MF Day 6, 6/15/2007: Last MF day.

Mile 87.9 (Parrot Cabin) to mile 99.7 (Cache Bar take out)

Woke up both sad and excited. Sad because it was the last day, and excited because supposedly some of the best whitewater of the trip was just downstream.

Here are a lot of photos of some of that last day on the river with little commentary (though some).

Sparky with Backstroke, Bama and CB getting ready for the big water. Notice here that Sparky is dry:


Here is the video of Sparky flipping. This happens in a rapid that is un-named in my guidebook, just above Rubber rapid. One of the other guidebooks said the rapid is called "Son of Rubber."

Her raft flips because she tunnel visions onto the large first wave, and while she hits it squarely, she doesn't see the large diagonal coming from the right just below it, and it catches the front starboard corner of her raft and peels her over like a ripe banana. I go through right in front of her, notice that when I'm on top of the first wave, I make just a subtle jog to the right, which is what keeps me upright.

She does a good job of keeping her head above water, and an even better job of getting herself onto the bottom of her boat before it goes through the class IV Rubber rapid.

I dubbed Jon Mellencamp's "Hurts so Good" over the audio track of the video because Sparky requested it. "Why?" Let's just say after this episode, we were considering changing her nickname to "F-Bomb."

Swearing in front of a little lamb: shame on you Sparky!


This is a series of photos of Sparky running Cramer Creek rapid on the Main Salmon after the Middle Fork joins it. It had the biggest waves we saw on the entire trip (of course the Main Salmon was flowing with about 5 times the water of the Middle Fork, so it kind of made sense). This is another rapid that was made much worse by a recent blowout: 10 years ago, there wasn't much rapid here at all.

Sparky entering the tongue:

Sparky disappears into the maw of the rapid:

Still gone:

Sparky explodes upward towards the sun:

As she frees herself from the powerful grip of Cramer Creek:

Here is the money shot of Sparky driving through the big curler at Cramer Creek:


DS showing good form in Cramer Creek:



Backstroke and Bama making it look easy.


CB winding down towards the take-out.


Sparky relaxing after her big day, with the take-out at Cache Bar in sight:
Fin.