Milner & Murtaugh IDAHO'S BIGGEST BIG WATER
Deep powder snow stacks up high above Jackson Hole, creating the legendary skiing of the Teton Range. Come springtime, that same snow that made skiers grin will start putting smiles on river runner’s faces as they harvest the melt on the free-flowing rapids of the headwaters of the Snake River. If enough frosty flakes fall, there's a chance that a large snowpack will spread downstream and unleash the pent-up whitewater of the Murtaugh Canyon and the Milner Mile, treating paddlers to the rare combination of 150 feet of fall and five digits of flow.
A BOUNTY OF WATER
Fed by the natural moisture channel that extends from the Pacific Ocean to Yellowstone National Park, the Snake River starts just south of Yellowstone and then quickly swells with snowmelt from the Continental Divide and the high peaks of the Tetons. Combined with flows from the Wyoming and Salt River Ranges, the Snake can surge out of Wyoming at run-off flows of 30,000 CFS or more. Once in Idaho, more tributaries fatten the flow, and the Snake historically could rip into the Milner Gorge at levels above 40,000 CFS nearly every spring.
