Lower Salmon River Raft, 2024

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Lower Salmon River Raft, 2024

For the second year in a row, we did not win any river lotteries despite 7 people applying for 5 rivers for 4 days each. So we decided to repeat last years Lower Salmon River trip since that had proven to be rather nice. This time, we had less time due to other constraints. So we opted for a bit less distance and less time. We put in at Hammer Creek, near White Bird, on July 2 and took out at Heller Bar on July 8. This was our 4th takeout in a row at Heller Bar since it also serves Hells Canyon trips.

The crew was almost the same as the last several trips: Kerry and Sharon Luttrell; Gill, Joe, Nora, and Pheobe Box; Mike, Elaine (Gardem), Katie, and Adam McCulloch, Joe's nephew Lucas, and myself (Craig Walker). All except me are from Nanaimo, BC. I am from Socorro, NM. We had 3 rafts, 1 cataraft (mine), and a kayak (Gill). Two inflatable kayaks were used mainly as toys.

A concern with the Lower Salmon is that a rapid near the end, the Slide, is dangerous above 20,000 cfs and, in early July, the river is dropping fast from Spring flows over 40,000 to 80,000 cfs to typical summer flows near 4000 cfs. Below 10,000 cfs, the Slide is very minor. We ran it on July 5 when the White Bird guage was showing about 9500 cfs after having dropped below 20,000 cfs on June 18.

The photos were taken with my Sony DSC-RX100M7. The camera's clock was set on Mountain Daylight time while the group was operating on Pacific Daylight time. The time zone boundary follows the Salmon River, so formally our "correct" time zone depended on which side of the river we were on. One curious effect, when the river was flowing north, was that sometimes the Pacific time zone was east of the Mountain time zone.

I also took a few videos but the files are huge so I'm not linking to them until I find a compression scheme.

Click on the image for a screen size version. The "2000" and "full size" versions are larger (not available in web versions).

My camp at Three Island Crossing State Park in Idaho. This was the night before arriving at the river.	Camp at the put in at Hammer Creek, a BLM recreational facility. This was before anyone else arrived.	On the boat ramp at the put in at Hammer Creek just before launching. Multiple other parties were also getting ready to go.	We're on our way about 40 minutes after launch. The scenery is pretty typical of this river.
Another fairly typical scend from a couple of hours later.	Satellite view of our first camp on July 2-3. This site is called Toads in the BLM guide, Toads Beach on Gaia, and Woodruff Gulch in the Whitis and Vinson guide. The mark labeled with my name is the location of my inReach when I sent a message to my wife Joan. This photo is from the Garmin web site that can be accessed from such messages.	Our camp at Toads/Woodruff.	The water had been nice and clear on July 2. We woke up July 3 to the brown water seen in this photo. It's still not quite as muddy as Southwestern rivers, but it's not far from that. There had been a landslide near the Middle Fork takeout a few days before that muddied the river. It took a couple of days to reach us. It cleared up over the next couple of days.
Getting ready to leave Toads/Woodruff.	Heading down the canyon.	Nora rowing my boat which she did from lunch to camp on July 3. I didn't touch the oars during that time and we went through a number of rapids. The insert is Nora on the Grande Ronde in 2016, also rowing my boat. The boat hasn't changed. She certainly has!	The Luttrell and Box boats. The stray foot on the right is Katie on the double IK tied to the back of my boat.
A cropped version of a photo of what I think is a bald eagle. It looks like it has a white head, although it is seen from the back. As with the turkey photos later, I've subjected this to somewhat excessive sharpening.	This shows the nature of the surrounding land. The Luttrell boat is behind. Farther behind I think is another party.	Heavy traffic. Nora is rowing my boat, Adam is rowing the McCulloch boat, Lucas is rowing the Box boat and Katie and Elaine (I think) are in the big IK. Gill is ahead in her kayak.	Gill in her kayak.
The other rafts behind us still with the younger generation rowing all but the Luttrell boat.	Close up of some of the rocks along the side of the river.	Someone passed Nora small orange just before a rapid (me?). This is how she dealt with it while occupied with rowing.	Satellite view of the Upper Pipeline campsite from the Garmin website with the location of my inReach device when I sent my daily message. We camped here the night of July 3-4.
The Upper Pipeline campsite shortly after arrival.	A tree on the skyline seen from camp.	The younger generation played a lot of card games, and we had everyone playing Werewolf nearly every night.	Joe Box at the Upper Pipeline campsite.
The Upper Pipeline campsite in the morning.	The groover location at the Upper Pipeline campsite. We had a good series of scenic groover spots on this trip.	Snowhole Rapid. This is the only one we scouted as I recall. In 2023, we scouted some others and this year went a bit from memory. The boat just below the rapid is a motorized commercial gear boat.	Kerry and Sharon in a rapid where I managed to get in position to take pictures.
Kerry and Sharon lower in the rapid.	Satellite view of the Clingon campsite from the Garmin website with the location of my inReach device when I sent my daily message. This was our layover site used from July 4-6. The Clingon name is in the BLM guide but not the Whitis and Vinson guide.	The kitchen and eating area at the Clingon campsite.	Another of the Clingon campsite. This looks like preparation for some strange games that involved running to the IK, jumping through a pool "inner tube", crawling over someone and jumping to the other IK while catching a ball. Some of the movies mentioned above are of this game.
A moth on someone's fingers. I forget who.	Mike dishing out dinner. It takes a fair amount of food to feed 12.	There were 3 turkeys behind camp the evening we got there. What I didn't notice until I was processing the photos over a month later is that there was also a cat.	A crop of the last photo showing the turkeys and cat. I have somewhat over sharppened this crop to try to firm up the identification of the cat. There is a ranch less than a mile away on our side, so it is not too crazy that there might be a domestic cat at the site. The turkeys look wary but not scared and they left uphill without taking off.
A crop of another picture of the turkeys and cat.	Walking to the camp upstream (called Screamer by the BLM). We likely would have taken that camp if it had not been occupied when we went by.	The Screamer campsite. It has a high sand embankment along the shore.	A group swim off the Screamer campsite. This is how many returned to our camp.
An artifact of unknown sort at the Screamer site, along with Mike's fishing gear.	The group sitting in the tarp shade on the afternoon of the layover day. It was hot! Left to right: Adam, Lucas, Mike, Joe, Nora, Elaine, Kerry, Katie, Pheobe, Jill, and Sharon. That's all but me (behind camera).	Elaine	Nora
Kerry	Nora roasting something. Like bannock?	A mermaid under my boat at night. Actually it's Nora.	Our flotilla headed down stream on July 6. Both IKs are deployed.
Kerry and Sharon checking out some columnar basalt. There is a lot of this in the general area.	Kerry and Sharon in the Slide rapid with the White Bird guage at about 9500 cfs. As advertised, it is a very mild rapid below 10,000 cfs flow.	We reached the Snake River in early afternoon of July 6 and set up camp at a site called Salmon Bar. It is just downstream of the confluence.	Our camp at Salmon Bar on the Snake River. Now that we're on the Snake, we have to worry about "tides". The water level fluctuates by something like a foot as they vary the hydroelectric power generation at the Hells Canyon Dam. Boats that were solidly beached when we went to bed were floating free in the middle of the night.
Another of the Salmon Bar campsite.	Nora and Lucas building cairns	Looking upstream across the river with a telephoto as the sun is setting. The mountain sheep on the hillside don't seem bothered by the group camping on the beach below.	The main event of the next day was stopping at Cherry Creek. We have collected water here on past trips. But this time we were already well supplied and a large party stopped at the same time so we moved on fairly quickly.
The McCulloch boat with Mike fishing, Katie rowing, and Adam hanging out.	We had our eyes on the Meat Hole campsite. We had made a very early start to be sure to get a good campsite, but that had the consequence that sites were still occupied by the previous night's occupants, as was Meat Hole. So we stopped at Across from the Meat. Soon the friendly jet boat group at Meat Hole invited us to come across and set up our camp while they were still there.	While we were waiting, some mountain sheep wandered through the Meat Hole site. At least 4 are visible in this photo. The cliff jumping sessions in the following photos take place off the right edge of this photo.	Satellite view from the Garmin website of the Meat Hole campsite that we used for the night of July 7-8, our last. The Across from the Meat site is the beach opposite and slightly upriver (down on the image) from the Meat Hole site. The big rock just upriver from the marked location is the site of the cliff jumping seen in the photos below.
Once we moved across and got settled, many of our group started cliff jumping from a good spot on the upstream side of camp. While I didn't jump, I did row my cataraft out to where I could get pictures. This one is of Adam jumping. I got many photos and a couple of movies (Which I need to compress before making available).	Katie making the jump from the high point. The image was made from a sequence of images by cutting the jumper out of most of the images and pasting them onto one image, carefully positioning the person based on background features (the camera was not exactly stationary being hand held on a raft). The background image was usually the one with the splash.	Lucas doing a back flip off a slightly lower point.	Adam doing a back flip off the same point.
Nora also doing a back flip off the same point. The first photo, with Nora standing, was taken about a minute before the jump. During that interval, the raft moved so the perspective is not quite right, but I think it is good enough. Curiously Nora does not seem to be going into the middle of the splash. I think that is real - the alignments are ok.	Three of the men from the jet boats jumping together following the example of the rest of our crew. They had each done a jump separately earlier.	My tent at the Meat Hole site in the evening.	Some deer along the river bank. We saw some more turkeys later.
Kerry and Sharon during the last day.	Kerry, Pheobe, Sharon, and Katie. This is my last photo of the river trip. I promised myself I'd take some of the takeout, but as usual, with me alone packing up a boat, it was so hectic that I forgot to do it. I didn't even get any at the Rivertree Inn in Clarkston where Kerry, Sharon, and I spent the night after the takeout or at Rooster's, the restaurant by the river where we had dinner.	There is another show for my trip sightseeing in the Canadian Rockies and Colorado and visiting family in Edmonton and south of Calgary over the following 20 days.