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Finally I got to meet two new friends for the first time. One, the Middle Fork Salmon river after 35 years of paddling and, two, BT's Gordo after years of debating him over the BT forums. The trip turned out to be a great combination of good company and a fantastic river.
My wife and I finally decided to go with a commercial trip, M. F. River Expeditions, instead of waiting for a seemingly hopeless private permit. The company has a new owner, ex-Sobek guy, James Ellsworth. This was his first trip as the owner and, I believe him when he said that it was the best trip of his life. Gordo works as an independent kayak guide with this company, acting as a leader for people that he managed to recruit for the trip. Besides those of us in Gordo's group there were upwards of 10 other kayakers with the group, Tarkio. We tended to boat in separate teams for most of the 6 days.
Gordo had quickly established his authority as both a superb river historian and as a kayak leader. We learned a great deal of the early history of the river and its human habitations during the many stops and walks. As a kayaking guide, Gordo set mighty heavy and low in his RPM Max, sending the flat stern below the water levels more often than not. That did not bode well for the expected big water as the river gauge at the beginning of the trip indicated 5.0 and each contributing side-creek looked more like a full blown river, adding many additional thousands of cfs to the flows. Gordo had taken time prior to most rapids to explain the routes and possible hazards in the smallest details. Thus, when we got to Velvet falls, we knew that the far left was the easiest option while the center ledge drop was somewhat questionable at our level. I decided to leave the decision to the last moment as I approached the drop sideways. Gordo, however, decided to most selfishly park himself on the wild eddy line thus, entirely blocking the left –side route. There he was, doing his eddy dance, tail way under, bow way up, slap bracing the heck out of the poor river. Well, so much for choices, guess it is the center ledge drop for me... In an other instance, Gordo had tested our sense of humor when, after describing every Class II riffle in detail, he kindly forgot to mention about the Class IV Pistol Creek rapid. We got kind of wide-eyed, disbelieving the view ahead as we were just sure that the big mess was really some kind of joke, since Gordo had not mentioned a thing prior to it. Well, OK, we survived that one too.
Off the river the company was great with the usual over achieving boating group. We had all kinds of professional people, yet, I was most impressed with 3 ladies in the group. Suzi was a slim, blond beauty with a high energy drive and constant laugh that would brighten any day. She flies big passenger jets for a major US carrier. Her friend, Kim, was an other raving beauty, usually wearing pinks and other feminine pastel colors. She walked with the elegance of a ballerina and had a constant smile that could change this world. She was shy, blushing easily, even as she was telling me that: "I was always a bit of Tom-boy." Well, Tomboy Kim flies a cargo 747 out of Alaska. When I showed surprise, she modestly explained; "Oh, they’re not hard to fly, they’re just little babies" (the 747s). Last, but far from least, was Didi. Her noticeable swagger, looking somewhat like John Wayne, suggested some unique qualities for this lady. Well, sure enough. Didi flies an F-16 and has just returned from her second tour of Iraq.
For personality, our guides were fantastic in every respect. Not to be left behind by our high flying ladies was long time guide, Joe Lindsay, famous trumpet player and the accomplished author of the book, “Up Shit Creek”.
Off the river the food was great and the entertainment super. We had, at least, four guitars, a banjo and a pocket trumpet. These guys had never played together but, you could not tell. I just loved the Dueling Banjos with Gordo on the guitar and Dusty on the banjo.
Gordo is quite an entertainer. Great guitar player and great singer. His performance on the 4th night, the "Jimmy Buffet Night" was wildly successful earning him the title, "Gordissimo". Of course it helped that we had seemingly unlimited supplies of spirits and a bag full of strange-to-weird pieces of clothing that we had to wear. Most people had changed several times during the evening and those changes of clothing tended to reflect a loosening of personal inhibitions in direct proportion with the amount of Tequila consumed. Let's just say that my Speedos blushed and went into hiding at the sights of some of those outfits. I would love to describe them but, we were sworn to uphold the principle of: "What happens on the river, stays on the river."
Oh, yeah, the river. Well, as it was picking up many thousands of cfs, it had become a genuine big water river with HUGE waves and HUGE holes. I absolutely love big water, thus, to me it was magic to drop into and surf and spin in everything small and HUGE and all in between. When everyone else decided to do a climb to a waterfall just below a big rapid with huge, Grand Canyon sized waves, I decided to skip the waterfall and hike my trusty Mafia back upriver to the giant wave and get enough rides on it to last at least a day. Talking about high energy surfing with off the lip cutbacks, turbo charged acceleration off the back-breaking white water down into the great depths of the wave... Wow, life does not get better than this...
Day 6, our last day on the river, greeted us with even more water, somewhere near 15K cfs. The waves were huge but, irregular for any surfing action. Just before the takeout I finally spotted a big wave-hole that appeared uniform enough to commit to. It looked like a giant waterfall from upstream all white with narrow green shoulders. To my group’s disappointment I have not had any flips and roll despite all my playing and this was a good time to change that. As I slid onto the green shoulder from upstream the perspective became quite clear. The slope was nearly vertical, leading into a rather deep and serious looking hole. As I was free falling into the hole, thinking that it was just too early in the day to drop into such mess, I quickly rotated my hips to produce an instant cutback, away from the house-eating hole. The Mafia changed direction instantly but, could not avoid burying its bow into the bottom of the wave. As if in slow motion, I got a powerful trust upwards and clear out of the water, quickly becoming vertical and beyond. Just as I was about to slam into the water upside down for an endo, a nice reach downward into the high energy water produced a smooth-as-silk rotation, landing me perfectly upright while finishing off the move with a 360 spin on top of the giant wave-hole. River Dance at its best.
"Shit" – exclaimed a disappointed John from our group who admittedly hoped to see me finally pay my dues for hogging most of the wave actions on the big river.
With the trip over, back to the stunningly beautiful village of Stanley. This town is incredibly beautiful, reminding me to the European Alps with those green valleys and rugged, snow capped mountains surrounding it. Great restaurants in town with fantastic food, as well.
Next day, on the way home, I was attempting to find some locals to run the Canyon section of the S.F. Payette river. No luck, most people I ran into must have been intermediates and they wanted nothing to do with this section at these high flows of about 4000 cfs. My wife over-ruled my decision for a solo run thus, I went shopping for a rafting outfitter to go with. They initially denied me going along in a kayak, due to the water levels, but changed their mind after I answered their inquisitive questions about my big-water experiences. My wife rode in one of the two rafts.
The S.F. Payette Canyon section is a serious river at this flow, a definite notch higher than the M.F. Salmon. Most rapids are rated class III and IV with Blackadar rapid rated 4+. I suspect that the ratings apply for normal water flows, however. While small volume compared to the M.F. Salmon a day earlier, this river is extremely constricted between narrow, deep canyon walls with a decent gradient. The water moves and surges in unusual patterns, keeping the boaters on their toes all the time not only in the rapids but in the very active eddies, as well. Portaging Big Falls, a huge series of ledge falls into one gigantic final hole, is a challenge. Catchers, using ropes and prayers, must catch the rafts in the moving water as they accelerate towards the unforgiving falls. A week earlier, high from the top of the canyon, we witnessed a raft drifting towards the falls with one kayaker standing on the shore with a rope in his hand. "That’s not going to work, he needs to tie the rope to a tree, he can not alone stop the raft" – I was telling my wife as we watched helplessly as the kayaker threw the rope, the raft guide landed the rope and, as soon as the kayaker pulled on the rope he pulled the guide backward, right out of the raft. Now the raft was going straight for the falls with no guide and the helpless passengers frozen in terror, not even attempting to paddle towards the shore. I guess, the prayer part must have worked as the guide swam after the raft grabbed it and somehow managed to swung it to the shore just before the lip. He must have held onto the throw rope to be able to reach shore, I guess... wow... that was extremely close, dangerous and irresponsible as hell.
Needless to say, my wife was somewhat nervous about the approach to the portage and, just in case, I was ready with my ropes, as well. This group did their job well and secured both rafts for the portage.
Just before the next rapid one of the raft guides pointed to a brass plaque that was fastened to a dark rock before the ominous-looking rapid falling into a very narrow rock canyon over a steep horizon line. It was in memory of Walt Blackadar, the Idaho boating legend who died in 1978 while running the rapid that now carries his name. Apparently, he pinned on a log that spanned this tight gorge. His grave is located in a small cemetery overlooking the river in the nearby Garden Valley. The rapid was big, powerful and not particularly difficult at this level.
Powerful rapids lasted quite a few miles. "Little Falls" is a river wide ledge hole that would be a nightmare for anyone blundering into it. It is runnable by punching through a diagonal set of waves and seams that are deflecting off the right shore. The hardest rapid at this level proved to be "Surprise" rapid. Huge diagonal waves got to be punched precisely in order to avoid a substantial hole near the bottom of the rapid. One of the raft guides confided in me that the raft tip-over ratio, at this level, was 1in 3. So, I quietly instructed my wife to paddle like hell over the diagonals... she did just that and they came through fine. The other raft failed to clear the big hole and flipped, justifying the guide's statistics. Great river, great day worth every penny spent on the outfitters.
After coming off the river at 3 PM, we were off to home in a non-stop 12 hour drive to CA. Drove across Donner Pass past midnight with smoke from the thousand wild fires so thick as a winter fog. With 1400 miles driven, the last few hours over dark mountain passes, we pulled into a bright shopping center, 10 miles from home to use the ATM machine. As I stepped out of the van, I heard this loud hissing sound and watched one of our rear tires quickly deflating. Perfect place to get a flat 2AM at night with all the bright lights around. As I found out next day, it was a sidewall failure that could have occurred any time, in some of those high speed mountain curves that we were experiencing for hours in total darkness. Guess, luck was with us, once again.
All together, a fantastic trip with great people. As usual, we made new friends that we hope to see and boat with in the future. It was great to finally meet Gordo and Bonnie, both wonderful people and we certainly hope to boat with them again soon. As to the M.F. Salmon; yes, that is a keeper too. Hopefully we’ll get back to it without waiting an other 35 years.
Albert |
TR - M.F. Salmon Magic, Gordissimo (Gordo), River Dance & S.F. Payette (LONG) New 
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