A Little Story About My Trip Down the Salmon River

July 22, 1994 - Woke early (6 am); broke camp; coffee & donuts; on the road at 7:00. Stopped for a quick look at Narada Falls, and a few last backward glances at Rainier, then headed east. Wound our way through the hills to Yakima. Then down the highway between brown rolling hills, farmland, immense fields of wheat - some being harvested as we drove by. And then up into the (subtly different) hill country leading to Clarkston and, across the Snake River, Lewiston ID.

Found the Ramada Inn, with the help of a local (T. says cute) guy on a motorcycle whom we asked for directions. He was going that way, so we followed him. Rich had already checked in yesterday, so we went & said hello to him. Then, while unloading the car, we ran into Dom in the lobby, freshly arrived. We compared showering histories, and Dom won the lack-of-showering contest hands-down.

Next followed a few hours of un-packing, re-packing, showering, cleaning and organizing, along with the arrival of our friend John & two of his undergrad proteges, Chris & Chuck. They were just passing through town in the middle of a summer of fieldwork. Also, a 7:00 pm meeting with Bronco, our trip leader. Also attending the meeting were fellow travelers Molly, Kent & Steve of Colorado, and Paulette from Key West. At the meeting, we got our dry-bags and ammo cases (for carrying breakables, not ammunition), and Bronco told us to be in the lobby ready to leave at 5:45 am the next morning, so as to be sure that our airplanes would be able to take off before the air got too hot and thin. After the meeting, 8 of us (the NJ river contingent, plus Paulette, John, Chris, & Chuck) walked to a nearby Mexican restaurant for dinner, margaritas, and conversation. Then we hurried back to the hotel to finish packing.

Somewhere in the evening, we managed to squeeze in a visit to the liquor store for tequila, and 2 visits to the grocery store. Finally made it to bed around 11:30. I woke up at 3:30 and didn't get back to sleep, so it was a short night.

July 23 - By the time our 5:00 wakeup call came in, I had showered and dressed already. Tatiana crawled out of bed and into the shower while I did some last-minute packing. We put one bag in the trunk of the car, checked two with the hotel porter, and squished the rest of our stuff into out dry-bags, ammo boxes, and day packs, then trooped down to the lobby just in time, with me munching donuts on the way. Bronco arrived 10 minutes later, and we loaded up a truck with equipment and a van with people. Drove out to the airfield. Took two small planes across the state to Salmon, where we had a light breakfast of fresh-baked muffins and orange juice in the Air Taxi office. Then loaded ourselves onto 2 vans and drove into the outback.

A brief stop in North Fork for last-minute purchases (e.g. more cases of beer!), then up a dirt road about 30 miles to the Corn Creek boat ramp (near the confluence of the main Salmon and the Middle Fork, I think), where we met the rest of our guides: Lonnie, Leon, Joel, Colby and Don. Launching from Corn Creek at the same time as our crew, was a fleet of past and present river guides having a reunion. Our launch was successful, without a hitch. Dom and I started in an inflatable pseudo-kayak, called a "Tahiti", of which there are two among our supplies. Our complement of craft also counts 3 dories (1 fiberglass, 1 aluminum, 1 wood & kevlar) and 3 rafts (2 for equipment, 1 for passengers).

The tahiti was fun, but wet. There was also some inter-tahiti splash-battling. After lunch, I joined T., Rich and Paulette in Leon's dory, the Morro Rock. The highlight of the day's rapids was Rainier Falls - not too wild, but a nice start. Tatiana drew Leon (along with Paulette and I) into an in-depth conversation about interpersonal relationships, centered on what kind of a woman he wants for a wife. He seems to want most of the usual things - smart, funny, pretty - but definitely NOT a red-head! Mostly he's looking for that "perfect match", and hasn't gotten close enough yet.

We're camped tonight at the Devil's Toe, just below Devil's Teeth Rapid. An impressive sounding name, but a very enjoyable, tranquil spot. Steaks and salmon for dinner, along with real mashed potatoes, broccoli, and strawberry shortcake for dessert. A little beer, some more conversation - two of our party are a father and son from South Africa. Grape farmers, I believe; there's also an older (than the rest of us, that is) couple, Bill and Florine; he's a judge. Molly and Kurt are Boulder CO police officers; her husband Steve is a D.A. Paulette's a lawyer; she's divorced after 18 years of marriage; the judge and his wife have been married 35 years. There's one other older woman whom I haven't figured out yet, and then there's Moose and Screw (I believe their real names are both Gary). These are a couple of big, fun-loving guys who seem like they're always laughing, and they have lots of stories. The last conversation of the night, as total darkness crept around us, was Screw's story of his trip to the Caribbean, the highlights of which were two wrecked dinghies (because one escaped it's tether and washed up on a coral beach) and a crewmate's unexpected death by heart attack.

July 24 - I awoke to the sounds of the river and, shortly, of coffee being made by the breakfast cook (the guides rotate cooking duties among 2-man teams). Most of the crew were still abed, as I took my first morning piss into the river. Procedure dictates that urinating be done into the river. For privacy, men go downstream, women upstream. Or, you can just wade in until you're deep enough, and let loose - this latter is most effective on hot afternoons, when the added bonus of a cooling dip in the water is to be highly appreciated.

We had a hearty breakfast, and broke camp by 9:00 am. Tatiana and I started in a Tahiti; Dom & Rich & Kurt rode with Lonnie. T. & I faired pretty well in the kayak. We had numerous fun little rapids and riffles to go through, and a couple of major splash-battles with dories, mostly based on a feud with Lonnie's boat that ended in a cold-war, after we successfully sneak-attacked and retreated without any casualties.

The biggest water we encountered was Salmon Falls. We got briefings on how to run it in the tahiti from Lonnie and Bronco, then followed Lonnie into the breach. The falls is an extremely narrow chute between two rocks; you drop suddenly, then go through some standing waves. We hit the entry perfectly, and made it most of the way through, but we let up too soon, and the last big wave quartered us, and flipped us over. We didn't get much wetter than we already were, but we surely lost style points there. The tahiti was easily righted, and we climbed quickly back in and continued on.

At lunch, we met a herd of bighorn sheep that were foraging along the shore. Everybody with a camera lined up across the beach and took pictures of them. After lunch, Tatiana and I joined Dom and Rich in Lonnie's boat, and Kurt went in the tahiti with Moose. We did a couple of larger rapids in the afternoon. We even pulled ashore twice so the guides could scout the rapids before running them. [They say it can get pretty tricky to make it through without grounding when the water is this low.] Everyone came through just fine, though, with only a few minor hull-scrapings. In one long flat spot, Dom, Tat, and I all slipped overboard for a cooling dip. We had a good splash-battle with Leon's boat, too.

Finally, after about 20 miles downstream on the day, we pitched camp at Swimmer's Beach (?), a wide, long, sandy beach. Before dinner, the guides told a few stories, the most entertaining of which was "How Goat Beach Got It's Name".

Many years ago, Joel and Bronco were on a trip together, on which one of the customers was a "fitness freak". They camped at what was then Fish Beach, and discovered a pair of feral Murabi goats atop the ridge. They warned the customers not to rile the goats by going too close to them, or jumping around, which might attract their attention. Soon, however, the fitness freak had pitched a tent up near the goats, and was doing jumping jacks and jogging around his tent. Well, the billy goat couldn't resist coming down off the ridge, and was soon chasing the terrorized fitness freak through the camp! When they headed toward the kitchen area, Joel grabbed a 2x6 plank that happened to be handy, and challenged the billy, standing in his path, stamping and yelling, and wielding the plank. The surprised goat stopped dead in his tracks, and then decided to butt Joel. As he sprang, Joel swung his plank. Goat and plank crashed together, the blow landing squarely on his forehead. Then the goat, shaking and clearly shaken, retreated up the hill to a vantage point from which it watched Joel intently the rest of the evening. From then on, the goat terrorized anyone camping at that beach, until the Forest Service eventually shot it.

Dinner was fettuccine with shrimp, salad, and garlic bread, with a wonderful fresh-baked spice cake for dessert (baked by Don in a Dutch oven), followed by beer and conversation on the beach. The thunderclouds had been blossoming all afternoon, and at nightfall, they rolled in, echoing in the hills, lighting up the night, and bringing a welcome cool breeze and some rain. Tatiana and I sat on the beach watching the lightning until the rain came, then crawled into our tent and peered out, watching some more. As the rain ended and the storm moved on, we fell asleep.

July 25 - It was a clear, chilly morning, with wet sand on the beach from the night's storm. Cold cereal, bread, and fruit were not as welcome as a hot breakfast would have been, but were tasty and well-appreciated anyway. By the time we broke camp and were ready to shove off, I was feeling daring enough to paddle a Tahiti again with Dom, though we were expecting to encounter our toughest runs yet. Moose & Screw took the second Tahiti. The first big run of the day was Five-Mile Rapids. Dom & I followed the dories down the left side and powered our way left of the rock and through the big standing waves at the bottom, two of which nearly flipped us, but we managed to hang on, for a spectacularly wet and wild ride. Moose & Screw did nearly as well, but capsized in one of the waves.

Soon we were scouting Big Mallard Falls, a tricky descent down the left side of a rapid to shoot through a funnel between two huge boulders. We tahitians talked with the guides about the route while looking it over from the safety of the rocky shore. Lonnie and Bronco gave instructions. Some of the dory passengers walked around the falls, while the rest moved onto the rafts, to lighten the dories' loads. And then we were in the river again, speeding downstream toward the falls. The increased confidence from our careful pre-planning was tempered, if not negated, by the increased fear from actually having seen beforehand all the dangerous rocks we now had to find our way past. But we hit the route perfectly, and flew through with relative ease, yelling and screaming all the way. The dories and rafts too came through unharmed. But while we were re-organizing just below the falls, another group came through in rafts, with considerably less grace than we had managed. None of their rafts avoided hitting at least one side of the funnel, and one actually lost a person overboard: their guide and steering-oarsperson. She was rescued without incident or injury in the slack water below.

After lunch, I moved to Lonnie's boat with Tatiana & Rich, while Dom took Charles (the younger South African) in the tahiti. More big (well, biggish) water in the afternoon. We stopped a few times to scout rapids. Bronco was expecting we'd get bumped out of the campsite he'd been hoping to use, because there were many raft trips taking campsites all along the way, and others still travelling in front of us somewhere. But when we got there, the Warren Creek site was still open, so we made camp. While dinner was cooking, Leon got us started on a game of "Two Truths and a Lie" - one person tells three short "facts" about their life, one of which is not true, and everybody else tries to guess which is the lie. We had such fun with it, the cooks slowed down with cooking dinner so that they wouldn't have to interrupt us to feed us. In the evening, I developed a headache that was to plague me the entire following day, as it turns out; so I went to bed early.

July 26 - Blueberry pancakes and sausages started us off well today, and the mild headache I awoke with dissipated quickly. Tatiana, Dom and I rode with Bronco in the Malibu, the lead boat.

Each of our dory boatmen has a unique style. They are all very laid back and outgoing, but Leon is the most laid-back - he's just WAY cool. Lonnie, whom Tatiana has dubbed the Zen Master, is the most meticulous rower, I think. He has an inner calmness that radiates from him. Bronco, though still way laid-back, bears the responsibility of leadership well. He also seems to be the most interested in pointing out the various landmarks and points of interest, and telling the stories behind them.

In the heat and the sun, my headache returned, and stayed with me on and off all day. While the guides were scouting "Ludwig", the biggest run of the day, I took a quick nap on the deck. Just before lunch, we stopped at Buckskin Bill's, where we looked at B. B.'s rustic home and all the tools he made by hand, and learned a bit about him. The only things he went to town for (they say) were books, gunpowder, and tobacco. Tatiana bought me a root beer float and a T-shirt.

After lunch was more of the same, floating downstream with Bronco. He told us a bit about his recent trip to Alaska. Now Dom wants for us all to do a big Alaska trip in '96. When we finally got to our campsite, there were two forest-service rangers just starting to set up camp for a big group arriving tomorrow. Bronco got a bit upset, but in the end he "just kept smiling", and we went around the bend to a not-as-nice (too much sun) site on the opposite bank. It didn't take long, once the boats were unloaded, for a "hippo party" to develop, with the entire 21-person crew sitting half-submerged in the river, drinking beer and telling jokes and a few bawdy limericks:

After a fine lasagna dinner, as night fell, seeing as how it *was* *afterall*, Tuesday, I broke out a deck of cards and some tequila, and we taught some folks how to play Liar's Poker. We had a fun time, though it didn't last too late and the tequila wasn't very popular. At least we got to play cards on Tuesday, as is our wont. I was still fighting a headache, so sleep was a pleasant release for me.

July 27 - Slept well, woke late, still not feeling really well. Huevos Flamingas for breakfast - layers of sausage, potato, & tomato-paste/spices/salsa, with eggs (whole yolks) and cheese on top, baked in a Dutch oven. Tasty!

I wanted to tahiti again, because it's wetter, hence cooler than the dories, which I thought would be good for my head. Almost went with Dom, but at the last minute Tatiana decided she wanted to do it after all, so Dom rode with Leon in the Morro Rock. All the dories owned by the company are named after places of natural beauty which have been "sorely used by mankind".

Tatiana and I had an OK morning of tahitiing - she was feeling nervous about it, and I was way off my usual rhythm, so it was tough. But there were no major rapids, so we survived it pretty well anyway. Just before lunch, we stopped at Poly Bemis's place, and looked at the cabin there. Another of the outstanding figures in Salmon River history, she started out an indentured servant from China, and died in the 30's, 80 years old and a successful homesteader.

At our lunch stop (*after* eating lunch), most of the gang went for a hike along a creek, up a side canyon. A few stayed behind, to relax, read and swim. I started the hike, but soon my head was pounding, threatening a return of the headache, so I turned around and went back to the boats, where I sat in the shallow water to keep cool, and wrote in my journal.

While resting thus, 3 separate jetboats went by, each in its turn disturbing the natural calm of the place. Otherwise, the only sounds were the rippling of water against beach, and the background churning of a nearby rapid - just a small riffle, really. And the hot sun continued to beat down, forcing us again and again from the scant shade into the water to cool off.

Having such a thorough rest mid-day, I felt much refreshed, and, as we didn't have far to go (and Tatiana had had enough of the tahiti for one day), I tahitied solo in the afternoon. No big rapids, just little stuff, and quite a bit of flat water. Upon our arrival at our campsite, another hippo party evolved. And Leon had the idea of serving hors d'oeuvres in the water! So they set up a table in the river, with it's top about half a foot above water level, and we all snacked and hippoed to our hearts' content.

Today, somebody came up with the idea of "rock walking", first at lunch, then we did more in camp. This involves picking up a large rock, and walking out into the river, completely submerged, walking as far as you can. I did a few walks just for fun. Some of the guys had a contest to see who could walk the farthest. Either Moose or Screw won, I'm not sure which.

After dinner Leon taught us another game - "In the manner of the word", where the group ejects one person, then chooses an adverb, then the ejectee comes back and asks people to act out things "in the manner of the word", until he guesses what word the group chose. We had fun, though it proved hard not to pick a word that was either too easy or way too hard.

Then we all went to bed...oh, I forgot to mention that some forest service people stopped at our camp just after we landed, to look at the vegetation a bit, then went on up the river in jet boats.

July 28 - Tatiana and I woke up pretty late [well, early by our standards] and joined the others for french toast and bacon. We rode in Leon's boat today. Not much excitement in the morning. Chicken salad for lunch; at a great little swimming hole with a little underwater ledge and very deep water, Kurt lost his sunglasses jumping in. A few of us tried to dive and find them - me using a rock-walk technique. Then Lonnie found them on his first dive, impressing everyone.

shortly after lunch, we stopped at Crooked Creek (?) and took a hike up the creek to a very pretty waterfall. We cooled off in the water, took some photos and relaxed, then hiked the mile back down.I had loaded my film wrong, so didn't get any photos with my camera.

In the afternoon we had a few big runs. Leon hit bottom hard enough to cause a small leak in the 'glass boat, in Carey Falls. Vinegar Rapid had some nice waves. At day's end, we found a nice little beach just above French Creek, under a big rock cliff. Kurt and Molly made enchilada casserole for dinner. Tatiana and I, for the first time, didn't bother putting up a tent.

July 29 - Scrambled egg omelets for breakfast; group pictures on the beach, because we're losing some people at lunch. Tatiana and I rode in the front of Bronco's boat today. Easy morning, just a lot of rowing, with a few riffles. At lunchtime, we pulled out at a boat ramp, where we were met by two kayakers - Keith and Jethro; a new guide - Andy, who will be replacing Don for the rest of the trip; a new "green machine"; and transportation back to Boise for Carol, Martin, and Charles - we will miss them. We got the boats re-stocked, had lunch, used the pit toilet (a luxury, compared to the green machine!), and then got back on the river.

[Ed. note - didn't Don end up sticking with us after all? how did that work out?]

During the afternoon, we rowed past a region that had just burned in a forest fire. I believe it was started by a lightning strike in the storm on the 24th. It had burned right down to the river in places, and the fire fighters were still fighting it farther up a side valley. All afternoon, starting at our lunch spot, and right on through to our campsite, we watched and heard the constant flow of helicopters (there seemed to be three) dipping their 500-gallon bags dangling below the choppers, into the river, and flying up the side valley to dump them on hot spots. They flew until about sunset, by which time we were well into another hippo party, with floating hors d'oeuvres bar again.

The sunset was very pretty, probably helped by the smoke from the forest fire. And we had dutch-oven brownies for dessert. There's a couple guys across the river from us tonight, with 2 jet-skis, which were annoying for a while, but they seem to have stopped for the night.

During the hippo bar, Lonnie was paddling about in Keith's kayak - even visiting the "paddle-up hors d'oeuvres bar". He made a bet with Kurt, for a bottle of single-malt scotch, which sounded improbable: that he could roll the kayak while holding an open beer can, and not get any water in the beer. In the end, he lost the bet, but only because he's out of practice; he did prove it could be done. He does it by doing the roll without a paddle (difficult enough on it's own!), and, keeping the beer upright and above water, passes it from one hand to the other, over the bottom of the upside-down 'yak! Impressive!!

July 30 - The weather has been so consistently hot, dry and sunny during the day that I haven't even bothered mentioning it yet. But they say it's running at least 20 degrees above the usual average for this time of year. It's been really hot. Every day. And virtually no clouds.

Early this morning (we woke up extra early, hoping to make 38 miles today, to get into the lower gorge), it was overcast and almost chilly.... Well, the dinner horn was just blown, so I'll continue this after dinner. (Bronco has a conch shell with the end cut off, which makes a wonderful horn - he uses it to announce breakfast and dinner. I've gotten to blow it a couple times. Tonight, Keith did it.)

So, this morning came cloudy and cool; Tatiana, Kurt and I rode the raft with Joel. I didn't sleep well last night, because of the heat and bugs - too hot in the tent, too buggy outside. So I spent much of the day napping in various positions on the front of the raft. There were a couple of good splashy rapids in the morning, which got us good and wet. I got chilly enough that I put on my new rain jacket for a while.

By lunchtime, the sky cleared up quite a bit (I found an old moose bone in the river at lunch), and we had another hot and sunny afternoon. The boatmen had a lot of rowing to do, through large sections of slack water. The convective up-valley breeze, typical of the afternoons here, sprang up, impeding our progress. By mid-afternoon, when it was clear we wouldn't make it all the way to the lower gorge, Bronco had us all pull over and stop at the base of a bridge where the highway crosses the river, and he ran up to a fruit stand and bought us a watermelon, which we devoured immediately. Then Keith went up and bought us another one, which we carried to camp, and later "injected" with half of Tatiana's vodka supply, by inverting a small-mouth Nalgene bottle in a plug-hole cut into the melon and letting it set all night.

On down the river, just before making camp, we flushed a beautiful golden eagle, who circled over the hills above us for a while. The countryside, though still steep, is a bit more rolling here, and virtually bare of trees - not as pretty or as wild as the upper section, which was more gorge-like. The beach tonight is full of goose shit, but otherwise nice.

Another hippo party tonight, most of the discussion centering on Screw's potential run for Governor of California, and what part each of us would play - not a bit of it serious. That was followed by a spaghetti dinner, and an early retirement to bed.

One technical note this evening - upon a suggestion of Bronco's, we poured a couple of buckets full of river water on the sand where we were going to set up the tent, to cool the sand off. This was a very good idea.

July 31 - This morning, under hot, clear skies, Leon announced that there would be a storm tonight, because whenever they serve pork chops in the lower gorge, it is stormy. We had a nice pancake breakfast, and a nice float down the river - mostly rowing through slack water again. Tiana, Moose & I rode with Leon. Nobody wanted to paddle the tahitis either yesterday or today, because there was too much flat water to bother with. Just before lunch time, we made the boat ramp where most lower gorge trips begin. There were a couple groups just starting as we passed, and supposedly a couple were not far ahead, so after talking with them, Bronco decided to slow our pace, and stay behind them today. One of the groups consisted of a single equipment raft and a dozen cheap tahitis. Their guide said that they do similar trips in the Grand Canyon, running everything in the tahitis except Lava and Crystal. We were all surprised.

Shortly thereafter, we took a long lunch break. Bronco talked a while about the geological history of the Northwest - subduction zone, granite lobes, columnar basalt, lava flows, volcanoes, and so on. Then we played horseshoes for a while. Eventually we packed up and moved on. Only went a few miles further before Bronco decided to make camp, on a lovely little beach. We set up a canopy for some shade, then some of us took turns righting Lonnie's dory, because he'd never flipped it before, and he wanted to test it. Dom and I did one flip. Compared to a catamaran, it's really easy, but then, I guess they need to be able to do it fast in a rapids. Dom and I did the fastest - 16 seconds; Colby did the fastest solo - 22 seconds.

About this time, a thunderstorm in the next valley South of here became noticeable, but it was stalled out, so I, at least, thought we'd still avoid the storm. I went for a solo hike, up the side of the canyon, to see how high I could get. The canyon walls are deceptive - from the river, one can only see two or three hundred feet of hillside, but upon attaining that height, the top is clearly again as far. Having done that second stage, you see that you're not done yet - there is another few hundred feet to the first real summit, and even that doesn't take you to the very top, though it is the end of the really steep part of the climb. That's as far as I went. It was a good, hard climb, and I took some good pictures of the storms (there's another one in the valley to the North too), and the geology. I saw one deer skeleton and a spherical glob about 3 ft in diameter, of what appeared to be slate. Very strange-looking. The rest of camp was drinking and playing horseshoes. I returned to camp, and the storms still seemed to be holding their positions, but it had been decided to postpone eating the festive watermelon until tomorrow, because the air had cooled off considerably.

As the pork chops cooked on the grill, the thunderstorms rolled in, and we furiously set up our tents. It began to rain as we ate, and the wind blew over a kitchen table. By dessert it had pretty much blown over, so we played a few games and then went to bed. First, the aardvark and smurf game, where we all stood in a circle and passed around two kitchen utensils (the "aardvark" & "smurf"), in opposite directions around the circle, recursively naming them - it's hard to describe, but simple, and the resultant chaos when the paths of the utensils cross is hilarious. The dialogue for one utensil, after four iterations, is:

  person 4 (to p.5): "This is a smurf."
  person 5 (reply):   "A what?"
  p.4 (to p.3):        "A what?"
  p.3 (to p.2):         "A what?"
  p.2 (to p.1):          "A what?"
  p.1 (reply):           "A smurf"
  p.2 (to p.3):         "A smurf"
  p.3 (to p.4):        "A smurf"
  p.4 (to p.5):       "Oh! - This is a smurf."
  p.5 (to p.6):      "This is a smurf."
  etc., ad confuseum.

Then we played "Honey, I love you, won't you smile?" Then we had the big final horseshoe showdown, which lasted till after dark with flashlights. All in all, a tiring day. Also, I finished composing this poem:

The River's Journey

August 1 - We had a little more rain during the night, but not much. And by morning, the wind had dried things off pretty well, except for the cool damp sand under foot. As usual, we had breakfast, broke camp, and hit the river by about 9:00 am. For this morning, I was with Tiana, Screw, and Bronco in the lead boat. We went through Green Canyon and Cougar Canyon, and had some pretty nice rapids. We had lunch on a tiny beach, with an itty bitty spot of shade from one tree. The weather was hot and dry again, with perfect blue skies. The guides inflated both the tahitis; Dom and Screw took one, Paulette and I the other. We had some really nice whitewater in the afternoon, and Paulette loved going over big rollers, so we aimed at them when we could. At our first big rapids, Lonnie told us to follow the dories and STAY RIGHT, but we somehow ended up going backwards down the left side for a while. But I managed to get us back under control and on the right side of the river before getting into any trouble.

By mid-afternoon, Paulette was tired, so she went back to a dory (Bronco's, as Tiana had been his only passenger since lunch), and I got Moose as a new partner. We had some even better whitewater after that, and some challenging runs. Stopped to scout one rapid. And on the slack sections between rapids, we had an ongoing waterfight between the tahitis, including some protracted periods of very devious maneuvering for position in order to try to overturn the other tahiti. All we succeeded in doing was getting each other thoroughly wet.

Camp tonight is at a very large beach; most of the tents are up on a bench under some trees (Bronco called them mahogany; I don't know). We ate the spiked watermelon as soon as we got into camp (it got postponed from yesterday, due to the inclement weather). We didn't get to camp until about 6:00 today, because we had to leapfrog past a bunch of other groups, and many campsites were already taken. That made for a long, wearying afternoon of tahitiing for me, and I'm dead tired, with sore hands and stiff arms.

We stayed up just late enough to do some stargazing, then crawled off to our beds. I almost forgot - Keith got out his guitar, and I my harmonica, and we made some music for a while, too.

August 2 - Our last full day on the river, already. We rode in the front of Lonnie's boat. Moose was in the rear. One tahiti in the water this morning - Screw and Paulette. An enjoyable morning; hot and sunny. More water, more rocks, more waves. We had to stop and scout China Rapid, and while we were there, we took a look at the ruins of a small Chinese settlement there. Apparently, many Chinese were brought over to build the railroads, and when that was done, they were left to their own devices, and many starved trying to eke out a living panning for gold on the Salmon River.

Lunch was made later on, under a lovely grove of black locust trees, where Bronco told us the story of the fall of the Nez Perce Indians and Chief Joseph, which I won't relate here for lack of space and time.

In the afternoon, we stopped at the beginning of Blue Canyon and hiked up to a nice vantage point which looked down into the canyon. Everyone took pictures. At the end of the day, we found a nice campsite just a couple of miles above the confluence of the Salmon with the Snake River. We can see Oregon land from here. Keith spent the afternoon flitting between boats in his kayak, trying to arrange a horseshoes tournament. As soon as we landed (with a waterfight still in progress, which saw Joel and Screw tossed from the passenger raft, and Paulette left to row it ashore!), Keith was setting up the 'shoes pit.

The tournament took most of the evening. Dom and I were fortunate to draw the 'bye' in the first round (there were 7 teams; we had settled on a single-elimination format). We beat Moose and Tatiana in the second round. Everyone had conceded that Bronco and Joel were most likely to win before the tournament even started, and indeed, they beat us handily in the final.

After dark, we had a small campfire, and s'mores for dessert. Then people told stories, read poems, and made music - oh, and did amazing feats, such as diving into a bucket of water, and making an egg disappear (Keith) - until late into the night. The best part was the music, with guitar, harmonica, and an assortment of pots and pans for percussion. Screw did a lengthy ad lib blues-rap story about Moose's three-legged dog, with percussive accompaniment, which was fun. Kurt related the story of meeting his girlfriend's parents, with his new Harley-Davidson motorcycle ("enough is enough; I'll do the damn dishes!"). Bronco recited "I want to be in Texas". And of course we drank beer and whiskey.

Around 3:00 am we were awakened by a light rainfall. It got just bad enough that those of us sleeping outside decided to rouse ourselves and pitch tents. By the time that was done, the rain stopped, so Tiana & I decided to stay outside, just in front of our tent. A bit later, it rained some more, but we held tough for a while and it stopped again, and that was the end of it. So we stayed outside the whole night.

August 3 - The day of endings: our last breakfast, last breaking of camp, last time to use "the unit", which I've mostly avoided mentioning up until now. The Unit, alias the Green Machine, our portable toilet, a frequent topic of conversation, known and loved - well, known anyway, by all.

Tiana & I rode with Bronco today. We had a couple of really fun rapids at the end of Blue Canyon, then we joined the Snake, and it was mostly flat water and passing jet boats the rest of the way. The last big rapid, Deer Head, had some of the biggest standing waves we've seen. We had a quiet lunch next to an unused cabin, in a bit of shade from some overhanging rocks, took some group photos, then floated on down to the boat ramp at Heller Bar.

Much of the time that we were on the Snake, we found ourselves in the midst of a swarm of caddis flies. They were quite annoying. Bronco pointed out that sometimes they get so thick that you need a bandana over your mouth to keep from inhaling them. It wasn't that bad today.

At the boat ramp, we unloaded all the boats, put them on trailers, loaded the gear into the vans, and drove into Lewiston, drinking beer all along the way, trying to finish off the supply. At the Ramada Inn, we emptied our dry-bags into huge piles on the hotel room floors, and everyone took showers. Tiana & I showered together, so we could scrub each other's backs thoroughly. Eventually, all the accumulated grime seemed to come off - we left quite a ring of dirt in the bathtub! I managed to sneak a short nap, then we all drove downtown to a restaurant called Jonathan's for drinks and dinner. We got there at 7:00, but some of the guides were late (they had a lot more chores to take care of), so we didn't sit down for dinner until 8:00. In between, we mostly drank Moss Bay Amber - from a local microbrewery. We got a private room for dinner. Everyone seemed to have a good time; many stories of our adventures were retold. The food was very good, and we stuffed ourselves mercilessly. The good-byes at the end of the evening were sad and heartfelt, but there is hope that at least some of us will meet up again on another river. Perhaps in Alaska, a couple of years hence. I would be happy to have any of these folks on the river with me again. As Bronco said in his parting remarks, this was a very special trip, in a number of ways.

My friends, may the wind and the current always be at your backs.