|
"It never rains in August" the outfitter at MacKay Bar Ranch had told us, "So you can do the whole trip with bathing suit and river sandals! But bring some sunscreen!" Right! For some inexplicable reason, our week on the Middle Fork in the superb Selway Bitterroot Wilderness was floated through a consistent cool drizzle. Well, we had rather planned on getting wet, hadn't we?
The river is a prime West Slope cutthroat trout fishery, and we had taken a fly rod, and watched for bighorn sheep. We saw a mink at the river bank, and Donald and I even climbed a mountain bank along a narrow ledge and into a cougar lair, complete with bones and hair from mule deer as bedding.
The first day was spent in paddling a raft as we have often done in other rivers, but most all the next days were spent shooting rapids in "Funyaks". I would typically shoot through some scary waterfall and make it intact, only to be lunched out by some no-name riffle after clearing the bigger hydraulics. But we did "chill out" after repeated dumpings into the river, and welcomed the thermal hotsprings along the way in which we could poach and look up at the cool rain sizzling down into our thermal pools.
We had a rip-roaring good time in a wonderful environment, and came shooting down the last big raids into the Main Salmon River, getting close to the takeout point. I thought we had done very well as a bunch of wilderness rats and had even had made an Indian "Sweat Lodge" as a Sauna Hut" along the sandy bank at one point where we could sweat over the hot rocks before a cold plunge in the clear river where big and ancient sturgeon shared the deeper pools with the cutthroat natives. We sat around the fire after dinner, and told stories and played games with our fellow river runners who were all good sports, particularly one woman whose cheeks seemed a bit puffy and rosy. She said she really appreciated this chance to be out enjoying the wilderness and roughing it with such good companions, since this was her lifelong dream--and now she had had the chance to do it even when others were not sure she would be able to and had advised her against it. "But this was the first big outing I have had since they released me from University Hospital with my new heart transplant, and I am grateful for the wonderful time!" So are we all!