The Walker Brothers: River Guides and Managers
January 16th, 2006 by Malina
Above: Grand Canyon trip 2002. L-R: Adam, Tommy, and Danny.
With their custom-welded roof racks, hand-sewn leather bags, and endless wood-working projects, Adam and Danny together are a small dynasty of good ol’ fashioned Yankee ingenuity. Plus, they cook up storm. Just don’t ask them to dance.
Between the two of them, the Walkers have nearly twenty years of professional rafting experience. They started rafting with their dad as kids and have never looked back. In addition to rafting all over California, Adam and Danny have rafted the Futaleufu river in Chile, and a couple of years ago they ran the Colorado in the wooden dory they built in the AO garage. In 2004 Adam ran the Blue Nile with AO owner Scott Armstrong where he braved class V rapids, sought shelter in a bat cave, and caught a big African catfish.
[...] So you can imagine my excitement when I got the invitation last week to go along on a trip to the Smith and Cal Salmon rivers on the Northern California coast. Four of us, (Smokey, Adam, Brad and I) all headed out last Friday night toward Redding, then completed the drive to Hiuchi on Saturday. The following three days were some of the more beautiful and fun river days I’ve ever had. We really lucked out with the weather- blue skies the whole time! So we got the beauty of a winter run– green hillsides, waterfalls, crystal blue water — and didn’t have to deal with rain. [...]
[...] The next day the water had returned back to a boatable, but still high, flow. Scott, Danny and a few others headed out to raft the Lower South Fork and take a look at the damage. They said that RV parts and propane tanks could be seen hanging out in trees way above the river! [...]
[...] Smokey Pittman, Brad Riley, Adam Walker, Danny Walker and I had all gathered at the River Inn in Redding the night before, and after a few hours of sleep were loading up our cars, talking about where to get our morning coffee. The plan was to drive Highway 299 (connecting Redding to Arcada) towards the Cal Salmon, stopping along the way to look at the Trinity Drainage and decide which runs we should actually do. It was thought that we would either stick to a New River/Burnt Ranch Gorge combination, or drive on to do the North and South Forks of the Cal Salmon. Our decision would depend on water level, put-in logistics, and how sporty we all felt after that coffee. [...]
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