Explosions Rock Wilderness Area, Thrill-Seekers Freed From Logjam
July 28th, 2006
The untamed wilderness that holds the River of No Return had to be violated with dynamite Wednesday.
It seems that 200 brave souls who dared to test themselves against the untrammeled wild got their neoprene rafts hung up in a logjam. After numerous cell phone calls and endless cups of camp cappuccino, the Federal government finally sent in “teams of explosives technicians” to blow the offending logjam to smithereens. Your tax dollars at work.
You think we made this up? From the Central Utah Daily Herald:
Teams of explosives technicians from the U.S. Forest Service blasted a logjam on the Middle Fork of the Salmon River on Wednesday.
Rafters — stranded since Monday by the pileup of 30-foot-long logs, as well as boulders and debris — will be able to float through by Thursday, Forest Service officials told the Idaho Statesman newspaper.
The logjam temporarily blocked about 200 rafters from passing through a remote stretch of wilderness, outfitters said.
The Middle Fork, a 100-mile stretch of water in the Frank Church-River of No Return Wilderness, is considered one of the most thrilling whitewater floats in the country.
The central Idaho waterway is accessible only to those with permits.
After the blast, crews continued working with ropes and hand tools, moving several remaining logs. As many as 60 logs had plugged the river at the Pistol Creek Rapids.
The Forest Service planned to scout the river first to make sure the path was clear before sending the rafters through.
In a prior post we called this river the Tukudika River, although more properly we should have called it the Agaidika River. In any case, the River of No Return was home for millennia to the People of the Clouds, and not an untrammeled wilderness.
The River of No Return is not a wilderness today, as the dynamite/trapped rafters situation illustrates. Wilderness designation is a joke, and an enormous tragedy, too.
Not to mention expensive for those good old boys, the taxpayers. Oh yes, and dangerous too, if you happen to be an explosives technician. But then, most days are usually kind of dangerous, more or less, if you’re an explosives technician.