Rafting Optimism Mixed With Caution Outfitters Anticipating Great Season

Whitewater outfitters throughout Idaho are expecting one of the best seasons in recent years. But those expectations are tempered with an understanding that the same conditions that make a rafting trip memorable also can make it deadly.

Snowpacks throughout the state are up to 180 percent of normal, so outfitters are expecting highwater conditions through early July.

High water tends to increase the difficulty of running a river, David Gonzalez, owner of Canyon Whitewater Supplies in Idaho Falls, said Monday.

“Things happen a lot faster,” Gonzalez said.

The waves are bigger and the current pushier, making it more difficult to get to shore, to see obstacles downstream or to maneuver in rapids, he said.

Rivers are rated class 1 to 5 depending on their difficulty. Class 1 is easy riffles. Class 5 is experts-only whitewater.

At normal flows, the Middle Fork of the Salmon River is class 3 or 4 - difficult, but something a family can handle if accompanied by a competent guide. Right now, however, the Middle Fork is running high and Gonzalez considers it class 5 whitewater.

Conditions on the Middle Fork already have caused some outfitters to cancel early season trips or move them to other rivers. Bob Sevy of Sevy Guide Service shifted several of his trips from the Middle Fork to the Bruneau and Owyhee rivers.

Idaho’s many rivers give outfitters a flexibility not always available to those in other states, Sevy said. When the alpine rivers are running high, the desert rivers tend to be past their peak flows and coming down, he said.

Sevy expects optimal water levels on the Middle Fork by late June and said good conditions through July and into August are likely.

“It’s going to be a great season,” he said.

Despite the optimism, Sevy plans on taking extra precautions when he starts running the Middle Fork. If the river is high, trips will start at a safer location downstream from the usual put-in, he said. His guides also are practicing their rescue skills.

The high-water conditions of the last two years really are just a return to normal, longtime Idaho whitewater boaters say.

“People just got spoiled in that 10 years of drought,” Bill Bernt of Aggipah River Trips said.

Veteran guide Donna Masoner of Whitewater Adventures said the problem is that many younger guides have not seen the rivers at these levels. With high water, she said, the routes through some rapids change, some rapids disappear and new rapids form.