Transcript of 60 minute program

For almost 150 years, we have made them work, forcing them
through flumes and pipes, turbines, and canals. In fact, the
authors of Idaho's Constitution actually prioritized how rivers
were to be used and nowhere does it mention rafting.

But don't tell these people. For them, Idaho's rivers mean only
one thing: a grand outdoor adventure.

It's the fact that we have so many mountain ranges and vertical
relief that makes for all the great rivers.

No other state in the continental U.S. has as much running water
or as much whitewater.

And there's really no other state that even comes close.

Whitewater has the unique ability of equalizing life. If you can
negotiate and be around rivers that are definitely stronger and
never conquerable, it makes the rest of life seem somehow
manageable.

I still remember my first major whitewater experience. It was in
a rented raft on the Middle Fork of the Salmon River. It was the
first of June, it was raining and snowing. The water was very
high. And just before we went over our first major rapid, Velvet
Falls, I managed to lose an oar. But the river gods were smiling
that day. Actually they were probably laughing.

Hi, I'm Bruce Reichert.

You know, once you've experienced the thrill of a raft full of
friends crashing through a big wave, well, you're probably
hooked. The only thing better may be the solitude and the
serenity that naturally comes from time spent on a wilderness
river.

The Outdoor Idaho crew has had the good fortune of visiting many
of Idaho's famous whitewater rivers.

They are Idaho's most vital natural resources. The engine that
propels us onward. For all their diversity, they speak a language
which can unite us but which often divides us.

The relationship we have with our rivers has evolved, has
changed, as we ourselves have changed.

At first we worked them, with little regard to the consequences.
We trapped them, and diverted them, and drained them because we
could, because we felt we had to.

Now, we already knew that Idaho was the home of famous potatoes.
And that those russets were the product of pouring a lot of river
water onto what was once sagebrush desert.

Was it possible that Idaho could also be the whitewater state?

Well, we decided to ask someone who had spent his early years
searching for the nation's best whitewater.

Through the guide grapevine, the places I heard to go were either
Idaho or the Grand Canyon. So I came to Idaho in 1979 and worked
a full summer on the Main Salmon, and the Selway, and the Middle
Fork and fell in love with the state and the whitewater here, and
never left.

So Idaho is an amazing state in that there are over 3500
whitewater river miles that are runnable. And there's really no
other state that even comes close. California I believe is in
second place with about 2000 miles, and then it drops
dramatically.

And what's amazing about Idaho is not only the sheer volume of
mileage of free flowing rivers and whitewater but also the
variety. In the south you have the desert rivers, like the
Bruneau and the Owyhee that are a part of the great basin
ecosystem and tributaries to the Snake. And as you move north
into central Idaho and the Sawtooths, you have the Middle Fork of
the Salmon, which is an alpine river. And moving further north
you have rivers like the Selway and the Lochsa which flow through
almost rain forest, temperate rain forests with giant cedar
groves.

There's dozens of floatable rivers here and I think people can
find just about any kind of scenery they might want.

And any kind of rapid. If you spend time on Idaho's rivers,
sooner or later you're going to run into some of the West's most
famous rapids, like Ladle and Wolf Creek on the Selway,

Lochsa Falls on the Lochsa River,

Wild Sheep and Granite in Hells Canyon,

Jacob's Ladder on the North Fork of the Payette,

Five Mile Rapid on the Bruneau,
Milner on the Snake River,

Powerhouse and Rubber, Elkhorn and Big Mallard on the Middle Fork
and the Main Salmon.

Each rapid has its own special characteristics, a product of
river flow, gradient, and obstructions. And how you run a rapid
at high water may be completely different from how you'd run it
at low water.

Rapids are rated on an international scale of one through six,
with six considered unrunnable.

Most of Idaho's famous rapids are usually considered Class IV
rapids, intense and powerful, with hydraulics capable of flipping
a raft or stopping a kayak.

And needless to say, it pays to scout a Class IV rapid.

When you start your rapid, you want to look for a safe way
through, the easiest way through, and after a couple of times
down, and once you're familiar with it, then you can start taking
other routes through the rapid, a little bit more exciting after
you've judged the rapid for your own personal abilities.

The is the top of Staircase. It's a good Class IV rapid on the
South Fork of the Payette. We've come down through the top, past
Jerry's Landing, and we hit this big hole right above Whale Rock.
That's something to be avoided. Inexperienced paddlers will come
down and hit that and then they hit the Whale Rock, these two big
rocks that we see here, and those are to be avoided. People hit
those, and they flip, and then people swim the rest of the
rapids.

One reason people can safely navigate rapids like Staircase is
because of companies like this one, in Garden City, Idaho. The
AIRE Raft Company manufactures about 300 inflatable boats a
month.

We've been the number one selling brand of whitewater inflatables
probably for the last six years. We're building as fast as we
can. And are right now trying to figure out how to put on a swing
shift this fall to meet the demands.

These rafts are different in design, in material, and in color
from the World War II models.

Well the original Army surplus boats were flat and were hard to
maneuver. They were very stable and typically they had a glued in
fabric floor. The glued in fabric floor would fill up with water
and the boat would become hard to maneuver in the rapids and the
old bail buckets would come out.

In the '70s raft companies began experimenting with laced in
floors. They called it a self-bailing raft. Then they began
experimenting with individual pontoons held together by a metal
frame.

The self-bailing raft and the cataraft have revolutionized the
sport in being able to allow people to run more difficult rivers
and to take less risk really because the boats are more
maneuverable and can handle the heavier water with less chance of
flipping because of their high tech shapes, the fact that they
can punch through and the fact that they are still highly
maneuverable.

But whether today's river runners are having as much fun as some
of those early pioneers is anybody's guess.

The put-in for the Lochsa River is along Highway 12, not far from
where 200 years earlier Lewis and Clark had bushwhacked their way
through the Bitterroots on an historic journey to the Pacific
Ocean.

The Lochsa is quickly gaining a worldwide reputation as one of
the premier whitewater trips that there is. There's a fine line
between really great whitewater that is runnable and whitewater
that is off the edge and really only suitable for extremists in
the sport. And the Lochsa is one of those rivers that just has
nice solid Class IV water that's reasonably forgiving and
therefore is approachable by a fairly wide audience of people.

It helps to be able to easily scout rapids like Bloody Mary and
the Grim Reaper, both Class IV rapids in the peak June rafting
season.

What we're going to do is we're going to come just right of the
rock, okay, about 20 feet off. Literally we'll be about four or
five feet from the rock when we go into that first hole. What the
key is, is we don't want to come over into this one funky, we
want to just miss it. Just along the side of it. And then shoot
hard into that hole and hold on.

If you make it through Bloody Mary and the Grim Reaper, you're
not done yet. There's always Lochsa Falls.

The word pristine was meant for rivers like the Selway, easily
one of the most beautiful stretches of water in America.

Flowing through the heart of the Selway-Bitterroot wilderness,
this wild river can be a deadly reminder that river rafting is
serious business.

There are no roads for almost 50 miles. If you flip in Ladle
Rapid, you better be prepared for a long swim.

I have a very personal respect for this river. I've taken a swim
in it a couple of times that it reminded me that I need to
continue that respect. I think I'll always have it.

It's a foolish person that approaches this river thinking, you
know, I can just wing it and get by. It deserves a lot of
respect. This is a well deserved reputation for some of the most
difficult whitewater in the country.

It's fast moving water. It's 37 degrees. There's been a few
nights that I haven't slept where I've woke up at three in the
morning watching the river rising, and pace back and forth.

When you come up on Ladle Rapid, it's not far after Moose Creek
has come in and has doubled the volume of the river. So all of
those categories, you know, the gradient, the shape of the stream
bed, and the volume of the water combined at Ladle Rapid to make
it a very difficult place to get through. At higher levels it's
power and speed, at lower levels it's obstructions and
technicality to get through. It's never easy.

The first time I ran the Selway was 12 years ago. It is amazing,
because the Selway is the same quality experience, the same
quality river as it was back then. The campgrounds are clean,
untouched. It looks like nobody's ever been there before. And
that's the same way it was. The clarity of the water is
unbelievable too. A lot of fish.

The Selway is one of these places that early on was captured in
its pretty much primitive state and preserved in that manner. And
a lot of the management policies were in place, were designed to
continue that. The use levels are restricted so that the Selway I
think will be 100 years from now just what it is today.

It's well worth the effort. There's no experience that can
parallel it now in America. It's a lot of heaven, it's pure
paradise.

It's easy to forget that Idaho's rivers have a rich history that
pre-dates multi-colored rafts.

This guy didn't do this for fun, this is how he made a living.
Although it certainly was exciting at times.

The St. Joe River cuts through historic white pine country.

A century ago it was arguably the best softwood forest in the
world.

But the 400 year old white pine were no match for the men with
the crosscuts.

Even today, logging is the dominant industry along the Joe.

But on the river, people are more concerned about paddling
technique and high-siding than about rolling the round stuff.

If the raft tilts up you want to do what is called the high side.
You want to get your body up to the high side of the raft, so
that it doesn't flip over. That prevents the raft from flipping
over as much as possible.

Let's say that you happen to be thrown out of the raft for one
reason or another. The recommended position that you should float
in in the river is with your feet out in front of you at the
surface of the water, facing downstream, so that you can use your
feet to absorb any obstruction that you might come up against.

We will try to get to you with the raft or we will try and throw
you a safety line to get to you with the raft. But it's also okay
just to get over to the side of the river and climb out as soon
as it looks like there is a place to do that.

You're the ones, to a large degree, in control of your raft; and
we need you to paddle and paddle hard at certain times. So when
we say, "paddle," we mean, dig in and keep paddling until we tell
you to stop.

The St. Joe is definitely a river with multiple personalities.
The upper half is wild and untamed, part of the National Wild and
Scenic Rivers system.

Further downstream, the river presents its other face, the
shadowy St. Joe, deep and moody, with a canopy of lush
cottonwoods.

Naturally, it's the upper stretch where the Joe powers through a
narrow gorge of luscious green that we find the fun seekers.

There is a challenge to it, there is excitement, there is thrill,
there is danger, there is risk. Something about us wants to see
what we can do, you know, in a stressful situation or in a
challenging situation.

Rafting varies so much. This river, one second is wild, a few
seconds later it's different. I enjoy it a lot. It's real
thrilling. It's real satisfying. You feel like you've mastered
the river, I guess. And that's what makes it a lot of fun.

You have to work as a team, and so you can feel it go throughout
the whole crew of the raft as you are going down. And it's good
to be in a situation where everybody has to pull together as one
unit. This is where it becomes very cohesive and you come
together as a group as strangers too. And that's a very beautiful
part of it.

There's not a lot of people up here; it doesn't get overused. I
guess the other thing, you know, there's a lot of physical
beauty, there's some beautiful rock bluffs that just go straight
up off the river and there's the colors of the water are
fantastic. You know, there's deep blue pools, and you can see the
rock down through the water. And you can see fish when you're
floating down through the rapids. We actually see fish swimming
underneath the raft, and that's really exciting and fun.

It's unusually pretty. It's unusually green. The wildlife is
incredible. And it's deep, it's fast flowing, and the fishing is
great.

I get stressed out at work too, you know, and you can see it on
my face and you can see it on people's face. And you get them out
here on the river and after a while it's just like the scales
fall from their eyes, you know, and they begin to smile a lot and
they come out of a shell.

That's why outfitters enjoy the work they do. It's not just being
here but it's allowing people to experience that kind of change
in their lives.

It was August, 1805 and the first men of European descent to
enter Idaho were about to have their dreams shattered.

"The river is almost one continued rapid. The passage with canoes
is entirely impossible," wrote William Clark.

These rocks, several miles outside of present day North Fork,
Idaho convinced the Lewis and Clark Expedition to abandon the
national obsession with a waterway connecting the East and the
West.

But twenty-seven years later some Hudson's Bay trappers did
attempt to float the Salmon River, and they may have actually
succeeded.

In the spring of 1832, they traveled downriver by canoe for 30
days before two of the four men drowned in a large rapid.
According to historian Merle Wells, the men may have reached the
confluence of the Snake River before tragedy struck. That means,
they may have successfully floated the Salmon, the river that
stopped Lewis and Clark.

By the 1920's adventurous men had begun hurtling themselves
through the rapids of the Middle Fork, just for fun.

This 1926 black and white film documents the first known
successful trip down the entire Middle Fork of the Salmon River.
Henry Wigner and a friend began their three month trip in two
canoes. Only one canoe survived the journey.

This is some of the first color film of a Middle Fork trip, led
by Doc Frazier in 1939.

It shows how little has changed on some of the famous rapids like
Pistol Creek.

The management of the Middle Fork by the U.S. Forest Service has
kept the river remarkably unchanged over time. But one thing has
changed. Once there were giants swimming against the current.

In one generation, these magnificent ocean going fish, the
salmon, have virtually disappeared.

For the state's centennial celebration in 1990, Idaho outfitters
guided a scow through the precarious rapids of the Salmon, all
the way to the Snake River. In honor of Captain Guleke and others
who had made their living hauling freight to the downstream
mines.

And there is probably no Idaho river with a more fascinating
history.

The Salmon has attracted more than its share of loners,
individuals who wanted nothing to do with modern civilization.

In the 1930's one of the most famous was the hermit of Impassible
Canyon, Earl K. Parrott.

He had built a cabin above the river, grew a large garden, built
his own machinery. He was about as self-sufficient as a man could
be. He also built a series of ladders, almost 1200 feet in
length, which connected his cabin to the river below.

Today, the Salmon and its tributary, the Middle Fork, remains the
most famous whitewater in Idaho.

Every summer more than 10,000 people float the 96 mile Middle
Fork section, flowing through the Frank Church River of No Return
Wilderness.

And the Main Salmon sees thousands more, including jet boaters on
certain sections of the river.

There really is something for everyone here.

People who come here, they enjoy a wilderness experience, they
enjoy, you know, meeting nature on its own terms, and just having
a fun time. I mean it's fun to run through the whitewater.

It's fun to come here and look at mother nature and what she's
done. This is a very unique resource here.

Further downriver, the lower Salmon offers rafters a chance to
experience the River of No Return in a less crowded environment.

That's because this hot, desolate landscape is not for everyone.

Even though the series of deep, narrow canyons offers a dramatic
geologic perspective.

At medium river flows, the rapids of the lower Salmon are
forgiving. But at higher flows, above 25,000 cubic feet per
second, even large rafts have difficulty.

There is probably no better teaching river in the world than the
Payette.

In fact, some have compared the Payette River system to the
nation's educational system.

The Main Payette, where one receives a basic education in
whitewater technique.

The Cabarton section, a bit more challenging, akin to high
school.

Then there's the South Fork of the Payette. Some of this is
definitely college material.

And finally, graduate school, Class V rapids of the North Fork of
the Payette.

It's the classroom of all classrooms, with Class V all the way
down to a mill pond that we can train in. It's a family sport,
it's a lifetime sport. Kids as young as six can come out here and
go rafting with us and as old as 85-90, it doesn't seem to
matter.

We come up here and in an hour and a half or an hour from Boise,
we're able to tackle some of the most difficult whitewater in the
country. And as a result, people get to share in that escape.
It's like human Nintendo, you know. A lot of kids and adults
alike sit around playing video games. But what we're doing is
human video games out here. You've got to go past this little
diagonal wave, you have to tee up to the hole, everybody has to
paddle, and you celebrate at the bottom because you've mastered
that level.

Rafting is one of those unique sports that's for everybody and
you're a participant; you get to go out and be the little figure
on the screen. It's a great sport.

The Payette, so close to the state's population center, has many
ardent defenders, who do not want to see the river change.

The North Fork of the Payette, particularly the section that I
focused on between Banks and Smiths Ferry, is an unbelievable
arena of challenge, whitewater challenge. It's like having
Yosemite Valley in your backyard. The chance to go out and excel
and constantly challenge yourself. From the point of view of
whitewater, this is world class. There's no question about it.

The trouble with losing this section is this is the most pristine
section of the South Fork. And the South Fork is very pristine,
but we are now are a mile and a half from the road. Either side
of us, there's nothing. Man hasn't touched anything in here.

This is definitely a Class VI rapid. The rating system goes from
one to six. The reason it is a six is it's totally unrunnable.
But there isn't a good boater around that doesn't look at it and
wonder if it can be run. And down at the bottom of that we've see
logs and sticks stay in there for days. So it's all reversals,
all four to five, six foot drops. Definitely a Class VI. You
don't want to be in there.

Rivers are like life, you know, you have your really slow spots,
and you have the forks in the rivers where you have to make
decisions, and you have the rapids that are the trauma and
excitement in your life. I love them.

Idaho's desert rivers, the Owyhee, the Jarbidge, the Bruneau,
they all have one trait in common, solitude.
They say the best way to get to the East Fork of the Owyhee River
is in someone else's vehicle.

It also helps to bring a detailed travel map because out here
they're not real big on road signs.

There's just no question. This is the most remote place in the
lower 48 that includes Idaho. It is so inaccessible that you
could put big chunks of New England in here and have trouble
finding it. As you know driving in, you know, it's hard enough to
find the canyon. Suppose you'd been looking for Massachusetts.

But once in the canyon, you find a wonderland far unlike the
desert on the rims above.

And you find a place only a few visit.

I often meet people who wished they'd been down in here and they
say, "Gee I always meant to go into the Owyhee Country. And
between the short season and the kind of cold spring sometimes
and early weather we have during the high water times, and the
muddy roads and inaccessibility and so forth. It's complicated to
put a trip on here and it kind of keeps people out a little bit.

And with its low flows, the East Fork is not a river for rafting
but it is perfect for canoes.

So it's not really a whitewater trip we do, it's canoe transport
just to use the canoe to get you and your friends and some
comfortable camp and some outstanding grub down on the river. In
a standard raft rig like we use up, you know people use on the
Salmon and the Middle Fork, forget it. You just couldn't get
through. It would be a miserable chore.

But in a canoe, the East Fork is a little bit of paradise, for
every bend reveals a new wonder.

It is amazing actually and it's different than a lot of Idaho
river trips I've done. You do different trips for different
reasons. And one of the trips you do because of the whitewater.
The whitewater is not the most exciting thing on this river. The
scenery definitely is, and different than a lot of the central
Idaho rivers I've done. The high desert is beautiful.

Further downstream the Owyhee becomes bigger and more popular. At
Rome, Oregon a hundred people a day launch on some weekends.

For me it combines some elements that I'm really attracted to.
First of all it's a multi-day trip and usually we run it in four
days. And so you could take a day off work and run it over the
weekend.

Along the way you see varied geography. The canyon walls are
steep at times but it's unlike the Bruneau, where once you get
into the canyon you can't get out very easily; on this river it
goes from canyon to open land to canyon to open land. And even
some of the drainages are friendly drainages and you can hike up
them and have a nice hiking experience.

The sedimentary rock is, we're here at Pruitt's Castle, you can
see is extremely attractive in its formations. The rock walls, as
you get further down into the canyon, are very dramatic rivaling
the Bruneau Canyon in my opinion.

And for the whitewater enthusiast there are some rapids.

Now most of this stretch of the Owhyee are Class II and III
making the river easy enough for the novice but still exciting
for a more skilled boater.

It starts off very easy so novices can start on the river and it
gets more difficult as you go down, but it doesn't get too
difficult. The most difficult rated rapids are Class IV and
that's only at certain times.

Still even the most experienced boater will get a thrill at
Montgomery, a Class IV rapid. The run requires squeezing a boat
between two big rocks.

For boaters seeking whitewater and solitude, the Jarbidge River
has it all.

I think it's got to be one of my favorite rivers to have ever
done. I really enjoyed it. It's a tight technical river with
demanding whitewater, beautiful scenery. It's not crowded with
lots of other people, so it's like my ideal trip, which is
whitewater, good scenery, and not a lot of people around.

The only disappointing part about the whole trip was that the
river moves along so fast and is so busy that you don't have time
to really take in all the scenery. And the eddys are kind of hard
to hit with our boats with all the gear on them so it's kind of
hard to take advantage of the scenery that you see on this river.

There's a lot of interesting aspects to the canyon, not only just
the rock formations, which are just mind boggling, they are just
so beautiful, and then you also have the historical value of it,
and the remoteness of it.

You definitely have to be at least an intermediate or very
experienced boater, in my opinion, because of the technicality of
the river. And the possibilities of every spring this river is
going to change, it's such a small canyon.

When we were floating down here we saw a lot of trees that were
leaning over the river. And in one more season, they may not be
leaning over the river but in the river. So you've got to be able
to pull out at a moment's notice and make sure that there aren't
any new logs in there that could cause some problems.

So, definitely an expert, advanced boater, in my opinion. But if
they came down here and took their time and were careful about
it, they could have a lot of fun and see some fantastic country.

And run some fantastic rapids.

Most of the whitewater on the Jarbidge is Class III. That is
except for Jarbidge Falls, a Class V plus drop.

There's a huge death trap in Jarbidge Falls. It's really plainly
obvious that where basically the river goes underground,
underneath a huge boulder. The first thing you have to do is
appreciate the risk and then ask yourself if you can run a line
that will minimize that risk. If I thought that for a minute that
there was not a good line far away from that, I wouldn't have run
it.

But there was and it was fun.

There's kind of a common little idiom that we say, you know,
kayaking gives one the opportunity to die in a very, very
beautiful place.
 
When I think back to this trip, I won't remember running Jarbidge
Falls, I'll remember probably more than anything else floating
down through the calm rhyolite.

Just a few miles below Jarbidge Falls the canyon opens up as the
Jarbidge and the West Fork of the Bruneau join to form the Main
Bruneau River.

For more than 40 miles the Bruneau carves deep canyons through
rhyolite and basalt flows. In places the cliffs soar hundreds of
feet over the river.

Over time, parts of the cliffs have given way, sending giant
boulders crashing into the river, creating whitewater.
In the upper sections of the canyon there are numerous Class III
rapids. In the lower canyon, floaters encounter Five Mile Rapids,
a long and continuous Class IV rapid where the gradient briefly
reaches 80 feet per mile.

It's almost like someone tips the river down, and it just kind of
takes off and begins with one very nice shot going by some big
rocks that you kind of run right to left, then go through a rock
garden, and work your way on down. And you can eddy out as you
are going but if the water is moving at all, it becomes fairly
technical.

Despite all the challenges of floating desert rivers, portages to
difficult access, the short season, many people run them again
and again, enjoying the qualities that make these desert rivers
unique.

You know, if we just wanted to run rapids, we'd be up on the
North Fork of the Payette or on the North Fork of the Clearwater,
or the Lochsa, or the places that we usually go. But the thing
that the Owyhee and the Owyhee country and especially the
Jarbidge/Bruneau offers is that solitude and travel through what
is really, you know, one of the last vestiges of primitive
America.

All of Idaho's famous whitewater eventually flows into the Snake
River, the nation's tenth longest river, one that carries more
than twice the water of the Colorado.

Perhaps the most famous whitewater on the Snake can be found in
Hells Canyon, along the Idaho-Oregon border.

In the 1950s more than a hundred miles of the canyon was buried
beneath the slack waters of three reservoirs. Today two of the
six major rapids that once graced the river remain: Wild Sheep
and Granite Creek, both Class IV rapids.

Releases from Hells Canyon Dam fluctuate from 5,000 cubic feet
per second to more than 50,000 cfs. At those higher flows Wild
Sheep and Granite demand everyone's respect.

The Snake River and Hells Canyon is a national wild and scenic
river. And like so many of Idaho's famous rivers, there is more
than whitewater here: Indian petroglyphs, historic homesteads,
plenty of wildlife, and jetboats.

For many people this is the best way to see Hells Canyon.

First of all, they read where it's the deepest river gorge in
North America and have to see that because a lot of them have
seen the Grand Canyon. They want to see it. And the power boating
is the quickest, easiest way to see it. And a lot of these old
homesteads, that was the only way they could get their supplies
was by riverboat.

And the first commercial boat that we know of was 1986, and that
was the Colonel Wright. It's more and more popular all the time.

I started this business as basically bringing fishermen up here,
as just friends. And there got to be more sightseers than there
were fishermen so we started hauling tourists.

It's different every day, different people, and I never get tired
of it. If you just look around you can see something different
every day.

I enjoy bringing people up here and showing them something they
haven't seen before.

For private jetboaters, Hells Canyon is one of the few rivers
left in the country where they can run the whitewater.

You start out and the river is fairly calm. You start out in the
Lewiston area and it's wide and you have a few rapids. The
further up you go, the tougher it is. But the scenery changes so
much, it's narrower, it's deeper and then you get on up 80 to 90
miles and that's the start of the Seven Devils, the deepest gorge
in the North American continent.

For years, I know our family and numerous other families have
floated and boated the river and it's great. You work all week
long and you say, "Hey, I'd like to go up the river for the
weekend."

You have rapids, you have beautiful water, you have nice beaches.

It's a great experience. It's a nice way to raise a family. It's
a nice area to go to get away.

Hells Canyon may be the most famous whitewater on the Snake but
it's not the biggest. That distinction belongs to this section of
the Snake near Twin Falls, Idaho, called the Milner.

For a couple of weeks in the spring of certain high water years,
this 1.3 mile stretch is a wild freight train ride, the most
powerful hydraulics in the state.

One rafter has already died attempting it. This is only for
expert kayakers.

It looks big. It's going to be a ride.

I mean, basically it's bend over and take your beating.

During that eddy, it's going to be a little bit, a little bit
tense.

Well, let's go do it.

Okay.

As I drop down into the first entrance way, there's kind of a
real choppy wave and you're kind of keying off these two big
waves coming off the sides diagonal waves. And once you cross it
you can see this hole and it's big. It's just this big wall of
white, you know. It's like driving into a snow bank. You just
take a big deep breath and hit it, lean way forward on the deck
of your boat and try to reach down with your paddle and grab some
green water.

The next big thing would be the V wave. And the V wave is very,
very squirrely as you approach it. It changes before your eyes.
All of a sudden a wave catches me and then it kicks me around and
then I fall over upside down.

It's some of the biggest water that I've run in terms of just
real powerful big, steep water with a lot of gradient. In fact, I
believe it's the steepest, largest volume of water in the West.

It's an amazing canyon. You know, when you're driving out through
here you never see it. But boy it's definitely worth checking
out. It's an overlooked place.