2011 Rocky Mountains Trip:
What I Did on My Summer Vacation
By Richard Hopley (AKA "Oci-One Kanubi")

In January I received a call from Chris Kelly proposing that he and I and several others enter the permit lotteries to float the Middle Fork of the Salmon River Wilderness or the Selway River Wilderness. Boating trips on the Middle Fork are limited to seven groups per day of up to 24 people each, and on the Selway to two groups per day, and there are rigid restrictions on where you may camp, how you must dispose of kitchen (and human!) waste; prohibitions on campfires, etc. Historically, there is about a 4% chance of winning a Middle Fork permit and a 2% chance of winning a Selway permit, so we sweetened our odds by having each of us submit four launch-date applications for each river (the maximum allowed). I won the only permit, for a July 25th launch date on the Middle Fork. We invited others, we planned, some people cancelled and were replaced, we planned, we accepted some last-minute recruits, we planned some more, and we wound up with a terrific group of 18 paddlers/rowers in 15 boats, representing the nine states MA, VA, NC, GA, AL, MO, CO, UT, ID (plus three people from Oregon, in two rafts, whom we met at the put-in and allowed to boat on my permit and to camp with us):
Solo Open Canoe: Richard "Kanubi" Hopley, Dan Bertko, Chris Bell, Willy Young   
Tandem Inflatable Canoe: Fran Rulon-Miller & Larry Rice
Solo Kayak: Mick Schlotfeldt, Judy Ranelli, Don Kinser
Solo Inflatable Kayak: Nanette Laughery
Solo raft: Chris Kelly, Lizette Mikesell
Tandem Raft: John "Gordo" Henderson & Lois Carra, Brian Dollar & Bruce Bird
Solo Cataraft: Bonnie Henderson, Therell Mikesell

I recruited Mick and Willy to ride with me to share fuel costs on a three-week trip scheduled to bracket the week of my Middle Fork permit, and I got Dan Bertko and his wife Lois Carra, of Cambridge, MA, to convoy with us so we could have sufficient paddlers for safety and two vehicles for shuttle, so we could boat some rivers on the way to the Middle Fork and on the way back. I set up the road trip to include numerous National Park and National Monument visits since some of my friends had not been to these places.

The Rocky Mountains had a record snowpack over the winter of 2010/11 and as a consequence of the long slow melt-off, western rivers were at record high into the late summer. As I watched the water levels for the Middle Fork in the weeks leading up to our launch date, I was quite concerned that the difficulty might be beyond my skill levels â and particularly, beyond my ability to survive a long swim with my weak lungs. If I had not been the permit holder I would have cancelled, but since Forest Service regulations require that the permit holder accompany the trip, I went. And I am very, very glad I did! I had previously paddled the Middle Fork in 1999 with a gauge reading of 1.8' when we put on, and I regarded that trip as a pleasant easy float in a beautiful place. This time we put on at 2.9' and we had serious Class III and Class IV whitewater on four of the six days we were on the river. Amongst the open canoeists, one had five swims, one had a single (raft-induced) swim, one had two portages and a bad pin, and I completed the trip with only a single portage, which I now regret. Larry and Fran flipped their inflatable canoe once, one kayaker had a swim, and Chris Kelly treated us all to the sight of one spectacular raft flip!

Saturday, July 16
Mick, Willy and I left Winston-Salem, NC, at 6:00 AM. I drove on US-52 north through North Carolina and I-77 through North Carolina and Virginia to West Virginia, where we took I-64 west to US-35. We followed US-35 through West Virginia and Ohio to I-70 and I-70 through Indiana and Illinois to Indianapolis, where we picked up I-74. We took I-74 to I-80 at Davenport, Iowa, and a few miles farther west took US-218 diagonally across Iowa until we hit I-90 in Albert Lea, Minnesota, at midnight, and kept right on going.

Sunday, July 17
Mick took over the driving soon after we passed Albert Lea, and took us across Minnesota and most of South Dakota to the eastern entrance to Badlands NP at around 9:00 AM, where I took back the wheel. We followed the SD-240 scenic loop through Badlands NP with numerous stops, including an interpretive walk where a ranger described for us the geology of the Badlands, and ended up at the tourist trap of Wall Drug, Wall, SD, for lunch. We next went to the Mount Rushmore NM and then took the scenic drive through the Black Hills NF and the historic town of Deadwood. We got back onto I-90 into Wyoming, where we took another detour to visit the Devil's Tower NM. Back on I-90 we drove to Buffalo, near the Montana border, where we had pizza for dinner and then drove up US-16 into the Bighorn NF and camped at the Clear Creek CG.

Monday, July 18
We continued west on US-16, crossing Mupkres Pass and the Powder River Pass. Soon after we passed Meadowlark Lake, from which flows Tensleep Creek, we left US-16 (which follows Tensleep Creek on the right) and crossed the bridge to the dirt road that follows the left side of the creek down Tensleep Canyon. Below the bottom of the canyon, at the town of Tensleep, the creek feeds the Norwood River. We turned north on CR-47 to follow the river, eventually turning west on WY-31, still following the river until we rejoined US-16 and the Norwood flowed into the Bighorn River.
We took US-16 into Cody, WY and browsed the Sierra Designs Trading Post, then went west out of town to gaze down the gorge at the rapids of the Shoshone River. We went back into Cody, stopped at a kayak store for some local beta, then took WY-120 north to Montana.
WY-120 became MT-72, following the Clark's Fork of the Yellowstone River until we crossed a ridge on MT-308 to the touristy town of Red Lodge on Rock Creek, then took MT-78 north toward Absarokee, where in the past I have turned west onto the dirt Stillwater River Road (MT-420). This time, though, in response to some advance scouting by Dan and Lois, we went west earlier, on the paved MT-419 to the town of Nye, where we got onto the Stillwater River Road just a few miles west of our campsite at Castle Rock. This was a much nicer way to get to Castle Rock, and the difference in scenery along the two roads was striking; both were beautiful, but very different. Dan and Lois had arrived at the Castle Rock Montana SP CG the day before. The rest of us set up camp and we all ate in the campground.

Tuesday, July 19: Stillwater R., Old Nye to Castle Rock; Absarokee 5.3'/5,000 CFS
The Stillwater River flows into the Yellowstone River at Columbus, MT. The Stillwater was so high, as was everything else in the Rockies late in this unusual summer, that rather than boat my usual stretch from Castle Rock or Moraine to Cliff Swallow, we boated from upstream at Old Nye down to Castle Rock. It was largely a fast Class II float until a longish Class III+ rapid just before the campground, where one of us had a swim and self-rescued. Afterward we drove out to the highway by the Stillwater River Road so that Mick and Willy could see the Beehive Rocks scenery that differed so dramatically from the scenery one valley over, where we had come in.
We drove back southward along MT-78 again and in Red Lodge we got onto US-212, the Beartooth Highway. This is a stunning two-mile high ride adjacent to the Absaroka-Beartooth Wilderness along the Montana/Wyoming border. We camped at the Crazy Creek CG of the Shoshone NF, right beside the Clark's Fork of the Yellowstone (considerably upstream of the section we had seen the evening before).

Wednesday, July 20
We got an early start and spent nearly the entire day in Yellowstone NP. We entered via US-212 from the northeast and saw herds of Bison in the Lamar valley, then went past Tower Falls and down to the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone.
We crossed the Norris Canyon Road to Norris Junction, then took the Grand Loop Road counterclockwise along the Gibbon River to Madison Junction, where the Firehole River and the Gibbon converge to form the Madison (one of the three forks of the Missouri). We drove the Firehole Canyon loop and then followed the Firehole upstream trough the Lower Geyser Basin and Biscuit Basin to Old Faithful and the Upper Geyser Basin.
After watching Old Faithful erupt we continued to follow the Firehole upstream, stopping at the Keppler Cascades, and finally at the remarkable Isa Lake. Isa Lake was a disappointment, probably because of the late melt-off. It is usually a lovely lily pond in late July, but this year the lilies were not doing well when we were there.Isa lake has the remarkable property of sitting right on the Continental Divide and draining both to its west, through Firehole, Madison, Missouri, and Mississippi Rivers into the Atlantic, and to its east through several creeks and lakes to yhe Lewis, Snake, and Columbia Rivers into the Pacific.
We left Yellowstone on US-89 through the South entrance and drove through Grand Teton NP on Teton Park Road from Jackson Lake Junction to Moose Junction, then north a mile or so on US-89 until we could cut across Antelope Flats Road to the Gros Ventre Road, and camped at the Red Hills CG beside the river.

Thursday, July 21: Gros Ventre R., Warden Bridge to Red Hills CG; Kelly 5'/2,000 CFS
We drove upstream to the put-in, unloaded, and ran shuttle⦠then waited for an extra trip to the take-out so that we could have a kayak paddle on the river. We amused ourselves by watching a contractor replacing the Warden Bridge.
This is normally a placid stretch of fast flat water in July with two Class II/III canyons of perhaps ½-mile and ¼-mile, but this year, at this level, it was very fast, and both canyons were solid Class III or III+ whitewater. I usually prefer to boat the Class III/IV Landslide section of the Gros Ventre, but I was afraid to try that this year; however, the upstream, "easy" stretch had more action on it at this level than the Landslide section does at normal late-July levels, so we did not feel deprived.
We drove south on US-89 through Jackson and checked into a commercial campground behind a cowboy bar in Alpine, where we were able to get our first showers since leaving home.

Friday, July 22: Greys R., Moose Flat â below Lynx Creek; Alpine 3.53'/1,830 CFS
Dan and Lois gave us a shuttle, then they hit the road to visit a friend in Boise before rejoining us for the Middle Fork trip. Mick, Willy and I paddled an easy stretch of the Greys River that nevertheless had one long, serious rapid near the end. Fortunately we had left my van where the river nears the road two miles downstream of the Lynx Creek Campground, so we got at least this one good rapid. This time of year we would normally have boated the Snaggletooth section but, as was everything we saw this year, the Greys was uncharacteristically high and the Snaggletooth section looked like solid Class IV whitewater. We decided to stay a second night in Alpine.

Saturday, July 23
We left Alpine early in the morning, crossing by by US-26 into Idaho. We stopped in Idaho Falls for Mick to provision up for the meal he was going to cook for the group on the Middle Fork, then took US-20 westward. We stopped and spent a couple of hours at the Craters of the Moon NP, an ancient lava field. The Park has been greatly improved since I last visited in 1999, with numerous new short hikes and interpretive trails, some of which were not yet completed, nor yet opened to the public, but Craters of the Moon should soon be a far more interesting place to visit than it was. We turned north onto ID-75 and passed through Sun Valley on our way to Stanley, where we stopped for dinner, and ran into Jim and Margie Pruitt, who had just gotten off the Middle Fork. We took ID-21 northwest into the Boise NF, then followed a series of Forest Service roads to the Boundary Creek CG at the put-in for the Middle Fork.

Sunday, July 24
We spent the day organizing our gear for the river and unloading our boats. Therrel and Lizette arrived around two and Lizette accompanied me to the ranger station to formally claim our permit, list our participants and boats, and most importantly, to participate in the campsite auction. Here Lizette was essential, because I had no idea which campsites were preferable and which were dogs. The ranger went round the circle of permit holders, beginning with a commercial guide seated next to the door, and each, in order, selected his first night's campsite. The process was repeated, beginning this time with the second person seated clockwise, to choose our second night's campsite, and for the third round we had first choice.
As our group trickled in from various places around the country, we unloaded their boats and gear, inflated the inflatables, and got all the rafts and cats down the ramp and moored in the eddy.

Monday, July 25: Middle Fork Salmon R., Boundary Cr â Joe Bump; MF Lodge 2.92'/1,800
This was the busiest section of the Middle Fork for the rafts, but for the hardboats it was a lot like the technical Class III we have at home in the East. The only significant drop was Velvet Falls (rated Class IV by the Forest Service, and allowing for variations in flow, their ratings seem fairly accurate) but we didn't need to scout, nor did anyone have a problem, thanks to the description of a clean line we got from Gordo. The Class III, III+, and III/IV rapids on this stretch were all read-and-runnable at the level we had.
For our first day we paddled only 11.8 miles. Dinner was a terrific barbeque brisket that Bruce brought from Missouri, with trimmings, salad, and desert..

Tuesday, July 26: Middle Fork Salmon R., Joe Bump â Pungo Creek; MF Lodge 2.87'/1,740
We had a day of easy whitewater, with only one difficult sequence, which we scouted in a long hike encompassing four separate drops. The first was a recent blowout (Class III+), then there were two short Class IIIs followed by the Class IV Pistol Creek Rapid.
After a 15.6-mile day we relaxed in camp and enjoyed a dinner built around a ham & pineapple entre, prepared by Lois, Dan, and Don.

Wednesday, July 27: Middle Fork Salmon R., Pungo Creek â Shelf Creek; MF Lodge 2.82'/1680
Shortly after putting on we stopped so that everyone could rinse off in the shower of Sunflower Flat Hot Springs, then stopped at the Middle Fork Lodge to fill our jerrycans with potable water. This was a day of gentle rapids and fast floating, as the river flattened and the volume increased.
We covered 20.7 miles without incident. Dinner was Mick's white chicken chili with trimmings prepared by the cook team of Mick, Lizette, and Therell.

Thursday, July 28: Middle Fork Salmon R., Shelf Creek - Funston; MF Lodge 2.78'/1,630
The day started out easy, but the difficulty picked up as we reached the Tappan eries of rapids, including Class III+ Tappan Falls, which everyone negotiated successfully.
We covered 13.5 miles and then had a wonderful dinner of salmon steaks provided by Gordo and Bonnie.

Friday, July 29: Middle Fork Salmon R., Funston â Ship Island; MF Lodge 2.73'/1,570
A mile and a half after we started we stopped at the Flying B Ranch to again refill our jerrycans, and to enjoy the sport of shopping at the only store on the river. The Flying B bulletin board contained message to me from Mikel Wellman and Marilyn Jones who had put on the river a week earlier. In the afternoon we stopped for a hike up to Veil Falls to see the petroglyphs, then we ran two arguably Class IV rapids, Redside and Webber.
This was a 22.9-mile day, punctuated with a couple of hikes and ending with two difficult rapids, so we were happy to chill out in camp and enjoy the wonderful pork loin prepared by Nanette and her trophy-husband Chris Kelly.

Saturday, July 30: Middle Fork Salmon R., Ship Island â Cache Bar; MF Lodge 2.68'/1,520
We got off to an earlier start than usual and after we stopped to hike up to Parrott's grotto and successfully ran the last two difficult rapids of the Middle Fork â Rubber and Hancock -- we hustled down the river because Bruce had to return his rented raft to Stanley before close of business.
Hustling down the river got us badly strung out, and by the time I got to the biggest rapid of the entire trip, Kramer, on the mainstem of the Salmon, there were three of us bringing up the rear, with no-one else in sight. Chris Bell found an open-boat sneak down the left and I found an open-boat sneak down the right. And Dan managed to pin his canoe â a full-broadside open-end upstream two-point pin â at the bottom of the drop. Chris and I hiked back upstream, got some control ropes on the boat, and we managed to strongarm it off the pin before some of our friends showed up, by truck on the road above, to help.
This was 15.2 miles on the last day, and after unrigging and loading up the vehicles (which our shuttle company, Blackadar Boating, had left for us at the take-out) it was about a 60-mile drive, along dirt roads for the first 40 miles, into the town of Salmon, where Judy, Bruce, Bryan, Chris B, and Don had hotel reservations. Willy, Mick and I found a reasonable campground right in town. We all ate a fine dinner in Bertram's Brew Pub, then my carload went back to camp for our first shower in a week.

Sunday, July 31
We took UT-28,UT-33, and I-15 150 miles south southeast to Idaho Falls where we stopped for an oil change, then continues south on I-15 into Utah. We bypassed Salt Lake City on I-84 and then took US-40 through the Wasatch Mountains to Dinosaur National Monument, where we camped at the Green River Campground in the park.

Monday, August 1
Green River Campground is in the Utah unit of Dinosaur NM. We got up and drove to Josie Morris' cabin, stopping at a couple of petroglyph sites along the way, then we drove back to the Dinosaur Quarry, a remarkable stretch of excavated rock wall contaiing numerous nearly complete fossilized dinosaur skeletons, all enclosed and air-conditioned. Unfortunately, the Quarry, which was closed when I was here in 2006, was still closed; due to open in the Fall of 2011. As an alternative we took a short guided hike, on which our ranger/guide pointed out several exposed fossils, but it was not nearly as interesting as the Dinosaur Quarry, with all of its descriptive exhibits.
I had expected to stay a second night at Green River CG, then go to the Colorado unit of Dinosaur NM on our way East in the morning, but because the quarry was closed we left Utah and took the 25-mile drive out the Harper's Corner Road from Dinosaur, CO. This road leads out to the head of a one-mile trail that leads to the canyon overlook above the confluence of the Yampa and Green rivers. This is a spectacular view, and I try to never miss this side trip when I am in the area.
From the Harper's Corner Overlook I wanted to follow the dirt road down to Echo Park on the Yampa, just above the confluence, and camp there, but all four of my friends outvoted me. Too bad, they don't know what a cool place they missed! Instead, we drove back to US-40 and headed east, and finally camped at Yampa River State Park near Hayden, CO.

Tuesday, August 2: N. Platte River, Northgate Canyon; Northgate 4.13'/1,090 CFS
In the morning we continues east and crossed the Continental Divide just southeast of Steamboat Springs before taking CO-14 and CO-125 to the Route access to the North Platte.
In the guidebook "Western Whitewater", the Northgate Canon section is listed as Class III/IV. At the level we paddled it, there were only three rapids, the first one about 200 yards long, the second a mile long, and the third about a half mile long. No 100-yard stretch in these three rapids was more than Class III+, but taken each as a whole, I woud rate these three rapids at this level as Class III, Class IV, and Class IV.
Everything went well until the top of the last rapid, when one of us left his canoe in the middle of the river. Dan managed to get the swimmer to shore after about a quarter of a mile, and Mick and I chased the boat until I corralled it after another quarter of a mile, right at the ottom of the long rapid. We might have got Willy and his boat reunited a lot sooner, but it didn't seem like a good idea to risk having a second victim in a four-boat trip, particularly when none of us had ever run this river and we didn't know what else might be ahead of us.
As it turned out, once Willy managed to make his way down to his boat and we got going again, afraid that Lois would be worried as she sat waiting at riverside at the takeout, it was only another ¼-mile, around just one more riverend, until we were done. Well, almost done; it is a long climb up to the parking area -- Chatooga-long, but hot and dry and unshaded.
Fortunately, right at the Sixmile Gap access is the Sixmile Gap Campground of Medicine Bow NF, so we decided to stay right there. We were all so beat that we decided we were finished boating, even though our plans had included boating on the Cache la Poudre River in Colorado two days later, so we removed out airbags from our boats and loaded the boats in highway configuration.

Wednesday, August 3
We left Sixmile Gap heading northwest on WY-230, then turned east on WY-130. This is a Wyoming Scenic Byway known as the Snowy Mountains Highway, and it is a truly beautiful drive through the Medicine Bow NF.
We drove on eastward to Laramie for gas and a Wallmart stop, then took US-287 south into Colorado. 30 miles into Colorado we turned west on CO-14 and followed the Cache la Poudre upstream. Along the way we were subjected to such a severe hailstorm that visibility was zero and I had to pull over to wait it out. Eventually we reached Walden, CO and turned south on CO-125, reversing about a mile of the route we had taken from Dinosaur to the North Platte, and crossing the Continental Divide again, into the Colorado River watershed, before we found the Sawmill Gulch CG of Arapaho NF.

Thursday, August 4
We left camp continuing south on CO-125 to Granby, CO, where we got onto eastbound US-34 into Rocky Mountain National Park. We stopped at numerous overlooks, but made no side trips or ikes, and eventually we exited RMNP at Estes Park and continues on US-34 down the canyon of the Big Thompson River to I-25 in Loveland. We took I-25 south to the new I-76 beltway bypassing Denver, and got onto I-70 for the long slog home. Someplace in Kansas, around midnight, I climbed in back for a nap and Mick took over the driving.

Friday, August 5
Mick took us through St. Louis and onto I-64, then I got up and took over the driving again. We took I-57 and I-24 south through Illinois and across the Ohio River, and into Nashville, where we picked up I-40. Once on I-40 it was a straight shot eastward to home in Winston-Salem.

We were a total of 21 days on the road and covered exactly 6,501 miles. I kept the speed to a maximum of 65 MPH throughout the trip, and as a consequence my van averaged 13.1 MPG, a new record. The average price for fuel was $3.67.

We paddled for ten days and visited eight National Parks and National Monuments (Badlands, Mt. Rushmore, Devil's Tower, Yellowstone, Grand Teton, Craters of the Moon, Dinosaur, Rocky Mountain). We crossed the Continental Divide six times and we passed through and camped in numerous beautiful National Forests.

-Richard, His Kanubic Travesty