I just returned from a remote wilderness river trip. The trip covered 93 miles of the Salmon River in Idaho over seven days of floating in whitewater rafts and eight nights of tent-camping on sandy beaches along the river.
I am writing this weekly column while sitting at the gate awaiting my return flight to the Mountain State. It is the first electronic communication I have attempted since being out of the wilderness.
To be honest, I carried a Garmin inReach satellite communicator device that allowed me to send a message and my location to my immediate family members to inform them where I was in this world and that I was well. Other than that, I was off the grid. Way off.
Perhaps a glance at the setting in the remote Idaho wilderness may paint a clearer picture of my latest adventure. According to the U.S. Forest Service online page, the Frank Church-River of No Return Wilderness Area has steep, rugged mountains, deep canyons and wild, whitewater rivers. The Salmon River Canyon is one of the deepest gorges in North America, deeper even than the famous Grand Canyon in Arizona.
Congress designated the Frank Church-River of No Return Wilderness in 1980, and it now encompasses a total of 2,366,757 acres. It is the largest contiguous wilderness in the Lower 48. The Main Salmon, the section we floated, carries a National Wild and Scenic River designation.
Our party of adventurers planned the course of 93 miles and designated a put-in and take-out time and date. The plan was to float each day to our pre-reserved camping spot that was set when we checked in with the rangers before we launched. To float this river, you must first draw a permit. The main Salmon River is administered under a permit system to protect it from excessive human impacts. The permit draw is a lottery. Our crew was chosen as one of the lucky permit winners.
Being so remote, some planning is required. Once you start the river trip, what you have is, well, what you have. With rafts loaded with enough water, food, supplies, first-aid kits, camping gear, clothes for every type of weather predicted from nights in the 40s to days in the 90s, dry bags and dry boxes for watertight storage, a kitchen kit, including hand-washing and dishwashing stations, and, of course, a community portable toilet referred to by river runners as a 人妖色情片済roover,人妖色情片 we shoved off the bank on our permit人妖色情片檚 starting date and time.
Our goal was always to leave no trace for the next lucky permit holders. We achieved that goal.
With thoughts of the Lewis and Clark Expedition, the one in which they named the River of No Return because of the river人妖色情片檚 one-way-only river traffic back then, I was wide-eyed to get the adventure started.
Because the rafts can only hold a limited supply of gear, I chose to go with simple fishing gear and kept it to the basics: a simple rod and reel and a few multi-species patterns.
I was rewarded handsomely with plenty of whitewater, pools with lots of currents and fishable waters almost everywhere I looked. I fished hard when able, stowing all my gear securely for the bigger rapids, and caught five species of fish regularly. In the upper sections, I was rewarded with trout, and in the lower sections, about Day 5, the smallmouth bass were eager to please and were plentiful. I even managed to fool a few large fish into a strike.
It will take me a few days or even a week or so to become adjusted back into the modern world, and that人妖色情片檚 perfectly fine. After all, that is why I went.
The next step will be a shower and a proper bed. I am looking forward to going home.
Chris Ellis is a veteran of the outdoors industry. His book “Hunting, Fishing and Family from The Hills of West Virginia” is available at . Contact him at chris@elliscom.net.
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