Lower Salmon at 12000

The Lower Salmon River is one of our favorite river runs. It provides Linda with her sun and sand fix, and me with whitewater and fishing. We left Cd’A and drove down to Pine Bar on the river arriving at about 9:30 pm. Nothing eventful happened on the drive down, we got our river permit and found a spot to park just above the boat launch ramp. The rest of our little group was to arrive sometime before noon tomorrow, so we put the Paco Pads on the truck bed, pulled the covers up and went to sleep.

During the night John and Loretta Sutherland arrived and found a camp spot in the BLM camp just down the road. I didn’t even hear them!

We rolled out of bed, Linda went running and I messed with the boat. We launched just as the Sutherlands pulled into the ramp. Launch went perfect and in all it both of us about an hour to get on the river. The last of our party, Mike and Caroline Beckwith, was to arrive some time in the morning so we launched and headed down river to wait where they could see us from the road. We found a spot in a large eddy about a mile down and had just pulled in when the Beckwith’s were spotted on the road to the boat launch. Within the hour we were all united and the group moved on down river.

We camped for the night at Upper Packer Creek. The site was just the right size and setup was a breeze. It was our night to cook so Linda and I through together some chicken fajitas with all the fixings. It was a warm night and everyone settled in early for bed.

Next morning we got up and had coffee, packed up the boats and launched by 10:30 am. We floated on down and entered Cougar Canyon. The best rapid of the trip turned out to be Bunghole Rapid. It gave us a ride on huge waves, one after the other. Snow Hole Rapid was washed out enough to make it an easy run. We stopped a Mahoney Creek and decided to make it our camp for the night.

The Sutherlands cooked a dinner of Halibut and rice and we pigged out. Once again we were in bed by 9:30 pm.

Next morning we were having coffee when we heard a bunch of coyotes barking and yipping. I think they were trying to draw Scout out away from camp so they could have a snack. We were on the river about 10 am and were getting ready to run China Rapid in the next mile. When we entered the rapid and turned the corner we noticed that the big rock on the left was gone! As it turned out all the runs at 12000 cfs were nothing to worry about. We floated on until we came to Burch Creek, across form the jumping rocks was a huge beach that was open, so we pulled in. It was early, but we hadn’t seen many boats go by so we weren’t quite sure how many were below us in the Blue Canyon. We decided not to take the beach and pulled out on to the river. A few minutes later a group of dories pulled up to us and we asked where they were planning to stay. They said Toad Beach and then left us, moving on down the river. We had a dilemma and that was that we didn’t know how many boat groups were below us trying for the four beaches in the canyon. We rounded a corner and I saw a red boat disappear around the bend at the end of the strait stretch. That was two groups ahead of us with few beaches and the lack of knowing if others were already past. I signaled for everyone to head to the left bank and hit a beach we were almost past. It was a real hard pull and mike was the only boat to make the beach. The other two had to pull their boats back up stream about 50 yards. It was not hard work, just a pain in the ass. We decided to stay at this beach. We felt it was in our best interest and later we found out that we had made the right decision because the next day as we rowed out we could tell that all the canyon beaches had been used the night before. Luck was on our side!

Beckwith’s cooked a dinner of steak, brown rice and salad. It was great and we pigged out once again. The weather changed a bit and some thunder rollers covered the western sky. We had to put our rain flys on in the middle of the night and with the cloud cover it made for a very uncomfortably hot nights sleep. It cooled off about 4:30 in the morning, but up to that point we didn’t sleep well at all.

Morning was cool and lazy, we packed up and got on the river for the final float out. The rapids were fun but uneventful; we hit the Snake River and also hit the upriver wind. Mike had a boat motor and at the beach where the mine was we had rigged it and were ready for the wind. We started the motor at the Nez Perce Cave, motored down and hooked up with John and Loretta. It was the windiest I have even seen it on the Snake. We felt bad for the boats we passed that were rowing out. We hit the ramp at about 3:00 pm and were loaded in fifteen minutes. What a great trip we had! We drove home with no problems, eating in Lewiston as we went through. We got home and unpacked things keeping them together for our trip back down in two weeks.