Tuesday July 29, 20.0mi/32.2km

Confluence Marble/Grays Creeks (353.5/5130ft) to Indian Creek Campground (333.5/4700ft) (ID)

I was surprised to wake up with a dry tent, usually when camping next to rivers, everything is covered in dampness. It was a chilly morning and unfortunately the first thing I had to do after packing up was ford the creek. Brrr. With cold wet feet, I slowly inched through the burned forest, looking for signs of the trail.

It must have been a high intensity burn, as many of the stumps had burned all the way down to their roots, and left big holes and hollow spots in the ground.

I found the trail and was able to move a little faster, but weaving around and stepping over burned logs still took me awhile, the first two miles took over an hour. After that the trail got better.

I think I found another historic mining site, a bunch of metal items were in the charred remains of the forest.

As I continued to descend along the creek, the day was finally warming up, and it was pleasant walking along the creek.

There were little pockets of burn areas, I had never seen a tree burn quite like this.

There was a cool little section with a canyon and I descended from high on the hillside down into the gorge.

From that point the trail quality improved noticeably and there were only two more Creek crossings, which were pretty easy. And then the last big descent, which was down to the Marble Creek airstrip.

Just as I started to walk the airstrip I heard a plane overhead, fortunately it wasn’t trying to land, just circling for a view. After a nice lunch under a big shady tree, I continued down the last 3 miles of Marble Creek. This part felt very different since it was out in the full sun with lots of sagebrush.

Felt like being in the desert again, sagebrush and now Ponderosa pines everywhere.

Finally, I arrived at the confluence of Marble Creek and the Middle Fork of the Salmon River.

It’s a popular river for white water rafting and kayaking, and I saw frequent camps along the river.

I talked to a couple guides and they set these up for their clients just before they get there in the afternoon. I hiked downriver a little ways and enjoyed a swim during the hot afternoon.

Just after I came out of the river and dried off, two hikers arrived and we started chatting. I hadn’t seen other people with backpacks on in many weeks, turns out that Kelly and Michelle are hiking the Idaho Centennial Trail in long 100-mile sections every summer. We are hiking in opposite directions, so we had lots of trail information to exchange. I wished them luck going up Marble Creek, and gave them all of the camping waypoints that I had recorded. The rest of my afternoon was a pleasant walk along the Middle Fork.

Always fun to see kayakers out, this group was pretty excited and loud, shouting at all the rapids.

As usual, the clouds came in late afternoon and threatened to thunderstorm but also kept the valley nice and cool.

I got to the Indian Creek guard station, which is where my resupply package was sent.

Even though the woman told me she was open till 5pm, a handwritten piece of paper on the door said 4pm, so I would have to wait until the next morning to get my box of food. I wandered over to the camping area and setup my tent, and checked out the launch area for the river.

After I made my dinner I went down to the river to refill my water bottles, and a group of guides had arrived, getting everything ready for their clients arrival tomorrow. They were all super fun and friendly and offered me a cold beverage.

I stayed up a little later than I normally would, it was great to get some real conversation and human interaction. A bunch of them joked that they wanted to see if they could turn a hiker into a river rafter, and they kept offering me food and beer, “see how nice this is?” Haha. So we did all the usual river guide things, and then finally around 9:30 I went to bed.