My 75-year-old mother is dressed in a swimsuit and a hula skirt she has handmade from leaves and grasses collected from the side of the river. She’s swaying across the sandy beach at our campsite on night three of a six-day float of Idaho’s strikingly beautiful Middle Fork of the Salmon River. It’s talent show night, and her talent is: river fashion.
After my mom displays her various outfits (which includes one made from a drybag), it’s my 11-year-old daughter’s turn to go. She and a friend, dressed in PFDs and carrying paddles, march in unison to the beat of a makeshift drum, while twirling their paddles like batons. The talent? Marching band, obviously. The rest of us, seated in camp chairs, cheer and applaud, happily enjoying the evening’s entertainment.
On a river trip, after a full day spent navigating rapids and enjoying the brisk pace of the river’s current, the evenings are a time to slow down. To soak it all in. From the moment you get to camp, when a hard-working guide strolls by with cold beverages on ice, you have this rare and beautiful opportunity to sit back and enjoy the stillness of it all, with no to-do lists, cell service, or deadlines.
It’s in these moments of down time that you truly appreciate the wild magic of this place, central Idaho’s vast Frank Church-River of No Return Wilderness, and the 100 miles of dam-free, Wild and Scenic-designated water that flows through it. This is the largest roadless wilderness in the Lower 48, a 2.3-million-acre swath of rugged mountains that make you feel like you’re part of something bigger than yourself.