Memorial Day Snake River Trip

[Gofirstclass]

My brother and his wife are visiting us from Michigan for 9 days and we promised them a boat trip. They got in Sunday evening and we took off Monday morning for an overnighter up the Snake.

We had good weather the whole weekend...no wind, some rain during the night but sunny skies during the day, and a good time was had by all.

We pulled out of the slip at 10:50 a.m. but had to wait about 20 minutes for the railroad bridge to open. I knew we were going to have a strong current running against us as we went up the Snake so as soon as we cleared the bridge we got up on plane.

We ran against a 6-7 knot current and got to the dam just before the noon upstream lockage. We got in and tied up without any problems and had a nice ride about 98' up.

The water was calm all the way and we just relaxed and slow cruised after we got out of the lock. No pics of the trip up, but here's a couple of shots of the boat at the park. BTW, we saw ZERO boats on the rivers on the way up.

Here's a shot of my Galley Wench on the right and my SIL on the left.

During the afternoon and evening we walked through Fishhook Park, then fixed a dinner of:
~~Fresh Copper River Salmon lightly seasoned and broiled to perfection on the grill
~~Fresh grilled asparagus topped with seasoned and lightly cooked sliced almonds
~~A wedge salad with crumbled blue cheese and cooked sliced almonds

Tuesday morning we had a liesurely start with coffee, cereal, more coffee and yogurt. We cast off around 11:00 and headed upstream.

My brother and SIL were with me when I sea trialed the boat last year but this was their first time aboard since we got it out here. Needless to say he was itching to take the helm.

It was a great trip. The weather cooperated, there were no other boats around, Bill got a chance to drive the whole 25 miles or so on Tuesday (except for going through the lock), and GW drove the boat out of the lock. That was her first time doing that.

I have some videos that my SIL that I'll post next.

 

[Gofirstclass]

My SIL, Mary, was taking some videos as we made our way back on Tuesday. Here are a couple as we go into the locks, then one as we are leaving. The Snake River was flowing about 450,000 cubic feet per second over the dam, plus what was coming through the turbines and generating power. As I said before, we had about a 6-7kt current and it was nice to have it behind us going downstream.

This first one was shot just as the upstream gate was lowered. They had raised the lock (brought the water level up to the top) for us so we could go down. You can see some water flowing out of the lock and pushing some debris out of our way.
[video=youtube;BDPjFOrZIt4]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BDPjFOrZIt4[/video]

This one isn't very exciting...we're heading into the lock and going to tie up on our starboard side to a bollard about half way forward on the wall of the lock.
[video=youtube;u5s8VyfXIAg]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u5s8VyfXIAg[/video]

This one shows GW fastening a line from our midship cleat to the bollard. Yes, I had a chat with her about how to tie a hitch instead of just wrapping the line around the bollard and keeping the bitter end of the line on the boat, not throwing it on the bollard.
[video=youtube;2wT1HzDX8j4]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2wT1HzDX8j4[/video]

This one has some dramatic footage near the end. The first part shows us going under the guillotine gate at the downsream end. What looks like rain falling as we pass under is the water running down the face of the gate. As we pull out of the lock you can see the water rushing past the round structures that separate the navigation channel from the non-navigable portion of the river. That's NOT how the Snake River usually looks in the summer.
[video=youtube;-BRwUmnMiW8]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-BRwUmnMiW8[/video]

A good time was had by all.

 

[wetpaint]

Very Nice