraged in this area since at least 1400 AD, and it is from their language that the Minam River gets its name, indicating a valley where a particular flower grows.
The river’s natural salve for a working soul is clear. The Minam flows for about 51 sublime miles from a 7,703-foot-high alpine water source, Blue Lake, in the Eagle Cap Wilderness. It rushes over waterfalls, through an ancient glacier-carved valley, and past towering stands of Douglas fir and vanilla-scented ponderosas. About 33 miles northeast of La Grande, the Minam appears before its first stretch of pavement, Highway 82, where it flows into the Wallowa River, which empties into the Grande Ronde River, which flows into the Snake River, and eventually into the Columbia and the Pacific. Forty-one of the Minam’s uppermost river miles are so pristine and special that they carry national distinction as a Wild and Scenic river – of which Oregon has nearly 70, the most in the United States.
Unsurprisingly, the Minam holds enormous environmental significance. Vast herds of elk and mule deer roam the watershed. Black bears brave its currents while coho salmon lay eggs on the river bottom. It’s fun to imagine that the Wallowa’s lone wolverine, an aging male named Stormy, has slaked his thirst with its waters.
Recently state officials, working with conservationists and a sustainable-timber group, added more than 15,000 acres surrounding the Minam River to a protected area that, when combined with the Eagle Cap Wilderness and the nearby Minam State Recreation Area, creates a block of public land larger than Yellowstone National Park. The public has access to pretty much every inch of it, too.
A Unique Oregon Wilderness Trip
We reach Sheep Ridge camp in the late afternoon, where the guides whip up a fresh batch of Peruvian ceviche and prepare a meal of slow-cooked carnitas. We sip mountain-mint mojitos and kick back in hammocks. For dessert Sizer surprises us with bananas foster à la mode around a campfire set in a portable fire pit that will leave no trace. I have been backpacking most of my adult life, and never have I had such luxuries.
The next morning, after a breakfast of Colombian-style arepas, Callahan helps me inflate my “Alpacka” using a battery-operated pump small enough to fit in her pocket. Within seconds the boat takes shape, complete with a cockpit that can seal around a spray skirt I’m wearing to keep water out. Soon we’re bouncing through easy rapids, the boat bobbing along like an oversize bath toy.
Today’s goal is to paddle about 5 miles to Trout Creek for another night of camping. Along the way, I see why the Minam is so great for packrafts; it’s much too shallow for a raft or drift boat — at times, no more than 6 inches deep.
The highlights happen fast. We watch a bear run along the banks and stare as elk splash across the river. I play in the rapids and cast a fly line looking for a trout. At camp the Go Wild crew pulls out all of the stops with Old Fashioned cocktails and steaks cooked right on the campfire coals. Tomorrow, our last day, we’ll paddle 10 miles to the confluence with the Wallowa and the trip’s end. For now, though, I sit in a hammock and conjure up every molecule of gratitude for Oregon’s natural wonders.
The Minam is exceptional, but the real magic of any river trip is much more personal. To spend time on this river is to surrender yourself to the ancient rhythms of water and rock, and to sleep unencumbered under the timeless buckshot of a starry sky. The guides keep you safe, fed and informed. That’s true whether you sign up with Go Wild to go foraging for morels and boletes, join a backpacking trip that’s just for women, or — new in 2025 — packraft the Owyhee River at a time when you’ll have the canyons to yourself. With each, Sizer and his team will make you feel like you’re doing the greatest thing ever because that’s how they feel about it all, too.
