How hard is low-water MFS on gear?

IDriverRunner said:

Sweet.

My control over the snowpack: I have a May 27th MF permit. That means the snowpack will look great for my launch date right up until it doesn't. I'm expecting a series of the following events to happen: the snowpack will drastically change between now and then and the river will be over 10', the roads will all be closed (Boundary, Highway 21, etc), if we have to do Marsh it will have multiple river/creek-wide log jams, a random wildfire in May will close the river again, etc.

Bottom line. Thanks for the invite and I'll see you in August! haha Seriously though, you're going at a great time of year and going to have a hell of a good time!
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TKumec said:

I have an August 3 trip this year on the MF Salmon. I know that this river gets posted about every day right now, but I haven't yet seen this question: How much abuse does a low-water trip deal to your raft? I have an old Riken; in some ways it is bomber (thick and heavy on the bottom), but the seams are starting to delam, fabric is worn in places. I'm happy to continue to beat it up, because at this point its days are numbered just by nature of failing adhesive.

I don't want to rent, but also don't want to blow my raft up in the middle of this epic wilderness. Any thoughts from others who take old rafts down bony rivers?

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TKumek, regardless of the snowpack (which is above average so far) Aug. 3 flows will be 2 feet or below no matter what the weather does the rest of the winter. If you don't have someone who knows the MF well, I'd suggest you plan on flying all your boats, gear and folks to Indian Cr. The upper 25 miles can be hell if you don't know the path through all the shallows. The other option is to fly all your coolers, dry boxes and everything heavy to Indian Cr. and take your boats down the upper 25 miles empty (including most people in your group who aren't rowing-- maybe 1 passenger per boat). Another thing is that a partially-deflated raft does way better on those rocky shoals than fully inflated. Have a fun trip!

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theusualsuspect said:

Thread is from Feb of 2022 and its Jan of 2023. Don't worry, I had to double check too because I'm not used to it being 2023 yet either!

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IDriverRunner said:

I was about to post the same thing.

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upacreek said:

This cool low-water MFS video popped up here not long ago by the OP; watch the whole thing and if still think its a good idea to take a tired boat on a trip like this....you're braver man than most I reckon

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