So digressing a little from our "worldly adventures", we decided to go on a white water rafting trip in Idaho. Steve had just returned from a 2 week high adventure raft trip on the Alsek River in Alaska. Per Steve, this included a helicopter portage, 36 degree glacier melt water, grizzly bears, rock climbing, and that kind of stuff. Since Steve doesn't blog, I just wanted people to know that it is easy to get pulled into the Vortex with him. I didn't go, but I decided to raft the Main Fork of the Salmon because 1: I had done it before, 2: Steve did all the planning, and 3: A lot of my family decided to go. Actually, I have gone down many rivers and some all over the world. Some times on a raft, an inner tube, a felluca, a boat...and I decided to count them up and list them later.
We decided to book a trip with "River of No Return Wilderness Outfitters" out of Salmon Idaho. Plans were made and we met my son Jim and his whole family, and Steve's son Lance and his little boy. Our granddaughter, Sara was still too young to do this class 3 river, so she stayed home with her mom, Allison.
We all got there by a different route, and because Steve and I picked up Jim's family, we drove to Boise and got them on the second day. They had flown in from San Diego. We checked into the Stagecoach Inn in a very cool town, Salmon Idaho, and early in the evening we had our first briefing with owner/guide Breanne. We met our other two guides and a great guy named Silas, who because he was 16, was not allowed to carry guests in his raft. He has to wait until 18, but he proved to be a great asset because he was the one who rowed a heavt oar boat with all the dry bags, tents, grub, kitchen....and the....groover. Trenah Stauffer, and Amanda LaRiche were our other guides and my first impression was....young and female... and I hoped they knew what they were doing! I KNOW that is sexist and silly, but I have never had a female river guide, so give me a break.
We were issued our dry bags and given a bit of info about the trip, like "keep your raincoat handy", no soap can be used, no shampoo, nothing is put into the water, drink lots of water, and let's have some fun! So we went back to our rooms to repack our gear into the drybags and look forward to the River of No Return the next day.
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