The IJBA consulted the seers and made the decision to schedule the IJBA Salmon River Run for April 22nd and 23rd. Friday the 22nd is the practice day and Saturday the 23rd is the run day. Some may choose to run again on Sunday, but that is up to you. We had originally discussed holding our run on the weekend of May 7th, but the projections are that the flows may likely be too high by then if we get warm weather in late April. This weekend in April is also when some of our more experienced boaters will already be up on the river. I apologize for the rather short notice, but it looks like this will work out for the best.

If you are considering attending this run please email me with: 1. your name and how many you expect in your party; 2. If you intend on camping at Spring Bar Campground; 3. If you are experienced on this section (and whether you are willing to lead a group), if you will pilot your boat but will need a group leader, or if you will be requesting a ride with another boater and we will make every attempt to get your needs met.

We are asking for this information as far in advance as possible to make sure we make the appropriate arrangements with the government agencies. The Spring bar campground is under the jurisdiction of the Forest Service, Salmon River district, and they have a standing policy to requires a special use permit if a group of over 75 people will be camping in the same area. The Salmon River corridor from Vinegar Creek downstream to the confluence is the jurisdiction of the Bureau of Land Management, and there are no known travel restrictions in place. The Salmon river corridor upstream of Vinegar creek is under Forest Service jurisdiction, and they have asked that we follow the permit season limits on group size to 5 boats per group with no more than 30 people in a group. The ranger I spoke with understands and has no problems with the groups tendencies to gather at common landings such as Buckskin Bills, but asked to stay within the limits for stopping at public landing spots along the way.

We intend to run on these dates as long as the water flow levels are above 10,000 CFS (some may choose to run this section down to 6,000, but usually this has resulted in some bent boats) and below 25,000CFS (it gets difficult to get over Chittum rapid in a single engine boat over that flow) Salmon River flow data can be checked in real time via the White Bird gauge at:

http://waterdata.usgs.gov/id/nwis/uv/?s ... 0060,00010

You will also need to coordinate your trip in with the Salmon River Road construction project. Information about the road access is at this link:

http://www.salmonriverroad.org/travel/d ... 011-04.pdf

As the chair of this run I will be happy to organize the groups based on who shows up, provide some seats on my boat if needed, be present at Spring Bar Campground on Friday morning to re-direct people if the run gets cancelled or goes to plan B due to flows or other unforeseen issues (in these instance boaters often go over the hill to Pittsburg landing, and some of the more adventurous run anyway). On each day groups will begin to travel upstream between 8am and 9am Mountain Time.

If you need to locate me at Spring Bar I have a Blue Dodge dually pickup, an Arctic Fox Camper, and a pink Customweld boat. FYI we will not be checking membership cards at this event, and all safe boaters are welcome. If you find these events are as valuable as we have, we believe you will be convinced to support these organizations with your membership. It looks like there will be a few opportunities for new and not so new boaters to enjoy this awesome resource and more events to choose from will spread our ability to have more manageable runs and will spread any impact out over a few different weekends. I look forward to seeing you all on the river. Please fire away with any questions you may have.

Greg Dickerson

BadInfluence