Lower Selway River - Packrafting ID - 9000cfs - Class II-III

To start off our Lochsa Madness weekend, my brother and I decided to hit up a much more tame and remote feeling river, and just enjoy a nice day of floating and chilling after the long drive. We dropped a car off in Lowell and headed up to the base of the mighty Selway Falls. Selway Falls was pretty impressive and scary, id put it on the same list of things I would never run as Big Falls on the Payette or Granite Falls on the SF Stilliguamish in WA. We put in below the ferociousness but above the bottom of the drop, which was just a class III rumble. Not long after putting on we encountered a few fun rapids including one with some nice rolling waves on river right and a massive log probably 2 feet in diameter sticking 30 feet into the air out of the deeps below the rapid on the left. Falls Creek Rapid came up quicker than we thought and had some good waves and a few holes that were super easy to miss. After this we enjoyed several more class II-II+ rapids that had plenty of fun rolling waves and splashy holes to blast through. Again, we reached the next class III rapid before we knew it. After hitting a super fun eddy on the left we climbed around in the waterfall before hopping back into our boats. If I were to just run the rapid I would've taken the river right channel because of the setup for the big waves at the bottom but the creek looked fun so I made do with the ferry and carry over to the right side after our little frolic. From here the river slowly settled down with rapids of similar nature to the rest of the run upstream before gently fizzling out to class I swiftwater with an occasional bounce or two. After passing by the O'Hara Creek bridge and stopping for a snack, we knew we were getting close to the end. Not long after that we passed under the Swiftwater Road and were in Lowell before we knew it. We ferried across after the confluence with the Lochsa River and took out on the river right at the head of the Middle Fork Clearwater River. All in all the trip took the two of us packrafters just under five hours to complete the 18.5 mile journey with a few pit stops. This video was taken on 5/22/2025 and there were no major wood hazards on the run at the time but expect conditions to change as the river sees huge fluctuations in flows throughout the year, always be attentive and do not use this video as a guide to any hazards or rapids.