Dates: July 21-26, 2000
Folks: K1: Chuck and Nancy Brabec, Dan and Jill Brabec, Joe Greiner and Nancy Gilbert, Dale and Brenda Sleight. OC2: Mike and Deborah Kopko. Five other hard boaters, One ducky, Seven paddle rafters, One oar rig rider. Six staff members.
Outfitter: Canyons, Inc. PO Box 823, McCall, Idaho 83638 Water Level: 1.96 ft. Trip Length: Boundary Creek to the confluence with the main Salmon 96.3 miles
Note: This article was written for the Carolina Canoe Club Paddler Newsletter. Dale and Brenda Sleight and Chuck and Nancy Brabec are also members of the WVWA.

Eight of us planned this trip a full seventeen months earlier. We met Deb and Mike on the river and learned they were also CCC members.

The Middle Fork of the Salmon passes through the Frank Church River of No Return Wilderness in Idaho. We were all flown to the put-in from Boise on small planes that sat six people. This was a raft supported trip and we needed to pack light. Canyons supplied the tents and do rent sleeping bags and pads but most of us brought our own as well as clothes for six days. It all needed to fit into a 3.8 cu. ft. "Bill Bag."

We put on the river about 11:30 AM and paddled 15 miles the first day. Due to the low water, the rapids rated class IV were actually all class III. The scenery was hills covered with Ponderosa Pines. The water moved at a steady clip and there were just a few play spots this day. We camped at a site with a hot spring pool at river level. It was a nice place for a soak before bedtime. Dinner was grilled salmon, white and wild rice, salad, and brownies. There was always plenty of food. Mule deer walked through camp the next morning acting almost as if we weren't there.

We traveled another 15 miles the second day. There was a stop at Indian Creek to pick up more food and drinks. Normally at water levels below 2 ft., Canyons will put all the customers on the river here rather than at Boundary Creek. However, when the put-in was in question, several folks pleaded with Canyons to put in at the top and Canyons felt they were able to do so by bringing in the remaining supplies at Indian Creek, and because so many folks were paddling hard boats vs. riding the rafts.

We stopped at a hot spring at the side of the river about an hour into the trip. A wooden trough was sending the warm water over a ledge so that we could stand below and take a nice warming shower. The rapid called Pistol was a rush of water into a rock requiring a sharp left turn. It could have been interesting at high water. We saw a brown bear at the side of the river. He seemed to pretty much ignore us. Dinner the second night included steak and chocolate mousse for dessert.

Day three started with "amigas" for breakfast, an egg scramble including tortillas, cilantro, and cheese, and topped with salsa, sour cream, and avacados. For lunch they had locally raised smoked trout. I really loved the food! We saw a second brown bear by the side of the river this day. There was good surfing on this section including a nice easier 360 hole for us less "rodeo" inclined. There were also plenty of more difficult holes for Dan to display his rodeo moves. The terrain was changing to rounded dessert hills with fewer pines. That evening we camped at Big Loon and hiked up Loon Creek about a mile to a nice hot spring that was large enough for all to sit in. Folks filled their solar showers and went up the hillside to take their most thorough shower of the trip.

Both Mike and Dan brought fishing poles and purchased licenses before leaving on the trip. The rules were barbless hooks and "catch and release". Both men caught numerous trout, many of them quite large. While Dan tended to use his fly rod when stopping for lunch or for the night, Mike also fished from his canoe when he and Deb stopped in an eddy.

On day four, Chuck climbed into his boat, closed his spray skirt, and started paddling a couple strokes when he felt something on his leg. He opened his spray skirt and found a small mouse sitting on his leg staring at him. He scooped him up and into the water. Guess what! Mice can swim really well. We ran Tappin Falls this day. It is about a 4-5 ft. drop followed by a couple of holes. Brenda misunderstood the information on where to enter the rapid and went far left. She dropped over the side and did a complete mystery move, going completely under before coming back to the surface, doing a back ender out of the hole, and then side surfing a lower hole to the edge and ending up upright and stable at the bottom! Later we entered "Impassable Canyon," so named because there is no possibility of a trail following the river. Here the mountains grew taller and more rocky and the sides were steep. Haystack Rapids had changed character since 1993 and was now a rock garden that was difficult for the "sweep" raft (it used sweepers front and back instead of oars) to negotiate. We watched our guide, Lisa, stick the raft on a rock and then proceed to get the 6000+ pound boat off by herself. For the hard boaters it was an eddy hop down. Dinner that night included Lasagne and "bangers" (Italian sausage with the British name in honor of one of the guests that was British). They even had Tira Misu for dessert. This was our longest addling day and we covered 24 miles. Big Horn Sheep were on the side of the hills across the river the next morning. It was amazing that they could cling to those rock ledges and survive on the small amounts of greenery there.

Day five was a short (by comparison) 12 mile paddle. It included several of the bigger rapids in the gorge. A mile from camp we stopped to view the pictographs by the Sheepeater Indians that populated the river in the 1800s and earlier. Their pictures were done with red ochre and fat and survived because they were under an overhang and out of the sun. Typically they showed hunters, the sheep and deer they hunted, and the dogs they used to hunt with. We stopped further down at Waterfall Creek falls. It tumbles several hundred feet over boulders to the river. After lunch we made a third stop at Veil falls. Most folks hiked to the ledge that formed a bowl shaped cut out over which the falls were misting. Some went to a lower ledge to stand under the cooling water that was falling. The trip back down was hazardous and most did it by stooping and hanging on as they lowered themselves. After shrimp cocktail and rum punch for happy hour, grilled roast pork was served for dinner. That evening I saw and heard a rattle snake near the toilet but he simply voiced his displeasure at being disturbed and crawled under a rock. Needless to say we left him alone.

Day six arrived far too soon. It was our last day on the river and would have the most interesting white water. As mentioned earlier, there wasn't much more than a class III drop. One rapid required a drop on the right side to avoid a hole in the middle followed by a sharp left turn below the hole to avoid the big rock at the bottom. Another rock, called Clam Shell, was cut out on the downstream side so deeply that a raft could paddle in under the overhang. The trip ended at 12:30 PM after about a mile of paddling through smoke from the nearby wildfire. The wildfires in this area are allowed to burn the grasses but are sprayed with water and chemicals to try to keep them from destroying the trees. The Ponderosa Pine requires fire to open the pinecones and release their seeds. As long as the fire stays below the level of the branches with needles, the trees survive and only the grasses are cleaned out. After lunch and repacking our gear into our own bags, we left on a bus for Salmon, Idaho. We passed an orchard with trees heavy with orange apricots and dark red cherries. We saw the aftermath of the grass fires across the river. We caught small planes in Salmon for the trip back to Boise and civilization. It was hard to walk on pavement again.