Salmon, South Fork
South Fork Trailhead to 15-Mile Marker (Upper South Fork Run)
May 6, 2017
First time on Upper South Fork Salmon
| Reporter | Scott Harding |
| Gauge Reading | 7000 cfs at SALMON R A SOMES BAR CA |
| Flow | Medium Flow |
Hard to believe but after almost 20 years of paddling the Salmon River watershed, there's a class III run I've never done just 25 miles from home up the South Fork. So Lyra & I loaded up our cataraft and headed up there to check it out with high snowmelt flows. It was beautiful, fast, and felt a bit wild with 8500-foot snow-covered peaks of the Trinity Alps towering overhead. There's more to explore up there too...I'll definitely go back. This river is endless.
Flows were 7,000 cfs on the Somes Bar gage, dropping from a snowmelt runoff peak of 11,000 cfs a couple days earlier. This is the lower half of a medium flow. The East Fork South Fork adds a considerable amount of water about 4.5 miles into the run.