I went on the Salmon River trip that was organized by the WRC to go run the rapids on the lower fork for a week. It is such a beautiful river and a really neat area despite the 10 hour drive to get there and the fact that it's in Idaho!
To start off this incredible adventure, we ran out of gas about 10 miles south of Boise because Daniel, our brave and fearless leader with a cast on one leg due to a big blown out tendon from climbing, decided not to stop in Burleigh for gas... We should have taken it as a sign.
So we get to the campsite at our launch point on the river and set everything up pretty smoothly. There were a lot of wasps but other than that everything went well, Ben, James, Cami, and I found pretty nice places to hook up four hammocks (other than the fact that Cami got strung up right underneath James so she had to deal with him right in her face all night!) The three shuttle runners take off so Cami and I bunker down in the two hammocks set out for Ben and I and we talked and listened to music for the four hours that we were waiting for the men to get back. Or friendly neighbors offered us beers which we politely declined and despite our best efforts we were both asleep by the time the boys returned. The shuttle took a little longer because they got smoothies, passed a nasty wreck with a rolled Subaru on the side of the road, oh and they HIT A DEER! They were okay and there were only a few dents on the car luckily and the deer actually got up after though I doubt it is still alive now. ...once again, maybe we should have taken a hint?
When we awoke, the old guy next door asked how we slept and then told us he tried to send some of their guys down to give us a goodnight kiss (not knowing Ben and James were back) so Ben really startled the man when he replied "good thing they didn't!"
The first day on the river was really mild and when we got to camp we set up the kitchen , hung the two hammocks we had room to hang, and then I pumped up the queen air mattress and started working on the storm shelter.
Just as we were finishing with the shelter, a microburst came and blew our air mattress down the river. We tried to hike down after it because we could see it blowing up river but then it'd get caught in an eddy and flow back down river.
The runaway air mattress and lack of available hammock space and rain flys forced us to sleep "double-double" in the two "two person" hammocks. When they say two person, they really mean two small people that really really like to cuddle way more than is humanly normal... so I'm sure that was pretty awkward for Cami and James who did I mention did not even know each other before this trip??? Hehe, it was pretty fun though and we all slept really warm that night until the rain started dripping into my hammock early in the morning which Ben quickly put an end to thank goodness!
The next day, the rapids were awesome! We went through China Garden and Snow Hole which are the two most impressive rapids of this particular trip. To top it all off... just before reaching Snow Hole, the first big rapid, we found the air mattress and it was still intact and inflated!!!
When we made it to the beach, we set up camp and prepared the rain flys instantly due to the ominous clouds above. Cami, Ben, James, and I set up two hammocks and the newly retrieved air mattress underneath a rainfly and a huge sealed nylon that we set up kind of like a very open tent. Once we were content with our "shelter" we started to play around.
Ben and James had let themselves get all scruffy and unshaven for ten days in preparation for the various theme nights... this look was for Hobo night and this is right before we shaved them...
The very complex shaving process...
And Finally the finished look: for steak night they went with the tough guy appearance complete with handle bar mustache and chops! They also wore bandannas/dew rags and dark t-shirts.
Cami and I had to join in the fun too... even though we didn't really have enough facial hair!
We all dressed up later for costume night on the river, it was so much fun! Cami dressed up as spiderman, James looked like a game show host from the 70's, Ben was a cow and I made myself a cow pie with brown clothing, brown make-up and grass/weeds to match!
NOW FOR THE EPIC PART:
After a steak dinner and fun with costumes, we went back to our little private campsite to watch the incoming storm. As I changed into my pajamas and brushed my teeth, it started to rain, obnoxious, but harmless so we didn't really pay much attention to it and got ready for a lightning show.
Before we could even watch the lightning, it all turned pretty ugly: the rain got heavier and the wind picked up so much that it literally tore the grommet from the corner of our sealed nylon tarp (that supposedly cannot be torn easily). Ben and James were trying to figure out a way to reattach it while Cami held the hammocks and I tried to gather all of our things into one spot under the tarp. I realized that my bedding was slowly being pushed toward the edge of the air mattress by the wind and in remembering how we lost the air mattress the day before, I jumped on the tarp spread eagle to hold it all down. The wind was so strong that every time Ben adjusted the sealed nylon, it would get under the tarp and lift me up so Ben was literally flying me like a kite while the rain and sand was being hurled at my back so fast that it stung so bad! At the same time Cami was trying to hold onto the hammocks and the other rainfly because we knew that would no longer be an option for sleeping in this particular storm and they were pulling on her with some pretty good force but somehow she kept herself grounded. Then of course, to make things better, the rain turned to hail. Not only was I freezing because at this point I was only wearing a soaking tank top and some equally wet basketball shorts but now there were painful darts of ice slamming into my back and the chill of the air freezing my insides but all I could do was lay spread eagle to save our things until Ben and James got the tarp under control by burying it under rocks and wet sand.
Finally we got that set up so I continued to gather our things and throw them under the tarp. Cami and I were both so cold that we were starting to shake uncontrollably and I realized that there really wasn't any quick and available source of heat out there on that river. Ben told us to get under the tarp and cuddle up in some dry clothes... only one problem, all of our dry clothes were sealed in dry bags and to open the bag would have soaked them all so we took off whatever was completely soaked and crawled under the tarp in our skivvies and somehow managed to find some dry sweaters under there to put on so we cuddled up together in the wet and sandy sleeping bags under the tight tarp. To give us some air and to help drain of the rain, Ben tried to put a pole up in the middle of the tarp which of course ripped a nice big hole right above Cami and I so the boys left to go try and set up another shelter for all of us to sleep in.
Just when Cami and I started to freeze to the point of uncontrollable shaking and we started to get seriously worried, the boys told us to come to the new shelter and bring all our bedding with us so we scrambled across the rocks to the overturned raft they had set up for us and once again cuddled up on our air mattress. Ben gave me a dryer sweater and asked me to find him some dry shorts and boxers for him to wear. I looked and found nothing... not even pants. Finally I saw it: the cow costume! hehe, so three of us slept in underwear and sweaters while Ben slept in his spotted fleecy costume complete with udders. Oh my!
This is Cami and I at our original shelter (the torn tarp) the morning after the crazy storm (also note the brown make-up still on my face and the fact that we're both wrapped up in blankets still because we hadn't yet opened the dry bags.
This is Ben and James... same place but looking
even more exhausted and amazed. That poor cow! Thank goodness they were both there to basically save us.
At the next beach, Ben worked hard to start making an amazing shelter until James, Cami and I realized what he was doing and jumped in to help and add our own ideas. It was so sweet! First he dug down two feet in the sand with a paddle and made a hole that was nice and level and right next to a big flat rock. Then he flipped a 14' raft and strapped the non rock end to a water filled cooler. Then we pulled up the other rafts to stabilize and block the wind as well as lining the other edges with dry bags to keep the storm out, then we laid the cursed sealed nylon on top to seal it all off.
This is the outside of our fortress for the night...
Like I said: this shelter was way sweet! We hung out there all evening listening to music and talking and joking around. It was so much fun and did I mention how nice it was to not have to worry about the storm??? Soo good!!!
James handed out flossers to everyone the next morning and of course me being the future hygienist that I am had to capture that moment!!! Hooray for good oral hygiene!!!
This is me riding on the gear boat with Ben as usual but this was the last day that was really unusually cold. I kept asking Ben if I could paddle to warm my muscles up at least and I would dip my feet in the water to help thaw them out because the air was so cold.
And there he is, paddling us home safely. He paddled the 1000+lbs. of gear boat and myself down about 60 miles of that river in about four days... pretty amazing if you ask me :) Instead of camping again in Riggins, ID on the way home like they usually do, we drove straight home that night and arrived back home around 3:00AM so we didn't even unload all the stuff until the next day. We were all so tired we just went our separate ways and went straight to bed!
What an amazing trip that was... EPIC!
