Exploring the Wild and Scenic SELWAY River

In the spring of 2025, I was out with Dan from Shasta Bubba Adventures, and we were heading into Idaho's wild and scenic Selway River. I've never been here before, and I was eager to see as much of it as I could. We had four days out here to explore as much of this river as we could get to. Since it was springtime, the river was pretty high, and in some places it was raging. I knew since it was a river canyon, there could be some cliffs we might have to traverse, and that had me on edge. So come along with Dan and I as we explore Idaho's Selway River. All right, making it official. Heading into the wilderness. Awesome trail so far. This was an out and back trip. We were out here for four days, and that meant we had two days to get as far as we could on the trail. Dan thought we might be able to make it all the way to the Moose Creek Ranger Station. I've heard a lot about it, and I would love to see it. The ranger station was about 25 miles in. Wasn't sure I could do 25 miles in two days, but I was willing to give it a shot. Dan and I were making good time, and we were trying to get in 10 miles today. We were just cruising along. We were hearing a lot of airplane traffic. That wasn't much of a surprise though. There's an airstrip at the Moose Creek Ranger Station, and the planes were likely flying in there. Think we're camping over there tonight. Looking forward to getting there. All right. Big day for me. I had 10.4 miles into here, and we're at Pinchot Creek right on a bend on the Selway River. Fantastic trail in great shape, and just, you know, it's everything you'd expect from a river trail. It's up, down, cliffy in parts like many of the other North Idaho rivers I've hiked. Rest up, and probably even more miles tomorrow. Loving it. Well, good morning. Morning day two here from Pinchot Creek on the Selway River. Pretty cold this morning. Almost packed up here. Getting an early start today, so yeah, should have all day to do it. Let's see if we can. We had all day to try to make it into the ranger station, and we hit our first obstacle right out of camp. To me, it only gets sketchier the further you get out there. Oh, and he makes it. Not me. That's some cold ---- right there. A little sketch. A little sketch for me. Oh, man. Some of this is kind of sketchy for me. Some good drops. Go down here, you're going to the river. Focus on the trail. Focus on the trail. Right out of camp, we had our biggest climb of the trip so far. I didn't think the weather would be so warm when I packed for the trip, and coming from up north, I hadn't been out in temperatures like these yet. It was starting to get really warm for me, but we were still knocking out some miles. Getting exposed. All right, well, we have made it to a place called Cedar Flats. About nine and a half miles in for the day, and I think this is going to be it for me. My feet are just killing me. Dan's out scouting to see if there's a little better campsite, and we'll see what we do. Well, good morning. Morning day three here from Cedar Flats on the Selway River. It's an early one. We're getting an early start. We're packed up. This is going to be the longest hike of the trip. For me, longest hike of the year so far, and we're going to try to push back past Pinchot. I think we're headed for Bollinger Creek. All right, well, we're just pulling out like 12 to 15 miles today. That's it. Let's go. So, we had roughly 20 miles to get back to the truck and two days to get there. We planned on pushing a little farther today past where we camped on the first night to make our hike out on the next day a little shorter. We had a lot of downhill coming into Cedar Flats, and now we were climbing back up it all. Well, closing in on seven miles for the day. We've been moving pretty good today. My ankle is giving me a little trouble. I hope it doesn't slow us down too much. Got me a little worried about rain because I forgot my rain jacket on this trip. So far, I've gotten away with it. I think there's definitely weather coming tomorrow. Maybe it's coming today. I don't know. Pretty good right now. Just hoping we can get to camp before any weather hits us, if it's gonna. There's our first night's camp. Well, we just took a break here at Pinchot Creek. We're gonna try to make it to Bollinger, which I think is like two and a half more miles. We should be at 10 for the day right now, and if that one's still taken like it was when we passed it, then we're going to Cupboard Creek, which is another couple miles. When we got to Bollinger Creek, we saw that the horse packers were still there. We had been seeing more and more people since Pinchot Creek, so we wasted no time moving towards Cupboard Creek. Dan was a little worried about me finding a hammock spot there, but I figured I could make something work. It tried to start raining on us, but in the end, it only drizzled a bit. The fire kept us warm and was a perfect way to wrap up the last night. All right, well, good morning. Day four from Cupboard Creek on the Selway River. Going home day. Ah, great night, great morning. Been able to hang out with Dan more on this trip, so it's been really great, and we've managed to put in some miles. We've set ourselves up pretty good today for a shorter day, six to seven miles back, and put a bow on this one. We're about ready to hit it. Comes the next layer. All right, Dan and I just took our last break of the trip. Got about three miles back to the truck, and there is beer in the truck. Let's go get it. All right, leaving the wilderness for now. We'll be back. Let's get to the beer. This tree was not here when we came through the first time, so it's happened since we were here. It was great to get the chance to get out with Dan again. Our trip last summer got cut short, and I'm glad we got to spend some time on trail together. We ended up getting about 40 miles in for the trip, which is pretty good for me. It was still 10 miles short of what we would have hiked had we made it to the ranger station, but I still got to see a lot of this river, and it is beautiful. It was a great trip, and I look forward to the next time I hike the Selway.