Rafting, hiking - Riggins and Palouse Falls

9/5 - 9/6. The next afternoon, we reach Riggins, our last chance to go rafting on the Salmon River. While enjoying a Dirty Chai, Tina, the owner of the Creamery, organizes a trip for us the same afternoon. She is very talkative and we learn a lot about life in the 400-person village. The bar Summerville's with an integrated brewery greatly shortens the waiting time! Dustin, our rafting guide, is easygoing and we have a great time on the river. We try to go through the rapids as adventurous as possible and eventually capsize in Dustin's favorite rapid, the Fiddler's. The idea of sitting at the front edge of the boat together was a bit daring... Fortunately, I can still hold my glasses underwater. We get along so well with Dustin that we meet him for a beer after rafting and continue chatting. The about one-hour drive up to the Seven Devils is adventurous. Although we camp on top of the ridge, we are about 1000m lower than in the Sawtooths.

The desire for hiking has returned briefly. The Devils are not that big and we can do the hike into the heart of the region with a summit ascent in one day. We abandon the steep scree slope in the final ascent of about 500m altitude difference due to the danger of slipping. For the first time, we find the retreat more reasonable than sticking to any plan. So after about 3 hours, we are back at the bus and want to drive to the Palouse Falls in Washington today. The landscape expands immensely after the mountains, and we trundle through the seemingly endless Columbia Basin, the granary of Washington. The Snake River accompanies us in this steppe zone from time to time. Unfortunately, the Palouse Falls are a bit disappointing. Little water, $10 admission, many restricted areas, and a closed campground. We don't stay long and finally spend the night at Devil's Bench by the river next to a large dam. We get the tip from two quite drunken villagers who explain the way to us in stereo.