Day 3, June 14, 2000 - Cameron Park, CA to Missoula, MT
My course from Cameron Park to a fuel stop at Boise, Idaho would take me back over the Sierra Nevada, but this time north of Lake Tahoe. This time the Sierra crossing was nothing special. I'm an old hand now.
After reentering basin and range country on the east side of the Sierra Nevada I noticed the town of Gerlach, Nevada. Some of these towns are just a bit isolated.
Beautiful Downtown Gerlach
The dry lake bed to the upper right of the picture is the start of the Black Rock Desert. Lake Bonneville is the primary site for land speed record attempts but sometimes it is too rough or too wet. Black Rock Desert is an alternate site. It appears to extend about 60 miles or so.
Owyhee River Canyon
When I lived in wetter country I used to love to take river trips. One of the famous rivers for this, that I have never boated, is the Owyhee, which is mainly in Oregon. This is either Eastern Oregon or Western Idaho. Not all of Oregon is wet.
Shortly after this I landed in Boise, Idaho for fuel. I have never seen so many FBO's in what is a not very large city. Must have been about five. I ended up at Western Aircraft and bought 19.6 gallons at $2.57.
I was kind of waylayed by some mechanics here who wanted to talk RV. They also offered a tour of some Pilatus airplanes. They said they are the importer, and there were about 10 of these airplanes in the hangars or tied down. I declined the tour in the interests of saving time.
This leg was 364 nautical miles (419 statute) flown in 2.4 hours for an average of 152 knots (175 mph) at 8.17 gph.
I self weather briefed here and saw there was going to be a bit of a change on the next leg to Missoula. At this point I was getting up pretty close to "The Great White North" (Canada) and there was a moist northwesterly flow that was causing showers and quite a bit of mountain obscuration the further north I went.
Salmon River Mountains
North of Boise I entered the amazing section of Idaho. Among river runners it used to be a big joke. Here is Idaho, with the largest area of contiguous wilderness in the lower 48. This is pristine country with no roads, water you drink right out of the rivers, full of bears and other wildlife, beautiful mountains and canyons, and what do they put on their license plate? "FAMOUS POTATOES!"
Middle Fork of the Salmon River
The best vacation I ever took was a two week river trip down the Middle Ford of the Salmon River, and the Salmon River (River of No Return), when I was in my early twenties. I was a rookie kayaker, it was cold and cloudy at the start, water temperature was 42 degrees and I did not own a wetsuit. One does not know how amazingly wonderful a natural hotspring can be, until one utilizes it after a cold day of whitewater kayaking. I vividly remember just about every moment of that great trip, and it started on June 15th almost this exact date.
One thing I was going to do for sure on this trip was look at this river from the air. At first I was having a bit of trouble figuring out how exactly to find the river. Like many of us I have become slavishly dependent on my GPS, but it does not have rivers on the moving map. Aha! There it is after all. The Middle Fork was perfectly delineated by a curvy line of airstrips that are all along its banks.
It was great seeing the river. It appeared to be very very low compared to the level it was on my memorable trip.
River of No Return
I followed the Middle Fork all the way to its confluence with the Salmon River (River of No Return). This is where the wilderness ends. One can see a road along the right side of the river here, but it does not go far. When I boated this river is was running 40,000 cubic feet per second which is much higher than it is in the photo. On our trip the waves were Grand Canyon size and I was once flipped end over end in a 13 foot kayak.
This canyon is about 6,000 feet deep. Deeper than the Grand Canyon, which is around a mile deep at its deepest point. It has many small and interesting airstrips, both along the river and on the canyon walls. Someday, when I get a Super Cub.
As I approached Montana the clouds became more and more solid, and were obscuring some mountain tops.
Finally, I did have to get down in the passes to turn the corner around the Bitterroot Mountains to follow the Bitterroot River up to Missoula.
Bitterroot Mountains
Coming up this valley to Missoula it got turbulent. Hard to take pictures. Yep, that's snow falling in the mountains. It was raining a little bit on me.
MSO
Here we are, safe in Missoula. The leg was 220 nautical miles (254 statute), flown in 1.5 hours and we bought 13.5 gallons for a burn of 9 gph at 147 knots (167 mph). The figures on this leg were particularly distorted as I followed the Middle Fork which wound all over the place.