American Whitewater

In 2017, I dreamed up the idea of a one-day kayak trip from the headwaters of the North Fork Salmon River to its confluence with the South Fork Salmon over 30 miles downstream in Forks of Salmon.

This starts with a seven mile wilderness hike to the put-in where the North Fork and its major fork, the Right Hand Fork, come together in the Marble Mountain Wilderness Area and provide enough water to float a kayak when the snow is melting. It ends in Forks of Salmon where the South Fork and North Fork join. That happens to be very convenient as the journey ends at home for me. In between is a whole lot of world class whitewater kayaking and stunning scenery in an amazing West Coast watershed.

In late March 2017, three of us gave this an unrehearsed attempt with a late morning start to the adventure. We didn't take a map or a water bottles; that wasn't a mistake: you need neither here. Just a boat. We almost made it. Flows were dropping slowly and when we put on the gage at Somes Bar read 7,000 cfs. This was a healthy medium flow for this run: plenty of water but not too high and a few of the bouldery rapids in the second half were still a bit chunky.

We cut short on the upriver end due to unexpected snow on the trail that slowed us down and pointed us into the water still later than was perhaps ideal given that we had 30+ miles to go, some of it easy and unknown, some of it more familiar and up to class V. Having enough water in the headwaters means having quite a bit of water downstream in the granite canyon.

The journey was spectacular, the upper river unknown to all of us as it is to anyone else but somehow, no more difficult than class III+. We literally drank the waters and used that sustenance to keep going. Two of us continued past the halfway mark near Sawyers Bar, paddling in the slanted light of evening as the gorge tightened and water poured in from all sides, making the river bigger every mile as the gradient and difficulty increased.

But daylight and prudence cut us off just before dark and about two miles short of our goal in Forks of Salmon. We pulled out at the swinging bridge, just before entering Indian Point Gorge and its thundering class IV and V rapids. We left just enough on the table to make going back soon a worthy cause and a new adventure. I'll be looking for a couple paddling partners for that too. This is the season.

This adventure included the following runs: