Ever since we went jet boating in Oregon, we wanted to do it again. When we looked up other places to go jet boating, we discovered a lot of them were in Idaho, which is what first got us thinking about this trip. We had originally planned to go jet boating on Friday but there weren't enough signed up so we ended up switching to today on Tuesday. Since we couldn't switch our reservations for last night, we decided just to make the 90-minute trip up to White Bird to jet boat with Killgore Adventures.
We elected to take the shuttle bus on the 17-mile windy road to Pittsburg Landing where we got in the river. At first I wasn't sure what we'd be in for - I wanted a little bit of history with my fast skidding across the water, but I was glad there was a little bit of that and some history. At our first stop, a little museum in the home of one of the early ranchers, we ran into Eli from the Bruneau Dunes. I didn't recognize him at first without his sunglasses but then he said, 'Hey, it's you guys!"
After some Class 4 rapids, some people on the boat spotted a set of three black bears (looked like a mom and two cubs) and a little bit up further we saw a brown bear and two more cubs. Our captain, Kurt Killgore, stopped so we could all take pictures, and then flipped the boat around so our side of the boat could get a better look.
Everyone on the boat was very friendly and we got to eat with groups from Texas and Washington at our stop at the dam. The rest stop on the way back at another ranch site wasn't overly impressive (it was basically just using some guy's outhouse), but the best part of the trip was the swimming stop a few miles from the end. The beach was sandy and there was a huge dropoff in the water so you either were partway in or all the way in. It was a lot of fun. We also saw the bears again (this time both families together, with cubs in the tree) and big horned sheep on the way back
In the van shuttle on the way home, Kurt asked us what we did and started picking our brains about marketing and his video: http://killgoreadventures.com/hells-canyon-jet-boat-trips/wild-river-hells-canyon-dam-tour/
Afterward, we went swimming in the Salmon River, next to the cabins next to the check-in site.
We had planned to stay in one of those cabins but a burst pipe moved us to the Steelhead Inn in Lucile, Idaho (about 30 minutes away) where we spent the evening hanging out with the delightful Kenn and Nancy and their two dogs and the four other hotel guests. And then there was the Marionberry Ice Cream Nancy said we could have in the motel's dining room. Yum, yum! -- POSTED BY COLLEEN
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