Pre-Trip Anticipation

My daughter Jenn has a birthday this month and she always wanted to kayak/raft in the Salmon River area…..especially the Middle Fork Salmon. So it seemed natural to take her on this trip. Little did I know that this birthday present for her would be scaring me half to death.

Making plans for the O.A.R.S. Salmon River trip was very easy. I deliberately choose the end of July because the water is usually down a bit; but still very exciting. BUT NOT THIS YEAR!!!!! Being somewhat of a novice in white water rafting and a person who has not camped a lot, I was looking for a relatively calmer experience. But mentally I am now ready for some major excitement.

The trip was planned way before all the rivers flooded their banks and the snow melt, instead of early spring, hung around until July. As I sit on my deck looking up at the Rocky Mountains, I canʼt believe that this is July 18th and we still have this much snow.

Now I am getting heart palpitations just thinking about the more than 300 rapids that flow on this stretch of the Middle Fork. About 100 or more that we will be navigating (or should I say bouncing over) and the hundred plus miles that we will be traveling. The Middle Fork elevation starts around 7000 feet above sea level and drops 3900 feet. Some of these rapids are named Dagger Falls, Sulfur Slide, Chutes, Power House, Devilʼs Tooth and many more. With names like that- how can you not have trepidations? Especially since they are class lll to lV in a normal year. (lV being the highest). And who knows what they will be like this year with all the strange weather patterns we have experienced. And one more thing that I should not forget to mention is the temperature of the water that has not yet warmed up.

Now that we are only one week away from the trip I am praying for hot weather to warm the river and get all of the snow melted and headed down stream.

Written by Beth Robbins

Robbins is a Philadelphia native who grew up loving culture and the excitement of city life. She attended undergraduate school at the University of the Arts and received a master’s in Fine Arts at Temple University and The Tyler School of Art. Robbins taught art history for 16 years and sponsored off-campus trips for high school and college students. Her interest in travel sparked when she backpack and trekked on her own throughout England, France, Spain and the Mediterranean for five months. She later started an interior design business and art consultation company. She has two children and currently lives in Steamboat Springs, Colorado within the Rocky Mountain high country.