Whitewater trips ahead!

At this point, my whitewater rafting season is shaping up nicely with 3+ rafting trips looking like this:

May 19 - Middle Fork of the Salmon - high water trip, most probably doing Marsh Creek (and Dagger Falls). Depending on cancellations, this may evolve into a back-to-back with a Selway or another MFS and/or back-to-back-to-back with Main Salmon. So, the very best outcome could be as many as 300 miles of white water in one continuous dose! Can't wait! I've not done Marsh Creek before and it is possible this trip could involve two laps of it! Yikes. Also, expect lots of wood in the river(s) due to last year's fires and previous blowouts above Pistol Creek.

July - tbd, depends on picking up a cancellation somewhere (and that I live through May), or off to Montana for a 'guys' trip flyfishing on the Blackfoot or Rock Creek.

August 9 - Lower Salmon - should be a pretty crazy time with an unknown number of members of Yahoo idahowhitewater group. This is the rafting equivelent of a giant blind date. We'll see. Could go well or could just suck. But I doubt it will suck. If nobody can stand each other, we'll all just slink away and do our own thing.

Sept 8 - Green River - Desolation Canyon. This will be our big family trip of the year. Great food, good wine, let the Margaritas flow! Lots of fun times with the kids and their significant others.

Santa was very understanding this year (or fed the addiction?), so I'm taking my new Aire Jaguarundi out somewhere this weekend as a bit of a shakedown for the May MFS trip. I'm building a new cargo frame for it (for Lower Salmon and Deso) but will be using an older frame with the new tubes and new oars on the May trip. The Jag pretty much completes our little flotilla, bringing the boat count up to 3, plus one IK. So we now have passenger capacity for at least 8 adults and 600 quarts of cooler space, two big dryboxes, and 5 rocket boxes. We do camp in style!

The new raft frame has been the major project this winter, in addition to the two new websites. Looking back, it's been a busy winter. But I got a lot done, and now the fun begins. I'll probably post some photos of the new frame and reasons for the design.

Following yesterday's climate change comments, I notice that there is more news out there today on Solar Thermal. This time Google doing the funding. I sure hope this takes off. My hope for us all.