{"id":28744,"date":"2023-03-29T17:00:19","date_gmt":"2023-03-30T00:00:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/community.nrs.com\/?p=28744"},"modified":"2023-04-21T11:00:56","modified_gmt":"2023-04-21T18:00:56","slug":"the-grand-salmon-journals-two-perspectives-from-the-south-fork-salmon","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/community.nrs.com\/duct-tape\/2023\/03\/29\/the-grand-salmon-journals-two-perspectives-from-the-south-fork-salmon\/","title":{"rendered":"The Grand Salmon Journals: Two Perspectives from the South Fork Salmon"},"content":{"rendered":"

Over the course of the spring and summer in 2022, The Grand Salmon team skied, whitewater kayaked and sea kayaked from the headwaters of the Salmon River in central Idaho to the Pacific Ocean. The women completed this 1,000+ mile source-to-sea expedition as a conservation project, promoting the removal of the four lower Snake River dams and a moratorium on the Stibnite Gold Project, in order to save the rapidly dwindling Snake River Basin salmon populations from extinction.<\/em><\/p>\n

Following the natural migration of chinook and sockeye salmon, the team launched on April 29, around the same time the salmon were hatching from their spawning grounds at the headwaters of the Salmon River. The team followed the salmon smolts\u2019 migration path for the following 79 days, reaching the Pacific Ocean around the same time the salmon reached the ocean.<\/em>\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

The following is a collaboration of journal entries, art, and reflection by the three core paddlers of The Grand Salmon team: Hailey Thompson, Libby Tobey, and\u00a0Brooke Hess<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n

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Day 27 \u2013 Day 29: Exploring the South Fork\u2019s Fisheries
\n<\/strong>From the journals and thoughts of Libby Tobey<\/em><\/p>\n

One of the most stressful, chaotic pieces of the Grand Salmon puzzle was undoubtedly the South Fork of the Salmon. From the early planning phases, the South Fork had been difficult to line up: road access and late-season snowpack for a headwaters ski tour were uncertain, and none of our crew had paddled the East Fork of the South Fork, the site of the proposed Stibnite Gold Mine and the tributary where we were hoping to start the last segment of the Salmon.<\/p>\n

A remarkably wet April and May did nothing to help our planning, and by the time our planned launch window rolled around, flows were high with heavy rain in the forecast. For several days, we crashed in McCall with our amazing friend Trent, watching the Krassel gauge while we ticked off a handful of interviews and advocacy events with local partners.<\/p>\n

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Two days before we\u2019d planned to launch, our plans grew even more complicated. First, we got two amazing but conflicting offers to explore the South Fork\u2019s headwaters en route to the put-in. The first, looking for spawning steelhead with Russ Thurow, a legendary fisheries biologist. The second, touring the Stibnite mine site with Perpetua Resources, the corporation seemingly determined to destroy the South Fork\u2019s fisheries via gold mining. While we were scrambling to divide and conquer, the Krassel gauge malfunctioned and stopped transmitting flow data.<\/p>\n

We spent the better part of a day food shopping, reshuffling gear into creek boats, planning two separate tours of the headwaters, and accounting for the fact that the river might be way too high to put on. At one point, Trent\u2019s living room was full of mountains of gear; all of us between them packing and everyone on separate phone calls coordinating parts of the trip. The incredible support our friends provided on this expedition was hugely evident on this day. Not only did Trent gracefully put up with our chaos in their living room, but our friend Sam (a hydrologist by training) literally designed a proxy gauge to help us estimate the flows on the South Fork.<\/p>\n

In the end, Hailey and I hopped in with Russ, and we spent the day driving slowly along the upper South Fork. We followed his incredible knowledge of the basin downstream, stopping at river bends where he knew steelhead spawned. As we ate lunch overlooking a river bench that once held Nimiipuu summer encampments, he emphasized the importance of keeping the wild anadromous fish runs (and their phenotypic diversity) in the South and Middle Forks alive. Species that run as high and far as these ones do, he said, are uniquely resilient in the face of stressors like climate change. They may offer the best hope for preserving the region\u2019s many anadromous fisheries that are currently endangered and will only become more so.<\/p>\n