Going Along for the Ride on ‘River of No Return’

Any time on the Salmon River is special, but spring and summer are rare seasons--particularly in early morning.

It’s like watching the curtain go up on a hit play.

New wonders are evident everywhere. As night mists float away--presto!--the river appears, twisting, turning, jumping over rocks and tossing waves of spray high in the air.

While the haze thins, budding willows appear . . . shadows turn into soft green hills . . . pines and firs and leafing aspen come into focus . . . patches of lichen are exposed, turning dark cliffs into rainbows.

Blossoms and Clouds

Meadows show off the blossoms of cherries, apples, peaches and pears, and in the distance, small puffs of clean white clouds reveal snowcapped peaks, and golden eagles spread their wings.

This was the picture on the second day of our adventure on the “River of No Return.” The river got its name when miners and trappers couldn’t get their scows back up through the Salmon’s rapids. At high water it can run at 124,000 gallons a second.

On the first day, things were different. It was early May and a freak blizzard was in full throttle. Hail and snow pelted us as we drove from the rustic little town of Salmon to a flat spit of sand where Corn Creek spills into the main river.

I was one of eight beginners on a Barker-Ewing Salmon River rafting trip. We were divided into two small rubber rafts and handed a paddle. We strapped on clumsy life vests and tried to look macho, which is not easy when you’re wearing everything you own and your legs are wrapped in plastic trash bags to keep the water out.

Fortunately, we were well-chaperoned. There were three guides: Frank Ewing, a Yale graduate in biology; Wayne Johnson, a philosophy major from Alabama, and Rick Burns, another student.

Fount of Wisdom

There was also an inimitable rafter from West Virginia, Jon Dragan, who seemed to own a Ph.D. in common sense. A sampling of Dragan’s pearls of wisdom: “If a burnt tree stump looks like a bear, figger it is”; “Don’t worry if you fall in and disappear. We’ll name a ‘crick’ after you”; “If all it takes to bring the sun out is to put up the rain tarp, I’m in favor of it.”

Perhaps Dragan’s greatest contribution was showing up with a beat-up jug full of an impressive mixture called Yukon Jack. “Back home,” Dragan said, “some ladies call it ‘the shame of the South,’ but I ain’t found nothin’ sick it won’t cure.”

Ewing and Dragan were perched high and dry in the sweep boat loaded with gear. Then, to the sweet song of a canyon wren and an honorary flyby of belted kingfishers, we shoved off.

It wasn’t easy. We had to balance on the outer edge of the rafts without sliding off. Ewing and Johnson had briefed us on survival. Ewing’s message was simple. “If you fall in, hang onto your paddle and float feet-first downstream. Avoid sharp rocks and get out of the river before hypothermia sets in.”

Laughter Helps

Johnson added a more cheerful note: “No matter what happens,” he said, “laugh a lot. It frees the bronchial tubes, gets air to the brain, helps your coordination and makes you think and move quicker.”

Burns was steering our raft and I was in the middle, right behind a pint-size, blue-eyed Irish treasure named Laural. Her tousled brown hair was stuffed under a beat-up fedora.

Johnson’s laughter theory proved out in a hurry. Right after we started we caught our first rapid. A rush of water dropped us into a whirlpool. Spray spouted 10 feet high as we churned by house-size rocks. As we spun, a big wave curled over my side of the raft. A delighted Laural half-turned.

“This one owns you,” she yelped at me. Before she could turn around and duck, her fedora and the raft turned too.

My next sighting of Laural was of a five-foot, fluffy torpedo surfing over my head. Our trusty guide Evans saw her coming. He grabbed her as if he was plucking a peach and plopped her into the icy bilge, where she thrashed around like a 100-pound trout.

We were hardly wet before we passed what was left of Jack Killum’s log cabin. A Depression-era refugee, Killum was known as “a friend to mankind.” He proved it by building his cabin right over the narrow trail on the edge of the river bank.

The cabin had a door at either end. The only way a stranger could get by was to walk through Killum’s cabin. By then he was no longer a stranger.

Graves Ringed by Rocks

Most of the miners and trappers are long-gone and forgotten. Log cabins with sagging doors creaking in the wind have become pages in the history of the river.

Sometimes nearby graves are ringed by rocks, rough reminders of those who stayed to the very end. Either Ewing or Johnson always seemed to have some flower seeds to scatter over those lonely plots.

If there were crosses along the way, the weather was turning them to dust and blowing them gently over the river, the land and the hills.

Although most of those engineers are gone, many are not forgotten. Hacksaw Tom Christenseen, from Ebenezer Creek, was a lot of fun. He liked going to dances with a couple of rattlesnakes tucked inside his shirt.

Another creative miner was Fritz Music. He hated snakes. To protect himself on party nights, when he had to weave his way home he covered his arms and legs with lengths of stovepipe. For this scientific breakthrough a “crick” was named after him.

But the character who left the most visible memorial on the river settled down at the Fivemile Bar and started a one-man war against the United States. He was Sylvan Ambrose Hart, a long-bearded hunter better known as “Buckskin Bill.” He had the weird idea that the Army was going attack him.

To hold it off, he built a 30-foot-high stone tower. It had rifle slits and cannon ports facing up and down the river. He made his own cannon and the balls to go with them. The fort is still there. Hart is still there, too, under a fancy headstone decorated with drawings of rifles, flowers and goats.

Slippery Ride

Then there’s Bob Smith. Few fireside nights are without Bob Smith stories. A quiet and modest giant, he’s still considered the best river man ever. Smith built his first wood boat when he was 11. Now he has three jets plus a gear-groaning Jeep that he uses to travel from his lodge to the river.

The slippery ride to the water’s edge is as thrilling as running a rapid. The Jeep has no brakes. To stop, Smith turns off the engine and puts it in reverse. He figures the Jeep will die about six inches before it slides into the water.

Smith also is responsible for one of the most unusual “bathrooms” in the world. He hung a real tub on the side of the steep cliff by Barth Hot Springs. You can jump into his hot tub and look down at a pile of jagged rocks 50 feet below.

After time spent with such inimitable characters, exploring some of nature’s wonders along with the ghosts of years past, it’s not easy to say goodby. After a week of sheep and elk, birds, daisies and purple violets, it’s also hard to think again about life in the fast lane back home.

Barker-Ewing Inc. offers a seven-day, six-night package for summer white-water rafting on the Salmon River. The plan goes for $795 for adults, $695 for children under 18. Remaining dates are June 25, July 3, 11, 19 and 27, Aug. 4, 12, 20 and 28, and Sept. 5.

The company also offers white-water rafting on the Snake River in Jackson Hole, Wyo.

For more information and reservations contact Barker-Ewing Inc., 45 W. Broadway, Box 3032, Jackson, Wyo. 83001, (307) 733-1000.