Running the Salmon

The calendar was ticking and we made a 1600 km 26 hour non-stop journey from southern California across the Mojave desert, up thru Utah and into Wyoming to Jackson. We had a couple of very anxious hours in Las Vegas when the van stopped & wouldn't start. It was 46 degrees and we think the fuel evaporated before it got to the cylinders while we were idling waiting for Lotte to have a pitstop at the Sahara casino. The evening cooled to 100 F while we scoffed at the Circus Circus "all you can eat buffet" and the van started straight away enabling

us to resume our travels on the long trek north.

It was sunrise coming up to SaltLake City, as I looked at the signs for towns I had been reading about in "Under the Banner of Heaven". Then thru Park City & on to the wide open spaces of Wyoming all the way to Mick & Pam Hopkinsons home in Jackson, under the lofty peaks of the Teton Range.

By the next morning we had bought & packed for 7 days on the Salmon with a party of 13 all on a permit which Mick had managed to pick up from a cancellation. There are only 8 parties allowed on the river each day during the summer season, the permits for which are balloted by the Forest Service each year. It was a 6 hour drive to the river thru remote eastern Idaho & our luck ran out 120 kms from the town of Salmon which our van conked out in the absolute middle of nowhere, with no traffic.

We were traveling on our own but had 2 bits of luck. One was 1 bar of service on the cellphone which gave a very patchy connection to the AA and the other was that another vehicle on our rafting trip with people we had never met, was behind us. We ended up getting towed part way by our new mates, & then towed by the AA all the way to a garage in Salmon.

The towie & mechanic were both Mormons, they each only had one wife & they really looked after us.

Max & Otis were with me in the towtruck with Bill the 74 year old towie who gave us a full rundown on the ranching, Indian & political background of the local county & some homespun advise to the boys on standard rules of conduct for their lives. We were 4 hours late & left our rafting outfitters to pick up the van once it was repaired & shuttle it the 500kms to the takeout.

We camped at the Salmon river putin in the mountains of the Frank Church Wilderness watching a fire smoldering high up on the otherside of the gorge, ignited from a lightning strike.

Next day we loaded the 3 rafts in our group, had a briefing fom the ranger & headed away under a blue sky down the Gorge of No Return.

One raft was ours with Mary rowing, Lotte supervising & occasionally in an inflatable kayak (IK) and Max, Otie & me in kayaks. Another raft was the Hopkinson boat with Pam rowing, Liam & Mick in kayaks and Liam's friend Tomi also on the raft. The third boat was Kevin & his daughter Hayley with Kathy, an old skiing mate of Pams & Kevins in an IK on her very first river trip.

We had a pretty big first day because we were one of the last groups away and all of the good camp sites had been taken so we travelled further than we planned. But we camped in a great place & with everyone helping got the rafts unloaded & the kitchen set up.

The plan was for each family to provide & cook 2 breakfasts & 2 dinners on the trip, the kids doing all the dishes so the workload was evenly spread leaving lots of time for relaxation & socializing.

Each day followed a similar pattern with Kevin getting up early & making marvelous smelling & tasting coffee, having brekky, packing up & heading away down river about 10. The river was not demanding with only a smattering of grade 3 rapids and with Mick as guide no problems were encountered. It was fantastic to see a whole possee of kids heading down the rapids in a flotilla of kayaks & inflatables. The river was milked of its surfing waves by all the kayakers. The weather was hot meaning ongoing watergun warfare between the rafts & kayaks everyday. Typically we would be on the water for about 4 hours a day, with a long lunchbreak and setting up camp by 4. This included establishing the groover, a toilet seat balanced on an ammunition can in which solid waste was grooved and packed out of the river. We only had one thunderstorm with wind and rain for an hour.

Lotte & I slept under the stars every night. As with the other multi day river trips we have been on, its a great time to spend with the kids, get to know your fellow travellers and commune with nature. Its a bonus to have warm dry weather.

The river goes thru a remote part of Idaho with no road access for 90 miles. It is a very special place as all similar rivers of its size are dammed in this part of the US. I'm not sure how this part of the Salmon escaped that fate. Even though it is in a wilderness area there are some isolated ranches & houses which were "grandfathered in" (already there) when the wilderness status was created. They were old mining houses, struggling farms and hideouts of fugitives from the law. The ranches are serviced by their own jetboats which are also able to run some tourist operations. There was a museum of an old hermit, Buckskin Bill who lived off the land, forged his own guns & had built a fort to keep the government away. Idaho is still a state with much anti-government sentiment apparently with armed militias lurking deep in the mountains.

The scenery is a dry woodland where fire is frequent and part of the natural ecosytem.

The river flows thru a mountainous area with the gorge being deeper than the Grand Canyon, apparently. I was very interested in the wildlife, as was Otie, and we saw lots of bald eagles, kingfishers, chukkas, big horn sheep, mule deer, elk, yellowed bellied marmots, garter snakes and 1 otter. Mick had the only bear sighting.

After 7 days we reached the takeout near Riggins, suntanned and relaxed. To our relief the van was there with only a bill for a replacement coil and running as smooth as silk. We packed up all the gear, off to Riggins for an icecream and then another little burst of excitement down the road on the north fork of the Payette river. We watched 4 self-righting "creature craft" rafts doing the top rapids & the Mick, Max & I did the lower 5 mile stretch of non-stop 150 feet per mile crazy full-on white water. As Mick says the river is really hard on your eyelids as you try to clear the water before crashing into the next wave. It was very demanding & Max did really well. The beer tasted excellent afterwards & we slept deeply in the campsite alongside the Desolation river deep in the Idaho mountains.