A Salmon River run offers something for the whole family, with berry picking, campfire singing, cave exploring, even pedicures.When the cool, deep shaft of the abandoned copper mine ended in a wall of rock, guide Mike Thurbert turned to the group and said, “Turn off your flashlights.”
We were about 100 yards into an Idaho hillside. The lights went off as instructed and, in a moment of solemnity, 19-year-old Thurbert quietly asked us to contemplate the phenomenon of utter darkness. For that instant, each of us was an island, alone in the black tunnel. Then somebody made a spooky ooooo-ing sound and, to squeals of laughter, all the flashlights clicked back on, most of them shining up under chins, turning faces into grotesque Halloween masks.
Solemnity is in short supply on a river rafting trip full of kids. If you’re wondering what a walk in a copper mine has to do with river rafting, you’ll probably wonder the same about blackberry picking, hurtling down sand dunes, Wiffle-ball and toenail polishing. Our white-water rafting trip on the Lower Salmon River had as much to do with old-fashioned family fun as it did with running rapids. It was the warm and fuzzy things — singing around the campfire, eating meals together, inventing games, telling bad jokes, debating big issues with know-it-all adolescents — we remembered long after the white-water thrills faded.