37 Miles on the South Fork of the Snake – Day 1

I asked Nick what his favorite part of the trip was.  He jokingly replied, “Stopping at Golden Corral on the way”.  Yes, this was a great way to start the week-long trip, stopping at an all you can eat buffet before having camp food for every meal.  No, we didn’t stop at the 7-11 for candy.

Since we were floating five days rather than three, we decided to start the float a little higher on the river rather than the usual put-in at Conant.  Checking at the fly shop we found out that Irwin did not have a good ramp and was real steep.  They steered us toward the Palisade Creek put-in which does have a nice cement ramp.  This was fortuitous because there is also a campground and a service station (Huskey’s) there.  Since we were camping after September 30^th, which is the end of the official camping season, we did not have to pay for camping for or pay the daily parking “recreational’ fee for the week.  We still filled out an Overnight Camping Permit.

Since it was still daylight after we pitched the tent, we disconnected the boat and drove up to see the dam.  We were curious to see how much water was being released.  Just that week they had lowered the amount of water released to 6,000 cfs as opposed to the 8,000 to 10,000 cfs that were being released all summer.

It started to rain as we headed back to the campground.  We were glad the tent was up.  We lit the propane stove and started to warm two cans of stew.

We could see eagle’s nests across the river.  It ended up raining lightly all night and most of the next day.  Luckily it wasn’t too cold. 

In the morning, after loading the boat, we placed a tarp over the very back of the boat to cover the items not in the tote boxes, like the sleeping bags and pads.

We floated 12.5 miles on this rainy Tuesday. 

Despite the rain, we saw over a half dozen eagles. 

Also of note was that we floated past the river side of the South Fork Lodge, the side you see in their literature. 

Then shortly thereafter we floated past the Conant valley ramp where we usually start our float trips.  Our Second day camp is just one mile past this ramp.  The camp is called Pine Creek #1. 

Nick caught quite a few fish that evening after setting up the tent before having dinner.  We set the tent up as soon as we got there so it could dry as much as possible before sundown.