The Salt is a classic 50-60 mile multi-day river trip in of all places, east-central Arizona. Most years, good flows are hard to get, but this is not most years. Unusual amounts of rain and snow this winter necessitated a trip south during President's Day weekend. We showed up in the middle of the night at a cold, deserted campground at the put-in hoping that the rest of the crew (and gear) would show up. They rolled in shortly after us and we got a few hours of sleep before starting the (long) shuttle at 6:30 the next morning.
Sunny Arizona turned out not to be so sunny. The first day was cloudy and windy with temps maybe in the 40s. Put-in view:
Rafters on day 1:
The Salt has a cool bedrock riverbed in alot of places but it never really gorges up and the whitewater never exceeds Class III.
I'm not sure whether there are "designated" campsites, but we has no trouble finding places to camp.
On day 2, the river came up (peaked at 3600 on the Chrystolite gauge), the sun came out, and we ran most of the rapids. Pictured below are some of the larger rapids.
Quartzite is definitely the biggest rapid on the run. It is actually quite visually spectacular because it comes on a bend in the river when the gorge is at its steepest and deepest. While it looks big, it is not at all consequential- I'd say straightforward Class IV. If you look closely, you can see Geordie in the middle of the rapid.
Overall, this is a great river trip. Probably the best multi-day Class III run I've ever done. As I mentioned above, we had good flows; probably about 4000cfs on day 2. This made it possible to paddle the river in two and a half days instead of the usual five. That being said, five days on this river would not be a bad thing if you have the time.
Finally, the permit situation deserves mention. You usually need two permits for this run: the Apache permit and the Wilderness permit. The Wilderness permit is hard to get but is only necessary from March to May, so we did not need one in February. You always need an Apache permit which you can purchase at the box at the put-in, or buy one in Globe when running shuttle if you are in the mood to get ripped off.
The river should run well all spring, so enjoy if you scored a permit.
