Class V Packrafting: Middle Kings

 

   Through the 2019 spring season, having pulled off successful runs on serious backcountry creeks and rivers in Colorado's San Juan mountains (Vallecito, Brazos, Pinos) on the heels of Bull Lake Creek I finally started to believe that I was up for the next major milestone, the Middle Kings: a legendary remote, unrelenting and punishing river that cuts a yosemite-like valley while dropping from over 8000' along the PCT down to 1000' in the Sierra Nevada foothills. This river, one of the benchmarks of North America class V expedition kayaking, had been our stated goal for that year.

    Even though our 2019 Middle Kings run went better than we had expected, I had never felt more drained of adrenaline, worn down and beat up.

The Exit of Waterfall Gorge, 2019 (Photo John Baker)

Here's my video from that first trip:

(Click for the 2019 Video)

 In the continuing spirit of exploring new-to-me terrain in the 2020 season, I had my eye on a couple of missions in Canada, Idaho and other Sierra Nevada runs. Every time Dan and I discussed ideas I would present a different one, but Dan settled into consistent promotion of another crack at the Middle Kings. We warmed up on a Cherry Creek lap followed by a low flow trip through cherry bomb, after which Dan humored me for a headwaters exploration run in a nearby drainage:

but I eventually relented and saddled up for Middle Kings round two. This year we had a much shorter and more scenic approach (the standard one over Bishop Pass), superior boats (Valkyrie prototypes) plus more confidence in our own selves. Allen joined us from Durango for his second packraft trip, his first being the Animas-Vallecito Skiraft linkup.

    Subject to an inflexible schedule and meteorological whimsy, we ended up with a much lower flow this year - 600 cfs at Rodgers Crossing. But first, and possibly unique among Middle Kings paddlers, we got to fully enjoy our hike in over the Sierra crest.

Slab camp next to the put-in just above Palisade Creek

    And we're off on the Middle Kings! 

    The first few warm-up slides helped suppress the butterflies enough for Dan and I to take a crack at an oft-portaged drop: Squeeze Play (of course aided by half the flow kayakers typically have):

A tricky entrance resulted in this somewhat successful contortion

Clip of Squeeze Play

This gave us hope that some of the bigger features further down would go. We were right.

Money Drop

unnamed slides

    Dan and I had portaged the above series of drops in 2019, while John took a ride in a weir hole just below the drop where Dan is pictured above. This year it proved problematic in different ways - I hung up on a boulder at the bottom and had to roll off it, while Dan took a faceshot to the large undercut boulder on the bottom left (!). Fortunately we were able to shake it off.

    Dan had showed us portagers up on Money Drop and lead the charge down Breakfast Slide, a tempting but very long slide with a tough pothole at the bottom:

Dan probes Breakfast Slide

The pothole at the bottom of Breakfast slide is a difficult off-camber hit

    The standard (kayak) line involves skirting the left side of the pothole, but with packrafts and low flows that part of the slide just wanted to roll you over your right side into the pothole landing. Dan's difficulty with this standard left line gave me pause and I eventually settled on a wall-tapping right line

Breakfast Slide POV

    Waterfall Gorge was relatively easy to pick apart at low flow, but still demanded a scout and safety below the marquee waterfall given the boxed-in terminal hole lurking just below the large pool

Dan takes the plunge

Allen's last big feature before succumbing to a nagging shoulder injury

    We camped just below the waterfall, and Dan and I were treated to some fantastic slides to start the day.

    Dan and I ran some sections and portaged a good bit below here, careful to avoid Raw Dog gorge which looked incredibly spicy at this flow (or any flow). Allen, with his somewhat injured shoulder, decided to walk from Simpson Meadow down to Tehipite valley, skipping the Middle Four (and would hike out to a trailhead from there - no trail exists along the Bottom Nine below Tehipite)

    It turned into a very long day pushing the whole way through Simpson meadow and the Middle Four to get to Tehipite, a splendid camp. Taller than El Cap!! We expeditiously avoided photo stops until the next day as we proceeded towards the start of the infamous Bottom Nine.

The last of the low gradient beneath Tehipite Dome

...and she disappears after the Bottom Nine starting line

    Whereas our first run in 2019 had filled us with great intrepidation, Dan and I were now filled with great intrepidation and a little bit of confidence. These new boats were much superior even to the Alpackalypses we had used previously, in control, speed through features and rollability.

    However, despite fewer portages and scouts than the previous year, the grueling nature of the Bottom Nine caught up to us. Whereas the upper slide sections on Days 1 into 2 had the air of thrill and glory, the Bottom Nine on Day 3 turned into an onslaught. Both Dan and I each had a particularly ugly swim as the day wore on, with Dan now nursing an injury (developed on Upper Cherry's Kiwi-in-a-Pocket) that cast a question mark over his ability to continue paddling. I was in no mood to take pictures or even video, and right after a scary swim where Dan plucked me out of a mid-river eddy just above an awful drop, we had no choice but to call it a day.

Dan assess his assets at the final camp. Upside-down no-longer-live-oak for scale.

    In the morning we continued. Only a few of the more challenging rapids remained, and an overnight recovery had worked wonders. In the end, we had successfully paddled the Middle Kings, in packrafts, with only a handful of portages on the Bottom Nine.

Confluence!

Here's my 2020 Video from the Middle Kings run:

(Click for 2020 Video)

Even at lower flows, the 'runout' on Garlic Falls is a serious affair

Finishing on fumes, we both agreed to take a year off from this one, and this time we meant it.

NOTE: the Middle Kings (sans Bottom Nine) was also packrafted in 2021 by another team around 1100 cfs. No media from that trip except a selfie with Dane Jackson at Tehipite.

Idahodarod ski-packraft traverse

     Whenever I propose a new route, I am immediately suspicious of this type of response:

 'That looks like a good idea, I think I'm in!'

    However, even I couldn't shake the notion that a 300+ mile traverse of Idaho wilderness using skis and packrafts, in early springtime, might be a good idea. 

  In the end, we were largely successful from start to finish with our core group of 5 skirafters, though our success may have relied in large part on a miraculous two week long near-perfect weather window. A ski traverse along the spine of the Sawtooth mountains delivered us to Marsh Creek into the Middle and Main Salmon. Following a 6000' climb out of the Main canyon with packrafts in our packs, we skied nearly to the banks of the Selway River, our final leg of the journey. The Sawtooth, Frank Church River of No Return, and Selway-Bitterroot Wildernesses lay underneath our boots, boats, and pillows nearly the entire route length over 14 days.

blue = paddle, red = ski, green = wilderness areas

Sawtooth Range

Marsh Creek

Middle Fork

Climbing out of the Main

Selway River

  My original motivation for this trip, on the heels of a handful of successful skirafting trips the previous year [Grand Canyon, San Juan Mountains, Absaroka Mountains, Henry Mountains], was to tackle a true packrafting expedition with Mike in his new backyard in central Idaho. We settled on the 2nd week of April as our starting point for several reasons: 1. minimizing the dryland mileage (ultimately <10 miles!), 2. springtime snowpack stability featuring high likelihood of overnight refreezing, 3. Marsh Creek flows just high enough, but Selway flows that weren't yet absolutely raging. 

    And so we arrived from Idaho, Colorado, Utah, Montana and Colorado at a point just south of Stanley and saddled up for a slog-to-climb into the Sawtooth range.

  Allen and Brian B would leave the group after this first leg, while Mike, Jesse, Tom, Brian G and I would push on for another 9 days into another climate zone ending in Lowell, ID just above where the Selway joins the Lochsa river. Will later joined us for the Selway, skiing in solo from Montana.

First of thirteen passes on our Sawtooth traverse

Snowgeese heading north

    There are very few places where you can travel for 300 miles in the lower 48 and only cross 3 roads (one highway, two dirt roads). The highway separating the Sawtooth Range from Marsh Creek (Middle Fork Salmon headwaters) was our only resupply for the trip - and here we had stashed our paddling gear in advance. Skis loaded into boats, donuts and fried chicken down the hatch, and a direct launch from snowpack into the creek.

And onto the Middle Fork Salmon, leaving winter behind for the moment. Sort of.

    It was sunny, but it sure wasn't very warm. Spray was still flash freezing to our faces and pfds even after lunch most days.

    Green grass along the Main Salmon felt very out of place, having come straight from the Sawtooth Range and a freezing river leg. And for that matter, maybe some of us felt a bit out of place, packing up boats and skis into giant packs on a backcountry lawn.

    Carrying everything on our backs, even just halfway up the 6000' climb from the main before reaching snowpack, it was hard to not feel like a caravan of clown cars.

nearing the transition to skis, climbing away from the Main

What an exemplary, tight pack Mike!

two full days of ski traverse along Waugh Ridge

Perched camp overlooking the Bitterroot Mtns

    The morning after our final snow camp we descended to the Selway, and we could finally start to relax. Or, at least those of us not fully intimidated by a healthy flow and a juicy set of rapids that lay between us and civilization. For the second time we would be sitting in our boats rather than carrying our packs, now to the finish line. Mercifully, the skittery snowpack covering the road had a fresh few inches of powder padding to make our lives easier with heavy loads.

    At one point on the ski descent, while in the lead, wolf prints appeared on the track in the snow during a brief flurry. I bent down to inspect, and immediately said, 'These are less than 10 minutes old'. I took another look... 'No, probably less than 2 minutes old!'. I skated ahead around the bend, and after 100 feet they veered into the woods.

    Whereas Marsh Creek and the Middle Fork Salmon are barely above base flow mid-April, the Selway is already cranking.

It felt great to end a trip on a river leg - sunny, green, and wet... but still cold. Spring has barely begun.

Leaving camp before shoes thaw, last morning

Straight up out of gas

       It certainly didn't feel like our trip ended too soon, but the sense of accomplishment of pulling off a trip of this magnitude was downright awesome. A fluid link of wilderness snowpack and the waterways it feeds is such a satisfying concept - and thankfully parts of the west contain enough intact wilderness to make that possible.