The Salmon - River of No Return

2012 saw several opportunities for some amazing self-support kayak trips. The first was a 3 day early season paddle through Yampa Canyon and joining the Green river through Split Mountain Canyon inside Dinosaur National Monument.  Here is a write up from Kyle McCutchen:

http://coloradokayak.blogspot.com/2012/04/sanded-and-blown-silly-on-yampa.html

Rigging up at Cape Horn near Marsh Creek

A few weeks after getting off the Yampa, Paul and I got an invite to join the same crew on a 6 day trip down the Middle Fork and Main Salmon River.  The Middle Fork of the Salmon River in Idaho is one of the most highly sought after river trips in the country, flowing deep through the heart of the Frank Church River of No Return Wilderness.  The area was designated wilderness in 1980, and is the second largest wilderness area in the US at almost 2.4 million acres (Death Valley is first with 3.1 million acres).  Historically, the Salmon River has been referred to as "the river of no return" due to the difficulty of travelling upstream through the steep mountain waters, hence the wilderness name.  And at well over one mile deep, the area boasts one of the deepest canyons on the planet.  Add in to the mix a number of natural hot springs, and it is easy to see why this river trip is so popular.  We were not lucky enough to draw a permit from the lottery system, so we launched May 9 which was prior to the start of permit season. As a consequence of our early season launch, snow was blocking the road to the normal put in.  This meant that we had to launch at the headwaters of Marsh Creek and boat 17 miles to the normal put in. 

Early on, day 1

Day one contained the most technical water of the trip, and this was made more difficult with heavy boats full of gear.  One of the most memorable aspects of this trip was watching the river grow in size hourly at first, and then daily later on.  Our crew launched in about 300 cfs of water, and by the time we hit the takeout the river had swelled to 40,000 cfs!  During day 1, for every hour that we paddled the river seemed to double in size.  Within 2 hrs of launching we were running significant rapids, and one was big enough to cause a swim.  During the swim Paul actually broke his hand, but at that point we were so far into the wilderness that there was no choice but to continue paddling.  Day 1 also saw successful descents of Dagger Falls pictured below. 

Kyle emerging from Dagger Falls

Dagger Falls was the hardest rapid of the entire trip, and it was both reassuring as well as a little disappointing knowing that the hardest whitewater was behind us. After 30 miles of good paddling, we made camp at sheepeater hot springs and got in for a soak.

Sheapeater Hot Springs

Day 2 was a beautiful 37 miles of wilderness paddling, with few signs of humans all day.  The canyon walls continued to grow until they towered 6000 ft above our heads.  We took a quick break to eat and soak in Sunflower hot springs, and then pushed on to camp at Big Loon campsite at the mouth of Loon Creek.

A short hike away was Loon Creek hot springs, which kept us up through much of the night, alternating between warming up in the springs and then jumping into the icy waters of the creek as it rushed by.

Loon Creek Hot Springs

Night 2

Veil Falls

When we checked in at the Ranger station we were told that there was only one other large group on the river at that time.  On day 3, we caught up with this other group, which happened to be a big crowd of rafters properly celebrating their layover day. 30 minutes of partying and we were back on the river. The massive wave trains in this section made it one of the funnest stretches of whitewater on the trip.  Looking back, I would catch glimpses of paddlers at the crest of a wave, before they completely disappeared on their way to the trough.  After several side hikes including Veil Falls, we made it to Cliffside camp just as the sun was going down behind the canyon walls after a 39 mile day.  Because there was no hot springs at this camp, we ended up having a campfire and playing card games to keep ourselves entertained throughout the evening.

             

The closest thing to a shower we had all week

By the end of day 4, another full day of paddling found us 37 miles closer to the takeout.  14 miles of early morning floating brought us to the confluence with the Main Salmon. The river had become huge by this point, and these were the biggest rapids I had ever run. Dropping into the first rapid I couldn’t help but be intimidated by the sheer size of the waves, but luckily they were straightforward drops that were very easy and very fun.

Barth Hot Springs

After paddling another beautiful 20 miles with several eagle and otter sightings and petroglyphs, we reached Barth hot springs about 1 mile above our campsite.  Half of the group missed the springs entirely and floated down to camp without getting to soak.  The luckier half of us soaked for a few hours and finished off what few beers we had left hiding in the bottom of our kayaks before floating the last mile to camp in the moonlight.











Day 5 included 33 more miles of big water boating with a cool side hike to an abandoned homestead. No trip down the Main would be complete without a stop at Buckskin Bill’s, which just so happens to be a relative of mine. Growing up my grandma had told me stories about my great uncle who was the last mountain man in Idaho, and it wasn't until we were in the gift shop thumbing through a book that I realized this was his old place. Having made that connection, it was cool to learn a little more about where my family came from.

One of the Salmon's beautiful sandy beaches

A few miles down from Bill’s we camped at Mackay Bar. After several games of botchy ball and some competitive ultimate frisbee we had a wonderful steak dinner and enjoyed the last night together as a crew.

Our final day was a marathon 41 miles through mostly flat water with massive surging eddies that had to be carefully navigated through.  While everyone in the group had long touring kayaks which handled the swirling water with ease, the megarocker creek boat I was paddling proved to be much more difficult to navigate.  I now tell people that they haven’t paddled in big water until they do a mystery move in a 90 gallon kayak. 

I’m pretty sure my whirlpool on the Salmon was almost as big as this one that sucked Steve Fisher under for a full minute on the Congo.

(C) Red Bull

The red line shows our route 

Finally reaching the takeout, we loaded up the kayaks and started back on our 16 hour road trip through the night to make it home by 6 AM, just in time for a quick shower before heading off to work.


Looking back at our tip, it is hard to imagine things going much smoother than they did.  We had a solid group of paddlers, an awesome trip leader, perfect weather, and we lucked into having almost the highest flows for the entire year during our week on the water. In total, we paddle 218 miles in 6 days, or a little over 36 miles a day. This was an amazing trip and a fun group of people to share the experience of exploring a new river with.