48 - 7/10/2011 - NF St Joe (Idaho)

Lee in a typical rapid

First thing in the morning, we got up and drove down to the takeout. We took the long route so we could scout the biggest rapids. We had to drive through several narrow tunnels, some with deer in them. We put in on a small creek that ran into the NF St Joe after about a hundred yards.

The water was crystal clear and fairly cold, but that's why we wear drysuits even when it's 80 degrees. The river is pretty much continuous easy rapids, with occasional larger rapids. There are plenty of places to surf throughout the run. The road is nearby, but it rarely mars the scenery, which is a tree-lined steep canyon with scattered rock cliffs and some old mining debris.

The toughest section is called No Sweat. We had scouted some of this, but we didn't run it like we had intended. At one point, I got turned around backwards and I thought I was going to flip going over a big drop, but I didn't.

At the end of the day, we headed back to Wallace for dinner, and then on to Missoula, Montana for the night. At one point, we stopped to look at the Clark Fork just below Alberton Gorge. The water was quite high, but the worst thing was the insects in the area. When we got ready to leave, we were attacked by mosquitos. Later, we ran into a swarm of bugs on the freeway that covered our windshields with guts that did not wash off easily. We would spend the next few days cleaning these bugs off the cars. We drove way out into the woods and eventually found a camping spot in an old CCC camp.