This section of the Tal was a mix of fast and slow water.  It was deeper, allowing for more floating, and had a great mix of species. 

We had finally reached The Forks! The river got bigger here. It was also a good fishing hole, so we were reluctant to leave.

While the river was bigger, it was faster and more powerful, meaning it had enough erosive power to knock down trees.  The river was choked with dangerous logjams and fallen trees. Some of them could be navigated, but most could not, so we ended up spending a lot of time hauling all our gear around obstacles in the river.  Luckily, we were travelling light.  Our packrafts and gear could be carried around a quarter-mile long logjam in fifteen minutes, while a guided group in a cataraft could take several hours to do the same.

There were plenty of rainbows to be had in between the logjams.

Some of the rainbows were of a respectable-size.

The Kings were always present, in every pool, and every so often one would attack.  When a king wanted your fly, there was no way to keep them off your line.

Another rainy camp. It had been 8 days since we had seen the sun.

A bit of target practice to scare away any bears in the immediate area.

A round whitefish for Andy! I had a theory that there were some to be found in this river, but never in my wildest dreams did I expect us to catch one. Here, Andy racks up a lifelist species, and confirms the presence of this species in this river.

Round whitefish. We ate it with noodles, for dinner.

Then, I broke both my flyrods in a rapids.  We took a break and a shot of whiskey, and got back on the river. 

Andy hooked and landed a 30+ pound king salmon on his 5-weight flyrod.

More floating. It was getting easier now.

Then the sun finally came out! We couldn't believe it!  We had forgotten what it looked like.

Beautiful weather moved in. But the river flattened out, and we had to paddle a lot - against a strong wind that blew for the next few days.

We were finally able to dry out all our gear.  The combination of sunshine and wind meant everything got dried out in no time at all.  Our tent kept getting knocked over by the wind.

We made good time through the central section, although there was one long section with no current that we had to paddle through.  We could finally see the scenery around the river - up until now we could barely see past the banks through the fog and mist.

Last camp before the canyons.

Dolly Varden and Hashed Browns for dinner! We would need the energy, because we were about to enter the Canyons!