Goldan Canyon: Idaho 07

After our Big Sands trip the whole crew headed over to the SF Clearwater for a low water run down the Golden Canyon. Grace, Jason, Kris, Megi, Rob, our new friend Matt R. and I drove out on a hot day staring down at the pin rock and seives thinking this may not be such a good idea. Golden Canyon is normally run, by those we talked to, at around 1500cfs or greater. We had about half that.

We put in right below Coyote Falls, none of us could see a reasonable like throught the rocky seivy run out. Just as well, we all had a solid reson not to run it instead of the typical "If my shoulder wasn't bugging me," "If my boat wasn't cracked," and "I'm not used to this boat yet" excuses. From there on down, it was more or less boat scoutable class IV and Rob, Matt and I too turn probing the larger drops where Jason would get out to scout and shoot some photos. We also had David shooting photos from the bank the whole way down.

Fortunately for me, it was much cleaner than I thought and though I was paddling my Riot Magnum, I was wishing I had been in my new Astro for a few spots. Unfortunatley Kris got wedged in a seive through one of the gorge-y sections, and had to pull out but she flushed out immediately thankfully and all gear was recovered and everybody was all smiles. She probably just needed to cool off. The run concluded with a fair amount of flat water that has us all wishing for more water at the takcout, one more swimmer after an chin-meets-rock incident (ok in the end). Jason was super-stoked on the run and he's right, its a pretty good class IV run a that flow that I'd reccomend but still think a bit more water would be better. It reminds me of a mini Tumwater Canyon stretched out over a few more miles.

Next time you are stuck in Idaho for the second low water year in a row, I check it out.

Thanks to David for all the photos.

-EJ