Michele's Adventure on the L ower S almon R iver
I was very lucky to have a chance to accompany fellow B L Mers on their weekly river patrol of the L ower S almon R iver in western Idaho.
Above: The B L M river staff are great people and they have a big job to do. They float the stretch once a week. Their job is to check for river permits, firepans,and proper portable toilets, greet boaters and answer questions, help in emergencies, and clean the river and beaches. I am proud to be their colleague. They rock!
What We're Protecting
Check out this amazing scenery.
Above: Rattlesnake Ridge.
The L ower S almon R iver portion runs for 73 miles from H ammer Creek (near Whitebird, Idaho) to H eller Bar (near Asotin, Washington).
It has many many many (hundreds?) of beautiful white sand beaches, which the B L M works hard to keep pristine for the public visitors.
The river is punctuated with several class 3 and 4 rapids (depending on time of year). At very high flow, the river is actually deemed unpassable in one place.
Above: Me, bobbing. The water in high summer is relatively warm, although it feels blissfully cool enough on a 100+ degree day!
Above: Fishing for sturgeon.
Above: Walking a beach.
Above: Tracks in the sand.
Above: Pictographs made by early human inhabitants.
Above: It is unknown exactly how old this rock art is.
Above: Beautiful contrast with the water, mountains, and sky.
Above: One of the big sand beaches.
The Cast of Characters
Above: My B L M friends Jessica (left) and Antonia (middle) and I accompanied two B L M river dudes, Joe and Ryan.
Above: Ryan with Jessica and me.
Above: Joe with Antonia and me.
Beach Cleanup
My role was to help with the beach and river cleanup. So, what is involved with cleaning the beaches?
We pull up to a beach, hop out, and walk the beach looking for trash and "unnaturalness".
Repeat a couple dozen times a day.
Trash we hunted for included: Beer cans. Food bits and wrappers. Hair clips. Sunglasses. Tires. Rain flies for tents. Microtrash (such as cigarette butts and twist ties). Poo. Toilet paper. Lip balm and tubes of sunscreen. Clothing. Boat propellers. Wooden pallettes. Fire ashes and charred wood. And other stuff I'm sure I don't remember.
Above: For example, that rock is sticking out like a sore thumb and wouldn't naturally be there. So we moved it.
Above: Me moving a rock.
People drag rocks in from the sides of the beaches, to which they tie their boats. Which is fine, unless they fail to replace them. So we move them back. The rocks are usually really really hot, too.
Above: Joe moves a bunch of rocks that people left after...what? Weighing down a giant tarp? Participating in a Druid ceremony? Who knows.
Above: Ryan takes apart a rock cairn. It may be pretty, but it's not natural.
Above: A bunch of rocks that someone placed to shore up a sleeping area on a beach that wasn't flat.
After moving rocks all weekend, I definitely am more aware of "Leave No Trace" principles and know that minimal impact camping is more than just packing out your trash!
Above: Ryan scooping up poo. Dog poo in this case, I think. But we saw human poo, too. And used tampons, but I won't mention that. Whoops, I just did. People can be gross. Have I made my point?!?
Above: Ryan scopes out a fully set up red tent that we found under the water. It must have blown off a beach. (They didn't use the rocks, ha ha!) We hoped to snag it and pull it to shore, but it hit a current and disappeared deep into the river. Now the sturgeon have a place to sleep.
Life on the River
I had never done a multi-day river trip. In fact, except fora few afternoons tubing the Boise River and one recent afternoon on another portion of the S almon R iver, I don't think I had been on a river since I was a kid floating the Beaverhead in southwest Montana in an aluminum boat with my Dad.
Above: Our camp on the second night.
Minimal impact camping along a river is pretty complex. You must pack out all trash and human waste. You must strain dishwater so that food particles end up in the packed-out trash and not in the sand, which would attract insects and smell bad. You bring very little clothing and gear.
I must say my biggest anxiety before the trip was the bathroom situation. I learned right away that river-folk are pretty blunt about bodily functions and you mustcheck your modesty at the door when you go on a river trip. Simply put, you pee in the river and poo in a special toilet. No exceptions. (Sorry for the gory details, but I suspect that there are those of you curious about the bathroom situation, as I was.)
The good news is that no one cares about your particular bathroom needs and I quickly got used to wading in the river up to my waist and taking a wee in front of everyone. And, by the end of the trip, the morning bellow of “Anyone needto use the crapper before I pack it up?” didn’t make me wince.
Above: When I first saw this ammo box unloaded from the raft, I feared that this was a "groover" I had heard about. Groover toilets are metal boxes like this that you poo in and is named that way because the metal edges leave grooves on your butt. I was happy to find out that this actually wasn't our toilet for the next few days. It contains, instead, toilet paper, enzyme stuff, and hand sanitizer. But maybe in its past life it was a genuine groover.
Above: The orange object was our portable toilet, set away from the camp area behind rocks or bushes. You always do a headcount before you head in the direction of the toilet...
Above: A firepan. Fires are allowed along the river but must be built in some sort of elevated firepan so it doesn't damage the sand. And you must pack out all ashes.
Above: Ryan makes us some wonderful salmon along the Salmon. Ryan shopped for our food and did a great job. Some very nice meals, including fruit smoothies in the morning made with a hand-cranked blender.
Above: Ryan sautes some asparagus.
Above: A great dinner in the outdoors.
Above: Jessica enjoys her meal.
Above: My bed at camp the first night. Joe laughed that I took a photo, but little does he know that I once took photos of nearly every hotel room I stayed in while in Europe for six weeks. It's a thing I do.
We didn't bring tents. We slept directly on the sand under the stars and hoped the rare rain would stay away. If it had rained, we would have just huddled under a tarp and endured. Happily, it didn't rain on us and the nights were warm and gorgeous. Shooting stars!
Above: Jessica ("Kitty") and Antonia ("Chola Thunder" or "Battle Axe"). Say those nicknames with either an exaggerated Spanish or Minnesotan accent, and you get the idea of how funny our four days with these chickadees were.
Above: Mesmerizing river bottom.
Above: Smoothed and scoured boulders along the river. A product of thousands of years of seasonal water volume 10+ times more than the amount present while I was there. I can't even imagine.
Above: Halfway through the trip I found a single perfect women's Chaco sandal in my size. (But not the pair—damn!) I was a little annoyed with the footwear I brought (water Merrills were good, but had some gritty rubbing spots, and the Crocs were a little loose)—so I began wearing the single Chaco.
50% better footwear is worth having, I say!
Above: My resulting 50% better tan line. But just wait...
Above: Now THERE'S some real river rat tan lines (Ryan).
Above: I love the green gradation of the water.
Above: Jessica, the charming spaz.
Above: Lunchtime picnic.
Above: I tried to get photos of rapids, but if they were the big ones, my camera was packed away to keep it safe. And my timing was terrible.
Above: I do know that the whitewater looks a lot smaller in the photos than they did in real life!
Above: Unloading the rafts at camp. With theatrics!
Above: Columnar basalt formations. I took tons of photos of geology, as usual for me.
Above: Idaho sky.
Above: Wild blackberries at our second camp, which were very yummy, by the way.
Above: Bliss.
Above: A 5-legged cricket that hung out at our third camping beach. I shall call him Skippy.
Antonia told me that there would be no mosquitos on the trip. I believed her, but I also didn't... How could there not be mosquitos?! But she was absolutely right. In fact, there were no mosquitos, horse flies, deer flies, or anything other than some yellowjackets and bees (mostly at heavily-used beaches, it seemed. Food particles, perhaps?). We slept on the sand in the open air and nothing ever gnawed on me. Amazing.
Above: Me, enjoying the ride.
Above: Our camp on the second night.
Above: On the last day, when we reached the confluence of the Salmon and Snake R ivers, we left our jurisdiction. We lashed the two rafts together, set up one outboard motor, and putted the last 20 miles to the takeout at a brisk pace.
Above: The confluence of two major rivers. On the left is the S almon and on the right is the Snake.
Above: Antonia, Jessica, and Ryan on the Snake River heading to the takeout.
Above: The only mammals we saw on the whole trip were deer browsing under the trees at the takeout.
I was a bit disappointed that we didn't see much wildlife. All we saw was fish (trout, bass, carp, and maybe some small salmon—it was hard to tell), frogs and tadpoles, one lizard, lots of chukars, a couple herons, lots of small birds (swallows and wrens), domestic goats, bats, and some bugs. I was really hoping to see Bighorn sheep (which are common in the canyons), river otters, and raptors. Oh well.
Above: Loading up the gear and garbage at the takeout at H eller B ar, near Asotin, Washington.
Above: What unworthy dishwashers are reincarnated as—S C A T machines. Look it up if you're curious.
Above: I do and I will! I promise!
The End.
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