After a six year dry spell we finally drew a permit for the Middle Fork Salmon this year, actually four permits. If you boat wilderness rivers this place is Heaven on Earth. It flows 100 miles through Frank Church -River of No Return Wilderness the largest designated wilderness in the lower 48. The area is considered the heart of the largest temperate zone wilderness on the planet and it is the longest undammed river system in the US, my kind of place.
No roads access the river for 100 miles and big predators (wolves, mountain lions and bears) thrive along with herds of Elk, Deer and Bighorn. Steelhead and Salmon still run up the side streams (though their populations are much diminished due to the damn dams on the Columbia) and wild Cutthroat are abundant. The water is normally so clear you can see down 20 feet to the golden boulders on the bottom of the river and the rapids still get choked with logs and washed out again in the high water every spring. The landscape changing forces of nature still function. I have always said my two favorite places on the planet are the Colorado Plateau (Southern Utah/Four Corners area for those that recognize political boundaries) and the Central Idaho Batholith. I live in one and visit the other as much as possible.
Highlights of the trip were River catching his first fish on a dry fly, floating up on a mountain lion sipping water out of the river, big rapids, no flipped rafts, soaking in almost every hot spring along the river (playing cards until midnight in the Loon Creek hotspring) and beating a commercial group in a coin toss for the Loon Creek Camp.
Rio and I at Elk Bar looking down into the Impassable Canyon section of the river
River holding down the gear in the stern
Elk Bar camp
Fly fishing lessons from uncle Ty at the Loon/Middle Fork Confluence
Morning light in Impassable Canyon
The Hobbits and Alina heading back to the trailhead after the thunderstorm
Rio and I looking back down to the Animas and the Weminuche Wilderness
