Recent Trips

Middle Fork Salmon River, May 22nd - May 26th

The Middle Fork of the Salmon lived up to all the hype. It was 4.5 feet when we put on Thursday, and the river was clear. Mark called Tuesday for the permit and we left the next day. Good job Mark and Michelle. We flew from Salmon Idaho to the Indian Creek put-in Thursday the 22nd. We flew into Indian Creek, because Boundary was under 4 feet of snow, and did not have the time to run Marsh Creek. We were on the river for about 8 miles to Sunflower camp. We ran a few good rapids, Mark was washed out in Marble creek. Sunflower was a nice camp with a few shallow hot springs pools. The hot springs eventually cascade over a small cliff into the river. We woke up to a brown spring run-off river, this day we went down to Cow Creek. A very uneventful rapid day. That night the river came up at least a foot. We first ran the 4 Tappens, which were mostly washed out. Tappen falls had a big hole in the center of the river with a tongue on river right which lead into a good set of waves. Tappen II had two good holes down the tongue in the center of the river. Tappen III had a big pour over in the center of the river, you can run either left or right. We ran some more good wave trains, until the eventful rapids came. The river was very calm around the flying B ranch, and then turned right into a gauntlet of waves and holes in Haystack rapids. I had not read much about Haystack in high water, so I did not worry to much. The left had some very large waves and the right had a lot of holes and some rocks at the bottom. So I went middle, (very wrong). In the middle of the rapid was a giant wave and to the right of that was a giant pour over. I chose the pour over. luckily we dropped over and the 14 foot NRS cat stayed upright. The river then forced us right, where we had to split two gigantic rocks whith another big hole on the other side. Again we survived. Mark went left, and found that to be the correct route in high water. The next rapid was Jack Creek, I had not read much about this one either. At 6.5 feet it has three wave trains, with waves 10 to 14 feet, at this level it is a long rapid. We camped at Wollard that night. That night we camped with some season river runners who said we could run the rest of the way with them, which gave us great comfort. None of us had seen it at this level. Redside was big with an easy sneak down the right side. Weber had the biggest runnable waves of the trip. I thought there were three that were at least 20' from trough to crest. Weber was a great ride. The rest of the day consisted of big waves. We camped at Cradle creek. The next day we woke up to run Lower cliffside, which was a fairly easy sneak river left along the wall. It had a huge breaking wave that you came pretty close to. The next big one was Rubber. We ran Rubber left of center. It had a huge breaking wave also. The rest of the way to the confluence was just large fun wave trains. Motel rock was covered and we went left of the large pour over.