Kayaking the Deschutes River from Harper Bridge to Sunriver Resort Canoe Takout
A kayaking trip down the Deschutes River near Sunriver, Oregon.
Activity: Kayaking
Access: Deschutes River
Class: Class I (moving water rating featuring riffles, minor waves, and minimal obstructions)
River Miles: 191.7 to 183.1
Distance: 8.3 miles
Route Type: Point-to-point
Start: Harper Bridge (43.86306, -121.45178)
End: Sunriver Resort Canoe Takeout (43.92850, -121.43373)
Fees/Permits: None that I'm aware of for parking, but in Oregon a Waterway Access Permit is required for non-motorized boats 10ft and longer.
Note: The east side of the river is pretty much all private and most of the west side is National Forest.
Date Accessed: October 1, 2024
I was a bit nervous to attempt this route since I haven't kayaked in years, but decided to give it a try with my dad. We did it the direction we did so we were going downstream. The current was pretty slow, but it did help that we weren't fighting against it. Just floating the river would take a long time.
My mom dropped us off at the Harper Bridge boat launch. We started around 11am so it wasn't too cold, but also to hopefully avoid the afternoon wind. Launching was pretty easy and then we were off. I got my bearings pretty quickly and remembered how to paddle. I hadn't been kayaking in a few years.
It ended up taking us two hours and thirty minutes to kayak this section of river. Most of the time we had the river completely to ourselves. We only came across 3 kayaks and 2 SUP's. I think this had a lot to do with the time of year and that we were past the main vacation season.
The east side of the river is pretty much all national forest and the west side was mostly private due to being a part of Sunriver. It's only the last river mile before the canoe takeout that is national forest on both sides of the river. The entire river was rather pretty, it was shallower than I was anticipating, but easy to navigate.
We saw a variety of birds, geese, and ducks. There were lots of mallards and cackling geese. One of my favorite bird sightings was a large flock of Greater White-fronted Geese which have all white heads.
Around 12:30pm we started to be able to smell some smoke in the air and by the time we neared the canoe takeout we could see the haze in the air. There were active fires in the nearby national forest and the wind had shifted in our direction.
My favorite section was the last mile before the canoe takeout that was all national forest. It felt so wild and was quiet. There were some really cool rock outcroppings near the shore and we occasionally saw chipmunks. We got to our end point sooner than either of us were expecting. The kayaking was pretty straight forward, there weren't any difficult or puzzling sections.
We ended at Sunriver Resort Canoe Takeout because there are river hazards around Benham Falls further downstream. My dad and I both agreed that the Deschutes River is one of the most beautiful ones we've explored. We'll probably explore more sections of it in the future.
I did good for this being my first time kayaking in years and my body handled it okay in the moment. I ended up paying for it later that day with some very intense muscle pain and it caused a full on flare. So going forward, the next kayaking I'll do will be a shorter distance in hopes that in smaller doses I can handle kayaking.
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