Lower Salmon, early august 08, ~6500 cfs

Well, time for another trip report. I really should put this in a blog.
We launched last Sunday the 3rd of August. This was going to be a real "shake down" with Jeff being a gear-guide, bona fide. I rented a stern frame for the paddle raft. We had a family of 4 willing guinea pigs, who braved the paddle raft with me, my two dogs, and a cooler.
Jeff and I got to the boat ramp late on Saturday night, we sacked out as best we could but it was really cold at night, so we woke up at about 4 a.m. and crawled into the cab of the truck to try to warm up and catch a few more zzzzs. At about 6:00 I woke up, unable to sleep and on edge about the trip. I tried shoving Jeff to the side so I could get in the driver's side and get the truck and trailer on the ramp. The campground was full Saturday night, so I thought the ramp might be congested. Jeff is possibly grouchier than I am in the mornings.
We got rigged - Jeff did the gear boat himself and we threw his little 1950 J.C. Penney's 3.5 hp outboard on the cat. We filled it with gas and left the gas in the truck - figured we'd just motor 'til the gas ran out.
The ramp started getting bad around 7:00. By bad, I mean - shocking. The first group came down and had their stuff all over both sides of the ramp, even crowding us (we were off in a corner with our stuff neatly stacked and my truck and trailer were off the ramp). These guys were really clueless - their truck and trailer were right in the middle of the ramp. They had stuff laid all over and even propped up against their trailer so they couldn't pull out. We were glad to've gotten up early. There was a lot of frustration after that, as several parties were waiting to just get TO the ramp. I started getting annoyed as they crowded us even further off our little piece of the shore (we were on the far downstream edge of the ramp). I envisioned them taking off with half our stuff.
We were all set up around 9 or 9:30 and I ran into Whitebird to set up the shuttle and see about buying an extra blanket. We packed a fleece 2-person sleeping bag and it just wasn't cutting it for us. Michelle at All Rivers Shuttles called someone at the Silver Dollar who met us in the middle of the street with a WalMart blanket which I bought from her for $10. Then they made some negotiations about having the shuttle drivers stop at the Rez on their way back and picking up various tobacco-y things. It was pretty interesting.
Our group met us at 11:00 a.m. and we loaded up, picking our way through the chaos on the ramp and loading into the boats. It was ugly down there, even at noon, and it looked like it was going to stay that way.
Our first camp was at Pine Bar. We had 7 (yes, SEVEN) otter come and check us out. Oh man, they were HUGE, like giant mutant otter. They were not the least bit concerned with the dogs (and I don't blame them). They just wanted to check us out. Jeff and I were thinking all summer that we really needed a decent name for the company, and I kept returning to "something or other otter". I wanted otter in it. So, we both looked at each other and said, "there's our sign - we are 7 Otter!" So, I'm going with 7 Otters Adventures or something like that.
The weather got increasingly warm over the course of the trip. There is a really nice camp at Lorna's Lulu. It hasn't been on the map before, I think it's on the new guide though. It is fantastic, with a huge eddy and lots of great flat spots. It's river left after you get through Lorna's. We were sitting there around 5:30 or so and an SRE gear boater came by and asked if we were staying at that camp. There were only 6 of us, but having landed there at 4:30, I felt pretty okay about taking that camp. The gear boater was bummed that we had it. I think they must've been having a bummer of a trip, because that was super late for a gear-boater to be looking for camp, and we saw the rest of the crew around 6:00.
We ran SnowHole canyon the next day. Everything was great. Bodacious Bounce was boring. The left side of Half and half was pretty good, but we opted for the right because it was the easier line and Jeff is still learning and I wanted to pick easy lines for him to follow me through. He is doing an awesome job of reading water and picking some good conservative lines when he wants to.
Snow Hole was some of the biggest, funnest waves I've hit since Lochsa or the Grand. It was at the exact perfect level, around 6500 cfs I think. Oh man. I've run it at around 7k and I thought it was a pretty boring flush. Lower is somewhat "technical". But 6500 was easy and huge.
We were playing leap-frog with a couple of other groups and what a cluster they were. They tried to land at Half and Half to scout, and it's a miracle no one drowned. Lots of screaming, falling, and boats bouncing off the shore line. So, at China Bar everybody and their damn dog (oh, and Jeff's and my dogs make 3) was there. Jeff and I looked, talked about what to do and where to go and we scurried out of there. But the cluster from Half and Half showed up and by-passed the scout, then led some of their IKers over the first giant pourover in China, and managed to surf a paddle raft in there. For the most part it looked like they got out of there in one piece, but if they keep boating like that I can't imagine it'd have a good outcome. Every time we saw these guys on the river they were just dumbasses. Their gear boater eddied out RIGHT in front of Jeff as he was coming through one rapid (I think it was Harm's Hole or something) and all but physically shoved him to shore. It was just an idiot's rodeo out there. The commercial outfitters were much easier to get along with and I can totally understand why the tension between private and commercial boaters now. In the past I don't remember having THAT much trouble with anybody.
We camped at a large camp at Billy Creek. It was large, but didn't have much at all in the way of flat spots. Plenty for our group though.
The next day we camped at Checkerboard. I like that camp pretty well, but the landing is tough and I chaffed my new raft pretty good. Damn.
We motored out the last day (Thursday) from Geneva. We just tied the two boats side-by-side and putted out of there. The outboard rocked, using only about a gallon of gas!!!! We were glad we had it as we had a good upstream breeze and shortly after we left the ramp there was a thunder/lightning/rain storm. The 3.5 outboard was perfect - nice and small and light, and didn't use much fuel. It's going to be a permanent addition for my salmon and snake trips!!!

Anyway, it was a super fun trip and Jeff rowed the whole thing, and did all the gear-boater stuff of loading and unloading and learning to rig and so on. His grasp of this stuff is impressive. I think he has much better natural water-reading skills than I ever dreamt of having myself! Plus, he is really enjoying it, thank heavens.