Goodbye Miwok, Goodbye Dancing Bare

There are times when you decide it is best to part ways with someone or something that has been part of your life. This weekend was one of those occasions. My trusty Miwok raft that Steve Romoff and I purchased together in 1980 from the original owner of ARTA in California, along with a few other friends who bought into the discounted purchase of Miwoks served me well for 30 plus year. I rowed this raft on three different Grand Canyon trips two of which included Johnny Montezuma, Wayne Ranney and Bryan Brown among other notables. The trusty Miwok ventured down the Middle Fork, Main and Lower Salmon numerous times, typically with me and Steve Romoff sharing kayak and rowing duties. It ventured down the Selway, the San Juan, the Salt, Desolation Canyon and the Green River among others. Steve pretty much quit rafting 15 years ago and simply told me his share of the raft was mine so the raft stayed with me ever since. Once I had Megan and after I got divorced running a bucket bailer with a young child wasn't very practical so I purchased an Aire Ocelot cataraft. Megan loved doing day trips on that with me. But her first river trip at age 5 was the San Juan on that raft. After that she also did the Main and Lower Salmon on it.
Wonderful people from the nearby town of Emmett saw my Craigslist ad and came over to help me blow up the raft, rig the foam under the drop in wood floor and set up the frame and three ancient oars and the thole pins and clips. They fell in love at first sight. Wade, as it turns out, had been a rec planner in Idaho Falls for BLM and managed the South Fork Snake. And has fate would have it, his younger brother followed me around in my career with the Natural Resources Conservation Service, taking three jobs in a row after I had moved on and up the career ladder. How ironic is that? And now his brother is the State Conservationist of Utah for NRCS. Gee, maybe if I'd stayed on I'd be the State Conservationist of Idaho for NRCS but I digress. Was and his wife made a deal with me that I could borrow back the raft at any time if I found a need for a bigger boat. That is the awesome part. My friend Norm Henderson, who sold his Miwok two summers ago cut the same deal with the buyers of his raft, too. So $600 later my dearest Miwok has a new home, and the owners are convinced this was the greatest thing to hit them over the head. Ms. Miwok knows her way around the eddy and I'm certain her new owners will love her as much as I did.

Fast forward to the next googbye. Dancing Bare is my Dagger Dimension tandem whitewater canoe. I fell in love with this particular tandem canoe 20 years ago or so when I ran it on a back to back trip on the Middle Fork Salmon and Main Salmon with my dearest of friends Ms. Lynn Green. We made the entire trip without a single swim and some amazingly fancy eddy hopping in Webber Rapids and Dried Meat, among others. And then there was Tappen Falls. Wowie Zowie. Another trip I did once I purchased my very own Dagger Dimension was with my ex husband on the Main Salmon at 20,000 cfs over 4th of July in 1996 while six months pregnant. I couldn't fit into my wetsuit so had to wear poly pro, fleece, a dry top and neoprene shorts and rain pants. Fortunately for use, we were the only people who didn't swim out of our kayaks or canoes on the self supported trip. And the weather was awesome. I ran that canoe on several other trips on the Middle Fork, Main and Lower Salmon along with Cabarton, Staircase, South Fork Payette Canyon and Main Payette Rivers in Idaho. It made a San Juan trip, a Dirty Devil trip, and several outings on the Upper Salmon near Stanley running Shotgun Rapid and Piece of Cake day stretches. But paddling on my knees has taken it's toll and so I listed Dancing Bare on Craigslist and my Facebook page. A friend who had moved to Oregon this past year saw it and contacted his friend in Coeur d'Alene who runs the outdoor program at North Idaho College. Jon called me and wants the canoe and will pick it up in May after he returns from his late April Grand Canyon trip. So Dancing Bare will have a new home up north but still in Idaho, loved by yet another river person. And Jon and I agreed I could borrow her back should I get the hankering to take her out with someone one last time.

MIddle Fork Salmon Shovel Brigade

That's right. We opened the pass. By hand when the USFS said no machinery allowed. And the others said you will never make it. They said there was a big, big slide looking like a porcupine so many logs sticking out of it. Never say never. With the help of a dozen folks, and even some folks from another trip going in two days after us, we did it. And I'm getting ready to prep the bill to the USFS for our work.
It seems in past years the USFS would grant the Outfitters the chance to plow if they forked over a $1000 bond. Not this year. No sir ree bob! We've got ourselves a new District Ranger and a new road engineer on this here USFS District. And there seems no bounds to lack of common sense.
Instead of plowing, dozens of trips dangerously undertook running Marsh Creek to enter the MIddle Fork Salmon. And Outfitters with clients were forced to pay an additional average of $2400 to $3000 to fly in their clients and gear to Indian Creek. All because the USFS wouldn't plow what amounted to about 75 yards of road. Give me a break! The National Park Service routinely plows open roads in late May to Glacier and Yellowstone so visitors can get in.
When one considers how coveted and hard it is to get a permit on the Middle Fork Salmon one would think the USFS would make the effort to plow the road. Yes, it was a big snow year, but contrary to popular pundits, most all that snow was already gone on June 14 with the notable exception of a couple of drifted in areas.

This river trip was amongst the best river trips I've done. The only one that even comes close to topping it was my Grand Canyon trips with Johnny Montezuma, Bryan T Brown and the cast of miscreants and dirtbag boaters in the 1980's that I ran with alot.
We ate great meals every night. We never got out of camp before 1 except the last day at about 11. We often ate dinner in the dark with the lantern going, a crackling fire and awesome meals like ahi tuna, pork tenderloin, chicken curry, beef tenderloin steaks, and chile rellenos. We didn't run out of beer or anything else for that matter.
Spunky the Funky Monkey came on the trip for our party night and soon became the beloved mascot of the trip. When you travel for 7 days with 18 people you really get to know folks. This group covered the range of sublime to ridiculous. We had it all from age 23 to 65 and I am happy to say that I now feel comfortable passing the torch to the younger boating and river generation if these whippersnappers are what's out there.
The trip did not go off without a few glitches. I sprained my ankle at the put in at Boundary Creek the first day moving gear to load. It's still swollen and healing. Two days later I got whacked in the nose when my friends knee hit the oar and had the Mt Vesuvius of nose bleeds at the pull in at Marble Creek. I'm still sporting minor remnants of a purple eye that would have rivaled any makeup work by Tammy Faye Baker. One boatman flipped at Velvet. The flip broke welds in his frame but we cobbled it together with boat straps.
We had rain, sleet, snow, grapple, and cold fast water with huge waves and holes in some cases. The river was 6.6 feet and stayed at that slightly lowering to 6 when we got off. It's now moving back up again and may hit 7.2 feet by this weekend. We had sunshine and it was close to 80 degrees and bluebird weather on our last day. We had a full moon and hot springs at Sheepeater, Sunflower and Loon Creek. We even had a day we only went two miles (from Marble Creek to Stateline Right) so we could hang out at Sunflower for a few hours. But best of all, we had the gift of friendship, river freedom and comraderie that goes with a great river trip.
Oh, and I dethroned the reigning extreme croquet champ at Loon Creek Camp. So Johnny, I'm getting better. It was a tough course up hill, across an irrigation ditch and through a tent or two.

I wish I were on the river today.