Journey Staff Room

The arrival of summer means many different things to different people, but for those who live in and around Riggins, Idaho, it seems to mean only one thing: big water. That’s because the Whitewater Capital of Idaho celebrates prime rafting conditions on the Salmon River (above) with the Bigwater Blowout River Festival on Saturday, June 5. In an annual tradition that dates back to 1998, about a half dozen of the area’s rafting outfitters offer abbreviated tours on wild-flowing sections of the Salmon at discounted rates (typically around $30, though this year’s price has yet to be confirmed). The gathering point for the tours is in the town’s main city park, where live music, a barbecue, refreshing beverages in the “Beer Eddy” and a Dutch-oven cook-off round out a full day of fun. You can sign up for your tour in the park. The outfitters provide the equipment and guides and shuttle you out to the river and back.

“This is a safe way for people to experience the big whitewater flows that the Salmon River provides in the spring,” says Amy Sinclair, whose company, Exodus Wilderness Adventures, offers guided rafting, fishing and jet-boat tours along the Salmon out of Riggins. She expects the river’s biggest rapids—identified with such names as the Pencil Sharpener, the Pancake Wave and the Big Easy—to be flowing at high Class IV levels for weeks.

A wetter-than-normal spring appears to have made up for winter’s below-normal snowfall, and Sinclaire is bullish on summer’s water-flows. Her advice to you adrenaline junkies out there: Get out on the Salmon between Memorial Day and mid-June, when the flows are at their peak (the rafting season typically lasts through September).

I discovered first-hand how wet this spring has been on my visit to the Riggins area in late April. Rain showers greeted me as I pulled into town and followed me and other journalists touring the nearby Hells Canyon National Recreation Area aboard a jet-boat along the Snake River.

“This is one of the most extreme things you can do on a jet boat,” our pilot Kurt Killgore of Killgore Adventures told us before we dropped into the Granite Creek rapids, which were flowing at Class V on the afternoon of our trip. The nose of the 28-foot-long boat plunged about 12 feet down a steep chute, sending a huge wave over the bow. Killgore then gunned the throttle to the dual 350-horsepower engines that pulled us through the rushing water. It was the most exhilarating five seconds I’ve experienced in a while. Most of us were seated under a tarp that covered the front portion of the deck, but two colleagues standing near the stern were drenched as we shot through the rapids. The huge sprays of water are more popular among passengers in the heat of summer, when daytime temperatures regularly exceed 100 degrees.

Family-owned and operated, Killgore Adventures takes passengers from Pittsburg Landing, near White Bird, Idaho, upriver to Hells Canyon Dam and back on its Wild River Hells Canyon Dam Tour ($165). The 64-mile round-trip tour typically lasts about six hours and takes you through the steepest parts of America’s deepest river gorge, with stops to walk up and see historic riverside settlements, eat lunch and cool off in swimming holes along the way. The Killgores also offer guided fishing tours along the Snake and other excursions. This spring’s bountiful Chinook salmon run is expected to last a few more weeks, while summer brings opportunities to fish for trout, bass and giant (catch-and-release only) sturgeon on the Snake.

So, what are you waiting for? Big water season is here.