Up a Creek

Fortunately, we had a paddle. We took the crew on a 6-day 73-mile float down the Lower Salmon River in Western Idaho. We accompanied the Mechams, Riggs, and Johnsens on this trip, they are all veterans of the Lower Salmon and showed us greenhorns how it was done.

We departed for White Bird, Idaho on Sunday afternoon and arrived in the wee hours of the morning. We threw out a tarp, blew up our air mattress, and proceeded to freeze our tails off for the rest of the night. It was a little colder than I expected. Actually, I think Rachael was quite warm as she slept in her winter parka. Two coyotes came into the camp during the night and then hightailed it back out when one of the dogs from another group started barking at them.

We assembled our boat the next morning, and into the river we went for 5 1/2 days of floating, swimming, fishing, and camping on white sandy beaches. It's amazing how the events of a full week blur together and compress into a few memories.

Alec was kind enough to capture a few pieces of photographic evidence. Rachael took a bunch of pictures which I am sure will be forthcoming, but she is busy perfecting them with photoshop.

Here are a few action shots from the class IV rapid on the river, Snow Hole.




The trip was not without its exciting moments. Just a few hours before the above pictures were taken, we came across another group on the river. They were administering CPR to a woman that had been trapped under her boat for 4 minutes when it flipped after hitting a rock wall. The Riggs assisted with giving her medical attention and helped get her down the river to a large camping area. There they found a forest service employee with a radio who was helping coordinate fire fighting efforts for a forest fire in the immediate area. They arranged a jet boat to come pick her up so she could be evacuated to a hospital. We later learned that she made a full recovery. That incident cast a pall over the trip for a few hours. The kicker for Rachael was that I moved to another boat to help with some non-experienced rafters that had been left on their own when their boatsman went to help with the lady who almost drowned. I had Blake pilot our boat and follow me through a little class II rapid so we could get down to the camping area. After just witnessing a near-drowning, Rachael was a little on edge with Blake driving the boat.

We enjoyed getting into the water on the calm spots on the river, cooling off and "checking the prop". I amazed the kids with my acrobatic talents (don't they look amazed?). Seeing me launch into the air like this must be kind of like watching the Spruce Goose take flight.


We floated through a canyon that was on fire, as I noted before. The firefighters were out in force, with planes and helicopters working to put the fire out. At one of our camp sites, we watched all afternoon as a helicopter went back and forth to the river to suck up water to dump on the fire. At first it looked like he was going to draw water from right in front of our camp, but then he saw the kids out swimming in the river and moved downstream. In this picture, you can see the hose hanging underneath the helicopter that he uses for sucking up water. You can also see the smoke from the fire in the canyon.

All of the camping was on white, sandy beaches. It was very nice, but kind of hard on the feet. By the end of the trip, my feet were so dried out that they were starting to crack, and they were raw from the wet sand rubbing between my sandals and my feet. I guess that is the price to be paid for paradise. The Rigg's tent (show in this picture) blew into the river when a sudden gust of wind came up. Casey and Branden happened to be close by and jumped into the river to save it.


We had a great cliff jumping spot at our last campsite. We entertained ourselves for a couple of hours jumping off of this cliff. This was also the campsite where we caught the most fish. Alec and the kids dug a hole in the beach and lined it with a tarp. We then filled it with water and created a little holding tank for a bunch of little bass that we caught.