A couple of months ago, Kristina was becoming familiar with Groupon; she had been aware of it in the past, but it seemed like everyone she was talking to/with as of late had gotten a "rock star" deal using Groupon. That being said, she decided to check it out again. She was on the website actually making a donation to a "dog cause" when this offer for Skagit River Float Trip was listed as well. The float trip sounded like a perfect gift for Jared, so she decided to take a chance and go for it. So at the end of August, she bought the deal -- and we were able to use it today.
The float trip is a 4-hour raft float down the Skagit River. She signed up for the 9:45am float, so that meant we had to get up and out of the house by 7:15am. When we woke up, it was clear, dry, and sunny, but chilly; the thermometer outside our house was reading 38 degrees. We did know though that it was supposed to be close to 70 degrees, so it was a "layers day".
We arrived at Howard Miller Steelhead Park in Rockport, WA and met up with the group. We weren't sure what to expect, but it turned out that in our group there was 5 rafts of 8 people and a guide. They loaded us on a bus to the start point of the float and then we float down the river and end up back where our vehicles are all parked. It is funny; Jared and I had sized up the guides independently and in the end we had chosen the same guide without even discussing it. Well, Jared and Kristina have always been a perfect match for each other. :) That being said, we piled into our orange raft and headed out onto the river.
Here's a shot of our raft, we were assigned to this one and it proved to be a nice float down the river.
Here's a shot of our guide Dave. He has lived in the area for 30 years and has been floating down the river for that long. He was an invaluable fishing resource. As we stopped throughout the float Jared was able to ask him lots of questions and "pick his brain" about the area. Let's just say, we have some more areas to check out for fishing!
For having such a big group of people floating, all of the guides did a great job of spacing out the rafts along the river. We definitely didn't feel like we were out there with 40+ people. It was quite serene and very relaxing.
One of the main attractions of the float was salmon spawning and did we see salmon!! Most of the salmon appeared to be Kings (based on their size), some of the smaller ones could have been Silvers. Dave said that he had seen a school a Silvers the day before our float. The Kings were all really good size -- most of them appeared to be in the 30-40 lbs range, but we saw a couple that were at least 60 lbs. A 60-lbs fish is a BIG fish, especially when they are THAT close. It was impossible to get a shot of the fish in the water, but here's a shot of how clear the water was. The salmon seemed to like the more shallow water, and as we floated through, the fish could be seen darting off in different directions. Dave was normally the first one down the river, so we got to see the most fish. Dave indicated that there are also Steelhead and plenty of trout (Rainbow and Cutthroat) in the river as well.
Another attraction of the float is seeing fall colors. Since we have been dry and still fairly warm for the area, a lot of the trees had not changed color drastically yet. However, there were a few glimpses of things to come.
A nice shot of a snowy mountain that was behind us as we floated down the river. We believe that this is El Dorado Peak in the North Cascade Mountain Range.
This section of the river reminded us of the Main Fork of the Salmon River in Idaho. It was odd that instead of there being a bunch of boulders to avoid as we floated down the river (like in Idaho), the Skagit River has bunches of old tree stumps that need to be avoided as we went down the river.
We saw many fisherman on the river as we floated down -- most of them in drift boats. However, this fly fisherman was doing his thing with a little pontoon boat.
Another attraction on the trip was Bald Eagle Spotting -- and we were pleasantly surprised with how many bald eagles we saw (young and old). They seemed to be on every part of the river.
Here's a couple of shots of an adult bald eagle perched up in the tree. It is amazing that Jared was able to capture these shots. In our opinion these are the typical bald eagle shots of him/her looking regal.
Here's some great shots of one of the younger eagles. This eagle was probably just born earlier this year.
Here's one last parting shot of the river...
We couldn't have asked for a better day to float and experience the river!
