What
an incredible trip Sue and I had going down the Middle Fork of the Salmon
River! 96 miles of wilderness down the heart of Idaho back-country.
For 25 years we have been faithfully entering the lottery to go down the
river and for 25 years we have lost out. This year was different because
Paul Proctor decided it was time to work the system and sat at his computer for
hours searching for a cancelled trip. He got one!! 25 years ago,
Paul Proctor, Stan Pierce, Paul Wolters and I among 12 others, went down
the Selway River. That was the trip that resulted in the tragic accident
that took the life of Paul's brother, Kirk. We have managed to stay in
touch all these years, but this is the first time we managed to get together to
do something we all love....Rafting and the great outdoors.
My
brother Paul and my cousin Jim were going to go with me on this trip but
cancelled just a few days before we were ready to leave. I see this as a
wonderful blessing, many things all happened in perfect timing to allow Sue
to decide to join us. Just two days before we were to leave, Sue ran out
of reasons not to come along :o).. and of course, it was a very busy
couple of days getting everything ready to go. Much like a Lake Powell
trip, where we purchased all the food and organized the menus, fortunately I
had already made the menus and all we had to do was go shopping.
Still...Sue's wonderful organizational skills made it all the better.
The
first day on the river we went over Velvet falls...a pretty big drop, and the
water just sucked the 4 burner stove right out of the raft!! I thought I
had everything pretty well tied down, because that's the only thing that was
missing Friday night when we pulled into our first camp. Oh well...We
made do with a large grill we put on the fire pan and a small MSR camp stove
with only one bottle of fuel for the entire week. We ate very well, we
had a lot of fun, and Sue got a very healthy dose of good fishing every day.
I had a lot of fun each time we stopped at a camp or for lunch, I would
make rock cairns. After a while I got pretty good at stacking rocks and
many other people would float by and comment on them. For some reason, it
was very relaxing to do this...kind of a Zen thing.. The only other things that went wrong during the trip was that I went swimming with my cell phone - ARRRGGHH!! , and my air mattress would not hold air. Eight nights sleeping on the hard ground did wonders for my back ;o).. One might conclude that this one not a very fun trip, but I would counter that we had a wonderful time and I quickly ran out of adjectives to describe my awe of the beauty and majestic grandeur of this incredible country!! Yes!! I can't wait to do it again!!
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