THE SOUTH FORK OF THE CLEARWATER LEGEND OF THE GOLDEN CANYON

Idaho. Nicknamed the whitewater state, it is as famous among boaters for its rivers as its potatoes. As one of the best places in the west to paddle, haven’t we seen it all- The North Fork and South Fork Payette? Mesa Falls? The Jarbidge? The Lochsa? Nope.

The four-and-a-half-hour drive from Boise, Idaho (Idaho’s capital) to the campgrounds of the South Fork Clearwater tours you through the states’ best-known whitewater, the road following the contours of the Payette and Salmon drainages, but they are just the beginning. Both rivers feed into the Snake eventually, along with the Clearwater drainage. The drive leads you to the corner pocket of the Palouse, fertile, rolling farmland near the town of Grangeville, where the vast landscape makes one wonder, "How is there whitewater here"? But whitewater there is. The Lochsa, the Selway, Lolo Creek, and the Clearwater, each river offering different experiences of solitude and difficulty.

In 1860, some of the first gold in the state was discovered in Orofino Creek, a tributary of the Clearwater. Today, the South Fork Clearwater