Salmon Middle rafting

The wife is turning the big 5-0 this year and wants to do a family raft trip to celebrate. Originally were thinking of the Grand but for various reasons now looking at the Salmon Middle Fork.

The Salmon is free flowing - any guesses on whether it'll have enough water to run in early-mid August? ID seems to be better off than other areas in the west (like here in CA) but still seems to have a pretty sucky snowpack this year.

There seem to be a bazillion outfitters - any suggestions? Looking for family of 4, kids are 11 and 15, all pretty active (BC skiing, backpacking, etc.) though limited river experience. One kid has celiac so need someone who can deal with dietary requirements (strict gluten free).

It's going to be way low early August. You might have to fly into one of the airstrips. Look at Canyons, Middle Fork Rapid Transit, and Mackay for outfitters. There are other good trips but those are my favorite people.

Well at least the kids will get a thrill if we have to fly in on some tiny prop plane. Unfortunately need to do it early August due to other scheduling issues. Canyons and MFRT are booked or don't have trips then, I'll look into Mackay.

There are other outfitters as well.

I did 5 years on the MF and saw some extremely low water and even those years were very fun. You won't see much whitewater in Aug. but the place is beautiful.

Oh yeah, plenty of outfitters. Those are just the few I personally know and can endorse. It's a sweet trip at almost any flow, just tough to get a lot of weight for an outfitted trip through the first day without flying guests.

In August? Yes. Lots of companies will deadhead and pick up the peeps.

Some will run the upper 26 miles with enough food and gear for 1 night or 2 and fly the heavy stuff in to Indian Creek.

Lowest I ran the upper was at 1.27, my partner and I were in Kayaks with enough gear to overnight. Since we were the Feds. we were exempt from the portable toilet requirement.

At IC we sent out both boats on our back haul and had a Raft and gear along with a smaller playboat flown in.

Best part was the USFS was paying for the flight, and my wages, and my food. Damn that was a good job working for a shitty company.

Always wanted the company to send us to run Loon and Big Creek but they wouldn't bite.

I spent a half day fishing Loon from the confluence up on a MF Trip 10 years ago. Damn that was some fun fishing.

I just did this trip, July 13-19 2016. It was phenomenal. The water level was 2.5', which I thought was good but did leave me wishing for just a little more. We had a full group with Canyons; 24 people in kayaks, C-1, OC-1, IK, and a Shredder. You might think you would lose a little weight paddling an average of 20 miles/day, with Canyons you won't. The river was Class 2+ to 3+ at that water level with a couple of rapids pushing the easy 4 range. The fishing was so easy it was boring, I fished about 3 evenings and would catch 4-5 fish in 20 minutes or so. All fishing is catch & release.

I'm still missing the place. I even miss the groover.

https://c3.staticflickr.com/9/8714/2...fcf028fb_h.jpgMiddle Fork Salmon by davidmc37865, on Flickr

https://c4.staticflickr.com/8/7729/2...496de76a_h.jpgMiddle Fork Salmon by davidmc37865, on Flickr

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Rosw-mnzOA

Its been too long.

Thanks, nice vid.

Canyons is a quality outfit. Was Lisa Wiz. along on your trip?

Lisa is a stud. If you haven't, I recommend going to the Blue Moon yurt for dinner during the winter. It's out of McCall. Lisa runs it and it's one of the best meals you'll ever eat.

Just realized I didn't update this after the trip last year. We wound up going with MFRE and had a great time. Due to the low flow we had to fly into Indian Creek (which was an adventure in itself taking off in Stanley with a storm rolling through) but after that there was plenty of water. With the shorter trip (distance) it was a slower pace which was kind of nice (could spend more time surfing waves or exploring the canyon instead of racing to set up camp).

We saw the start of this fire: http://inciweb.nwcg.gov/incident/4485/ and had some smoke the final day but it didn't really affect the trip.

Nice!

Truly a trip down memory lane- I did the Spring thaw/ first 10 day scheduled trip / first week of June of the Upper and Middle Fork of the Salmon in 98 with my dad. I think it was with Verle's outfit- Action Whitewater Adventures. High CFS, but very cold/ borderline hypothermic water when kayaking/ rubber duckying it. Natural hotsprings were a treat, as were the guides/ employees. Great memories! WOuld love to go back