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Trip Reports
Here's where you peruse WACer trip reports and post your own for everyone to see. Remember: Never let the truth interfere with a good story! | Trip Reports |
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| Weather | |
| TrailConditions | Wet |
| Owned By | Cynthia |
| Mailed to WacList | 09/05/2007 |
| RowId | 424 |
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My summer plans (and attitude) was thrown for a tail spin when I learned in painful degrees that my job was being reorganized out of existence. After much fretting, whining, and job searching, a friend gave me some valuable advice and suggested I plan myself an adventure. I remembered that in my deleted e-mail file there was an announcement about a float trip down the lower Salmon River in Idaho as fund raiser for Save Our Wild Salmon (SOS) so I called and signed myself up.
In my conversations with SOS, it transpired that there would be several other fly fishers going along and even though it would be too warm for trout fishing this time of year, the river has a good smallmouth bass fishery. So without knowing a soul I headed over to Moscow, Idaho. When I got into town, I looked up my hotel and then drove around to renew my acquaintance with the city and noted the town had a Subaru dealer (obvious foreshadowing). I drove a little farther and pulled into a gas station to fuel up and noticed my clutch acting oddly. When I drove away, the clutch clearly was not functioning properly and so, after a series of wrong turns through the U of Idaho campus, I managed to pull up to the Subaru dealer's service bay late Tuesday afternoon, looking and acting more than a little panicked. To make a long story short, the wonderful folks at Ambassador Service drove me and all my gear to my hotel, diagnosed the problem, and agreed to fix the car while I was gone and leave it out for my return on Labor Day. What could have been a disaster was anything but (other than the bill).
Early the next morning I met up with the rest of the trip participants and we were taken to the put-in at Pine Bar, where we met the rest of the crew. All together there were 21 people, three rafts with rowing frames, two custom made wooden dories, and three inflatable kayaks. Now given the choice between throwing out bass poppers in the baking sun and kayaking a beautiful river with class III & IV rapids, I have to confess that I chose the latter. In fact I ended up kayaking almost the entire trip down to the confluence of the Salmon with the Snake River, except for the easy glides where the less venturesome clients wished to kayak. It had been many years since I had kayaked any big water, having rowed in oar and cat boats instead. In an oar boat, one points towards the obstacle and rows away from it – in a kayak the reverse is usually the right approach. As I followed the lead dory through the whitewater, I found myself acting like an oar boat and furiously back paddling on a number of occasions. Good thing I have a strong back paddle and was eventually able to act more like a kayak. I even managed to stay in the boat through all the rapids, though there were several times I thought I was going to swim, particularly when I slammed into a few waves and my contacts got sticky. Unlike many western Washington rivers, there were no sweepers to ruin a good run.
I fished from shore a few times, but only had a few strikes. It mattered not, for I was as happy as a clam to be paddling. Other people did catch some nice fish and it would have been even nicer knowing that salmon could actually get into the Salmon River. What spectacular and pristine habitat there is in that drainage and what a crime it is that the lower Snake River dams make it impossible for salmon to return to their native spawning areas. I came away with an even stronger position that the dams should be removed and that the agricultural community be provided with more effective means of commodity transport than the highly subsidized barges. SOS is to be commended for their collaborative approach with the farmers, commercial fishermen, and environmentalists in restoring the river.
We spent 5 days, 4 nights on the river, with weather ranging from blistering hot to spectacular thunderstorms. Two of the nights I just threw my pad and bag on the sand and slept under the stars. The problem was that the moon was so bright it was like sleeping under a street light. I tried tying a bandana over my eyes but that didn’t work too well. Poor me. The rhythm of early morning coffee, hot breakfast, packing up the boats and paddling for most of the day with a lunch break, followed by a delicious leisurely dinner under the stars was pretty darn wonderful. One afternoon, the trip leader broke out the bocce ball set and we played on a huge sand beach. It was quite sporty, with tents, sandy slopes, and river bottom all being in play. I am pleased to report that I won my first bocce ball game, primarily due to the fact that my teammate had a wicked throwing arm. My fellow travelers came from across the country and were interesting and delightful company and the guides were attentive and knowledgeable about the history and geology of the area.
After the Salmon joined the Snake river, we rafted together all the boats and powered down with a small outboard motor. Without it in the head wind we had, it would have taken us a full day or more. The Snake River Canyon is also spectacularly beautiful, though one has to overlook the unrelenting jet boat and personal watercraft traffic on it. It was a significant culture shock for all of us. I won't mention the remarks we made when the jetboat pilots ignored the river rules roared by us at full speed, nearly swamping us with their wake. The guides told us that some of the commercial operators upon recognizing the more environmentally active river outfitters, would purposely douse them. The good news was that this was only a short section of the float.
My trip was a resounding success on all counts and it was just the restorative I needed. I did NOT want the trip to end. The scenery, food, companionship, guides, and river was fabulous and I give the outfitters - Sun Dog Expeditions - my unqualified endorsement. I will seriously consider going on another trip with them.
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