Idaho’s Middle Fork of the Salmon is a bucket-list river trip by any standard. Whether private or commercial, this is one of the west’s most beautiful and secluded multi-day runs, and permits here are as coveted as the Grand. Which is one reason why commercial trips are so appealing.
Last summer we had the chance to experience the river from a different perspective, tagging along with Far and Away Adventures. Not only does Far and Away represent some of the original legacy of outfitters running Idaho’s Middle Fork of the Salmon, but they are the only outfitter to run Middle Fork trips in a “first class” style, even running three sweep boats to other outfitter’s one, in order to provide a unique level of service to clients on the river. Last year the company acquired permits for six additional trips for 132 guests each summer.
Inside Idaho’s Most Storied River Culture
The bush planes were lined up on a small, rustic air field in Salmon, Idaho, to ferry our group, all eager to get on the water, to the Indian Creek airstrip inside the Frank Church-River of No Return Wilderness in central Idaho. After a bus ride from Sun Valley and Ketchum, this is how commercial river trips launch during low water for this almost entirely roadless journey down the Middle Fork of the Salmon River. At higher water some trips launch from headwaters at Boundary Creek, and guides will bring rafts down from there, but after the third week of June, guests will be flying in.
After a hasty safety briefing and short flight, the pilot tipped his wing over the the canyon wall and the dirt landing strip carved into the wilderness plateau came into view. Below, a fleet of brightly colored rafts clustered at the river’s edge. We touched down beside an old Forest Service guard station, and within minutes the ritual began: a careful choreography of matching guests and gear to boats while guides checked rigging and prepared to navigate 100 miles of Wild and Scenic River, designated in 1968 as one of the eight original rivers Congress deemed worthy of this level of protection from development.
The Middle Fork drops 3,000 feet over 104 wilderness miles: the largest contiguous roadless tract in the Lower 48 at 2.367 million acres. While Hells Canyon is considered the deepest gorge in North America, the Middle Fork ranks third, with walls rising more than 5,000 feet above the river in places. It’s also one of the longest undammed rivers in the U.S., flowing wild from headwaters to confluence. More than 100 rapids punctuate the journey, from Class I to IV depending on water levels, and famous rapids like Velvet Falls, Ram’s Horn, the Chutes, Pistol Creek, Devil’s Tooth, and Tappan Falls have earned reputations through decades of guides learning their moods at different flows. Spring runoff transforms technical rapids into wave trains, while late-season low water exposes hidden rocks.
Not unlike other wild rivers, its character changes the further you descend. Upper stretches move fast through alpine forest, narrow and technical. Sage-covered hillsides and open valleys give way to Impassable Canyon, where granite walls rise and the river deepens into the Gin Pools—so clear you can see fish 30 feet down.
Guides recognize the river’s hold on people measured in returning guests, with high repeat and referral rates sustaining operations like Idaho River Journeys, Middle Fork River Expeditions, and Far and Away Adventures, who told me they have an 80 percent return rate. They call it “The Curse of the Middle Fork,” because once you run it, you feel pulled to return, and by day two I could easily understand why some of our guides had been coming back year after year for north of a decade.
Steve Lentz’s connection to this river began with his dad. “My father was an outdoorsman, and we spent a lot of time in the wilderness areas, backpacking and enjoying the backcountry from the North Cascades to the Southern Sierras,” he told me.
“In 1968, the Wild & Scenic Act was in the news, and the Middle Fork was on his radar. He booked a trip with the outfitter that later hired me on, and as they say, the hook was set.” That 1968 trip revealed a river in transition—before the permit system, before Leave No Trace, when toilet paper often littered campsites and blackened rocks marked fire pits. The memory would shape everything Lentz built later on when he and wife Annie founded Far and Away Adventures in 1980, now the oldest operator on the Middle Fork at 45 years.
Cole, one of our lead guides, was the first to walk us through the protocol: the rapids we’d run, the camps we’d make, the rhythm of days, measured by river miles and gradient drop. At 6,000 feet above sea level, the air was crisp, the forest thick with fir and spruce, and the weather dynamic. We each chose our respective crafts—paddle boat, fishing boat, sweep rig, or inflatable kayak, and pushed off watching the put-in disappear as we followed the current downstream.
At relatively low July flows, the river eased us into our journey, perfect levels for fishing. Lunch was a chance to settle in and begin to adjust to the rhythm of river life. One of our first rapids, Pungo Creek, is named from the Shoshone word for domesticated dog.
Pioneers and Permits
The first documented descent of the Middle Fork was in 1926, when Henry Weidner led a canoe party and filmed what became the Trip of a Thousand Thrills. Through the 1930s, groups from Oregon and Utah floated the river, but access remained difficult. Dagger Falls required portage, and only in the late ‘30s did a road reach the river’s mouth, allowing trips to continue down the Main Salmon to Riggins. Road construction to Dagger Falls in the late 1950s opened the upper river, sparking a recreational boating boom in the 1960s. Access regulation began in the early 1970s, establishing the permit system that governs the river today.
Ranches along the river transformed into outfitting businesses. After World War I, pilots with surplus planes started supplying remote ranches and put-ins, creating a backcountry aviation industry. Many were Alaskan bush pilots skilled at landing Super Cubs in 100 yards; helicopter pilots from Vietnam also brought expertise. These aviation connections, grandfathered in when the Central Idaho Primitive Area became wilderness, remain essential to river operations today.
Middle Fork River Expeditions started in 1953; and Idaho River Journeys began in 1978 when founder Bob purchased River Adventures West from John Dorr after running the Middle Fork in 1977. These were family businesses built on generational knowledge—guides growing up on the river and returning season after season, learning techniques that couldn’t be found anywhere else.
The Lentz Legacy
“After high school, I spent summers in Idaho as a guide to help pay for college, and last summer was my 50th year as a guide,” Steve confided. “The love of the Middle Fork became my pursuit, and in 1980 I found a business to buy, created a company, and thus began our career.”
Before Idaho, Lentz opened Buffalo Bills, Arkansas’s third commercial rafting company in the 1970s. When he and Annie founded Far and Away, they made a calculation the industry hadn’t fully explored: wilderness and luxury weren’t mutually exclusive. “In the 1970s, river trips were bare bones, and we saw an opportunity to up the comfort level. Instead of having guests show up with inferior equipment, we partnered with The North Face for what we felt was the best in outdoor tents and sleeping bags, purchased a fleet of the best rafts made, and upped the ante from the WWII surplus equipment being commonly used.”
The model required significant investment and innovation. Two giant sweep boats—custom J-rigs built for the Middle Fork’s gradient with distinctive arms and blades, each weighing around 4,000 pounds before cargo—could transport three tons of gear: table service, glassware, a kegerator, 6-person tents with standing room, cots with air mattresses, even entry rugs to help keep sand out. Sweep boats could run ahead of guest rafts, arriving at camp first to set up before clients reached shore, transforming the experience.
Operating a sweep boat demands specialized skill. Guides navigate laterally across the current rather than forward or backward, committing to rapids with thousands of pounds of boat and cargo. Each boat also carries a swamper, essentially a human anchor, typically training to become a guide, learning to read water, managing gear and eventually driving sweep, and the precision, training, and knowledge passed from experienced guides to apprentices preserve the river’s guiding lineage.
Far and Away’s “culture of yes” with its guests reflects this philosophy. Lentz explains: “We stand apart by striving to conceive a truly unique experience for each one of our guests, with a positive attitude that allows us to recognize every moment as an opportunity to create something special. If we can create it, we certainly will, because there’s magic in the moment.”
Their American Safari, launched in 2005, brought a new level of service to the industry. Inspired by Stephen Mather, it included additional cargo sweep boats, trained chefs, and the only sweep boat that guests can ride on, the Freddy J. Today, Far and Away operates not just on the Middle Fork but also the Jarbidge-Bruneau, Owyhee, and internationally, while the Middle Fork remains the flagship.
The River and Its Lessons
Over six days on the water, springs (both hot springs and cold springs where we often procured drinking water), pictographs, fossils, and ancient habitation sites reminded us of 15,000 years of human presence, from Sheepeaters and Salmon Eaters to the Shoshone-Bannock and on throughout time.
The river teaches commitment, humility, presence, and gratitude. Indecision in rapids can be dangerous. Being fully present and appreciating the permit-protected wild lands become central to the experience. More injuries occur on shore than in rapids—poison ivy among the hazards—a reminder that attention to apparently mundane situations is as important as diligence on the water.
Continuing downriver, we caught at least 15 small trout and a few pike, sticking to the purist routine of throwing just a dry fly. Guests quickly adapted to river life as beach games, Chaco tans, and yoga stretches became daily rituals, and the smell of bacon and blueberry pancakes heralded mornings that made traditional camping feel austere by comparison.
Paddle commands guided rafters safely through wave trains, and guides Cole, Roscoe, and others also managed every detail of camp life, from table service to tent-side coffee and warm morning face towels. I shared a special connection with our fishing guide Shane—whose father Fritz was a fishing author—and he tied me up with South Fork Chernobyl and Purple Chubby flies all week, with a never-ending level of stoke for life on the river.
On day five we entered Impassable Canyon via Big Creek, and pulled over for a side quest to Veil Falls. This is a massive crater in the side of the cliffs, a historical spiritual center for native peoples in the area, and standing below the intermittent mist you quickly understand why. Taking time to squish through the moss and shower in the sun drenched mist while taking in the vastness of the canyon made me feel like a new person.
The river also teaches perspective. I see why the guides like to sleep outside at night and not in a tent. The stars are unbelievable in this remote region and the Middle Fork of the Salmon borders the Central Idaho Dark Sky Reserve, the country’s first Gold Tier International Dark Sky Reserve.
Continuing the Legacy
Steve and Annie’s kids Chris and Tia Lentz now play a large part in the business. Tia continues culinary innovation while Chris manages operations and also guides fishing boats, ensuring Far and Away remains a family business built on skill, service, and respect for wilderness. Permits transfer with business sales, preserving continuity.
Steve reflects on the river’s enduring appeal: “Once you run the Middle Fork, you need to return. That’s the curse.”
The nature of the river, its Wilderness designation, its history, and the passion and dedication of the guiding community help ensure future generations will experience the same sacred rhythm of days.
I wanted to turn back time, drop out of college perhaps, and take more summers measured in river miles, evenings around campfires. But then again, here I am, enjoying mornings with coffee delivered to my tent, my choice of crafts awaiting me riverside, and the quiet satisfaction of being fully present in one of America’s wildest places.
I’m already planning my return.
[Images courtesy of the Idaho Department of Commerce and the author]
