Kayaking!
The Middle Fork
of the Salmon River
;
Near the Sawtooth Mountains of central Idaho arises the Middle Fork of the Salmon River. At first small but with a brisk drop of 50 feet/mile it thunders around rocks and bends in granite canyons one hundred miles before reaching the Main Salmon River. Last summer Lori asked me to accompany she & her friends in returning to the Salmon on a week-long kayaking trip. We met in Boise Mon 6/18/01 and checked out the town and paddling shops and had a nice dinner in a French restaraunt downtown. Later we were joined by our friends David, Stewart, JP("Cowboy Johnson"), Valerie, and Kenny. The next morning we all met Les Bechdel, owner of Canyons Inc and river person extraordaire, at the Boise airport at 8:30am for the flight in tiny planes to the Marsh Creek put-in at the headwaters of the Middle Fork. We landed in a field and geared up. Here is my Wave Sport Godzilla that I paddled. Lori and I geared up. Some people paddled rafts, some duckies, some rode the oar rafts to fly fish, Greg paddled a canoe, Mark paddled a C1, but most of us kayaked. We got in a good half day of paddling and set up camp. The support oar rafts and one sweeper raft kept all of our gear dry. Really special meals were served and life in camp was somewhat reminescent of "summer camp". The first night was cold and a thick frost covered the ground the next morning but after that we had perfect weather and mostly slept without tents. Breakfasts were cooked to order, usually by Les. Les' daughter Laura was a guide along with Tim, Don, Greg, and Jim. We paddled about 6 to 7 hours a day. There were good rapids every day up to class IV and lots of play spots for surfing standing waves. Lori showed off with cartwheels and enders. Most of our scouting was done from the river but sometimes we stopped to scout harder rapids. In camp David taught rolling and Lori and Valerie tried out Mark's C1. Lori taught me to surf waves. Valerie, Lori, and Laura were "team Betty", a mischievous group. Dr David Jones was the recipient of most of their mirth with such pranks as wildly decorated gear, rocks in his boat, and constant threat of sabatoge! We found many hot springs to soak in and several were actually at our camps. We took some steep and scenic hikes. The last night was carribean night and out came a large bag of costumes. Team Betty attended the party of course. The last day sadly brought us all safely to the junction of the North Fork to form the Main Salmon River. /hugh