Page 206 - WDT Magazine Egypt

he Middle Fork of
the Salmon, one
of the nation’s
top whitewater
streams, tumbles
through the River
of No Return Wil-
derness in central
TIdaho, dropping
more than 3,000 feet over 105 miles.

That ominous and poetic name for the wilderness
notwithstanding, I keep coming back to this stunning
waterway in the Sawtooth Range every five years or
so to kayak its 100-plus mellow-to-challenging rap-
ids, soak in its stream-side thermal pools, hike trails
that ascend into the hills above the river and enjoy
the beauty of its canyon.
Now 64, I first paddled the Middle Fork - as boaters
call it - 30-plus years ago. And I plan to return at least
a few more times in the years to come. Even if I have
to sit in a raft rather than kayak. But that’s alright by
me.
This untamed, alpine river, which starts at an eleva-
tion of more than 6,000 feet, ranks up there with
the storied Colorado though the Grand Canyon, the
Rogue in southwest Oregon and the Tuolumne River
near Yosemite Valley. All offer multi-day trips, which
makes them ideal vehicles for getting far away from
the hustle and bustle of the workaday world.
My latest trip was in early last summer, when the
water was high and moving fast. I hooked up with a
ROW Adventures rafting crew and my amiable group
included an orthopedic surgeon from Virginia and
some of his medical equipment buddies, a family
from Utah, a middle-aged couple from Idaho and an A young woman sits high above the
internist, his wife and their three children from Chica- Middle Fork of the Salmon River dur-
go. I was the solo kayaker, tagging along to help pull ing a hike on a rafting trip with ROW
rafters to the side of the river if they were tossed out Adventures.
of the boat in a rapid. And enjoy myself, of course.
Peter Grubb founded the aptly named ROW outfit-
ting company in 1979, not long after he graduated
from college in Maryland. A northern California native,
he’d rafted the Stanislaus River in the Sierra foothills
east of Modesto as an eighth grader on a science
club trip. During a college summer, though, he worked
in West Virginia, guiding raft trips on the Gauley and

206 WDT MAGAZINE SUMMER 2018