Dry river

The gods of travel have not treated me kindly recently.  How unkindly?  Let me count the ways.

1.  (2019)  Trip to Kashmir canceled three weeks before scheduled departure because of Indo-Pakistani conflict.

2. (2020)  Thirty-person birthday celebration in Levanto Italy canceled two months before departure.  Covid-19.

3. (2020).  Trip to Chiang Mai, Thailand, to visit my nephew.  Canceled.  Covid-19.

4. (2021).  Rescheduled birthday celebration in Levanto, Italy.  Canceled.  Covid-19.

And now -- my float trip down the Middle Fork of the Salmon river in Idaho.  The River of No Return.  

This was to be my first return to travel after being vaccinated against Covid-19.  A safe "first"  -- out of doors, in the wilderness, and in the company of a small number of vaccinated participants.  And, indeed, the culprit wasn't Covid-19 this time.

It was the weather.

We've been having very hot, very dry weather this summer in the Northwest Corner, as I've grumbled repeatedly in this blog.  My sister, who inspired this trip, has been sending me reports on the condition of the Salmon river.  The latest shows the river's average depth is down to 1.45 feet, where less than three feet is defined as "low."  I suspect that several people in a raft are going to have a rocky ride in 1.45 feet of water.

The outfitter has suggested flying us to portions of the river where the water is running deeper, and says that we may have to portage in places.  Unfortunately, that excludes the most scenic areas of the ride, together with bragging rights for having floated a continuous six-day route.  We are all older (not ancient) folks, and I suspect most of us are at least as interested in the wilderness experience as in running a fast river.  Under present conditions, however, we really would get neither.

So it looks like we're going to cancel the trip, which was scheduled to begin on August 26.  Or, more accurately, we hope to reschedule it for next summer, when we hope the weather will be closer to normal and the rivers flowing with more water.

I still have my plane tickets to Idaho.  Luckily my sister lives very close to the put-in point for the river trip, and I'll spend a few days visiting her and her family.  

We can only hope that no new lightning bolt hurled down by the travel gods wipes out our stay at Lake Como, Italy, scheduled to begin September 11.