Snake River Kayaking: Pacific Creek to Dead Man Bar

Snake River Kayaking: Pacific Creek to Dead Man Bar

Pacific Creek to Deadman Bar Landing

When we met up with Dennis and Barbara, they had already been out kayaking. We all decided to do the Pacific Creek to Deadman Bar Landing. This is a stretch of the Snake River that runs through the park. When you read the signs at the various landings, they are designed to make you think about what you are doing. They inform you the Snake is a wild and unpredictable river not to be done in an innertube and not to swim. This stretch is considered advanced and should not be taken lightly. Because Dennis and Barbara had done it, I felt we could also.

Since this was our first long kayak paddle, the takeoff was predictable slow. We did a shuttle with the vehicles so we would have one at the take out point. Finally we were all loaded and ready. The river is moving at quite a nice clip so there is not a great deal of flat water paddling on this particular run. It is about a four or five hour run (can't remember miles).

The scenery is typical riverbank, then trees and then the awesome views of the Tetons as you float along. There were some ripples, class 2 I quess as you went along. The final rapid was indicative as the next stretch of the river. Barbara said it was more rapids, ripples than the portion we went on this trip. We really did enjoy this portion of the river. The limoyak did really well, handling everything as it went. One of the things that does make the Snake treacherous is that there are lots of fallen trees as you go along and if you were not careful, I guess you could get a puncture in an inflatable.