New Toy!!!

I just got my latest toy last week. The Nikon D300!! I also got the 18-200mm lens with it and a bunch of other little goodies to play with.

I’ve been having a lot of fun with it. It takes phenomenal photos and has so many features and functionality that if it had legs it would kick my butt. I’ve been learning to shoot in RAW format and processing the images myself in Lightroom. It’s been a very fun learning process and I’m looking forward to the photos I’ll be able to capture with it.

Middle Fork of the Salmon River

In April myself and several friends floated down the Middle Fork of the Salmon River. This has been an annual event for this group now for several years. We go early enough in the year that we don’t have to play the lottery game to get a permit. In fact, we go early enough that often we are the first group to have gone down the river for the year. Last year the weather was perfect and this year didn’t disappoint as well.

We drove to Challis Idaho on Friday to the MiddleFork Aviation hanger where we started flying gear into Indian Creek. The weather wasn’t very nice on Friday so we only had one plane flying. The pilot that day is a bit of a crazy guy. We asked the other pilots if it was safe to be flying that day and they just said, “You don’t see me up there do you?” I was happy to not be one of the guys that flew in that day. When you fly up over that mountain range the winds and thermals can really make for a rollercoaster ride. We got three flights in that day which allowed us to get all five boats in and a bit of other gear. We also sent three of our guys in to start rigging up.

Friday night was really cold in Challis. There was a local high school rodeo so I went over there for a little while to kill some time. After my hands nearly were frostbitten I decided to head back to the hanger. We smoothed talked the pilots into letting us sleep in the hanger that night which made for a great night of sleep.

Early Saturday morning the weather was beautiful. We started flying around 8:00am and soon after had two planes hauling in gear and people. By the time we got all of the gear in, boats rigged, lunch eaten, and all the other little necessities we were able to get on the water around 1:00pm. The weather at Indian Creek was sunny and warm temperatures. The water level was at about 2.5’ measured at the Middle Fork Lodge. The water was fairly clear.

Just after the put in there was a massive avalanche slide that ran down into the water and had some massive logs mixed into the compacted snow. It’s amazing to realize the power an avalanche can have.

Since we got onto the water a bit late we pretty much rowed straight through to camp at Loon Creek. There was an amazing amount of deer and elk that we saw throughout the entire float. We also saw several big horn sheep including a bachelor herd that had some monster rams in it. One would have scored around 180. The first day of the float we saw a dead mountain lion just off the river bank. We pulled off and took a look at it. It was a very freshly killed lion. On the third day I saw a nice cinnamon colored bear. The amount of wildlife this early in the year is amazing.

Camping at Loon Creek is one of my favorites. There is a hot spring just up the trail from the camp that is very well established and is very refreshing. Jeff always talks us into doing the Loon Creek challenge which is that you walk out into Loon Creek, fresh run-off – ice cold water, and submerse yourself completely. It is brutally cold. His Dad used to buy them a Whopper at Burger King if they did it.

Sunday we had a little riverside service which was nice and then we got on the water around 10:00am. We had a fairly lazy morning that day. Tappan Falls was fairly fun but nothing like it was last year at 4.5’ – 5’ water level. Last year we flipped a boat there and had one guy hypothermic by the time we got him out of the water. This early in the year the water is freezing cold. It makes it a bit of a challenge when the weather is as nice and warm as it was this year because you have the dilemma of wearing enough dry gear to be safe if you take a swim but it’s so hot that wearing a dry top is almost unbearable.

The third day is the biggest water on the trip and the most fun for rapids. Rubber was fun but again, not nearly as big as it was last year. Last year three boats went before I did and all three of them almost flipped. The biggest of the three boats is the exact same boat as mine and when he went through his side came up so high I could see almost the entire bottom of his boat. That had my heart going which I loved. This year pretty much all of the rapids were forgiving and straightforward.

We were able to get off the river in pretty good time on Monday and ended up back home around 1 or 2am, I can’t remember. At the takeout we had a pretty wild experience. Myself and Tom have the exact same boat, 16’ Aire self-bailers. His is about 10 years old and mine is about 3 years old. Both of our boats have a ballast system on them that holds a bit of water in the bottom of them for better tracking in the water. We had placed both of them out to dry and to drain out the water. I got mine rolled up fairly quick and taken care of. Tom left his out for a while to make sure it was completely dry. The temperature was really climbing while we were de-rigging all of the boats. A group of us were standing around making some lunch when suddenly it sounded as though someone shot a gun right behind me. We turned around to see that Tom’s boat had exploded. The internal bladder was shredded and had torn out the seam all down one side of his boat. I’d always heard that if you didn’t release some of the pressure in your boat that the heat could make it expand enough to pop your boat. It was wild though to actually be there and see it. The sound was amazingly loud. I felt bad for him but I’m pretty sure it’s still under warranty so they should be able to fix it up easily for him.

This is one of my favorite trips of the year and one I will always look forward to.

I ended up taking over 400 pictures on this trip so instead of putting them all here on the blog you can go check them out on my flickr site. http://www.flickr.com/photos/26492698@N05/