Into the Outside

Winter Sunshine

2012-02-06T09:24:00.000-08:00

With a warm and sunny weekend in the forecast, I spent Friday afternoon trying to decide whether I wanted to spend Saturday kayaking or hiking with some friends around Portland. After checking some water levels, I decided that I could have my cake and eat it to. Eagle creek was to be the destination and the crew was to include both paddlers as well as folks just interested in a long hike in a beautiful place.

By the time Saturday morning rolled around, our group had ballooned out to 8 people in all. Kayakers: Dan Rubido, Cruise Control, Andrew and myself. Hikers: Miranda Merrill (sister), Skip Rasmussen, Jordan Fry, and Devin Geddings.

Special thanks go out to the hikers, who were more than willing to help out when it came to carrying paddles, food, water, and various other items that decreased the weight on our backs.

Since we already have a write-up on eagle creek, I'll keep this post fairly short and laden with photos.

The long hike to the put-in. (the hike really wasn't as hard as I predicted)

Photo: Devin Geddings

Lunch time at Punch Bowl Falls

Jacob takes stokes #3 and#4 of the day. Skoonichuck Falls.

Photo: Scott Rasmussen

The hikers (Devin, Skip, Jordan, Miranda)

One of the numerous class IV rapids nestled deep in eagle creek gorge.

Follow the leader!

Jacob with his fans.

Andrew and Dan deep down.

Cruise Control scouting ol' Punchy.

Dan with a picture perfect line off Punch Bowl.

Photo: Andrew Bradley

Worth the hike! Punchbowl video

The first 5 videos(as of Feb 2012) on Richard Lewis Wolf's Youtube account continue the documentation of our trip.

Habitat: The Rafting Film

2012-02-05T20:46:00.000-08:00

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/habitat/habitat

This is a film Ryan and Hans have been working hard on for years. I have seen a lot of the edited parts and they are really good. This is the type of film whitewater has been lacking for a long time. Instead of "browning" and ego boosting, the film dives into explaining the sport; where it started, and how it got where it is now. It looks at all aspects of the sport, from unforgettable guided overnight trips, to the bonds forged in the tightest canyons of the PNW. Every whitewater boater has been asked why they do what they do, I know for me its difficult to give an answer I am satisfied conveys how I feel. This film captures that answer and so much more. This film has the best rafting footage ever captured, no question. It is made in a way that anyone can get into and enjoy whether they boat or not. They need some help, so if you can, give and you shall receive!

Photo by Javier

photo Nate Merrill

-Jacob

Canyon Creek, Oregon

2012-01-30T23:42:00.000-08:00

            Nate, Jacob and I had been talking about what we should do for this up coming weekend. Flows in the Portland area were not looking supper promising so Nate and I packed up shop and headed to Corvallis for the weekend. Saturday morning flows where looking great on Canyon Creek. There is a general consensus that the creek gets pushy over 500 cfs so we were anxious about what it would feel like. The gauge showed ~600, but Rick had run the creek at 650 on the gauge and said this felt higher. We surmised the estimated gauge is different based on a rising vs. falling stream (we had a falling level).

       Our main concerns with the creek at this level was new wood from the ice storm that had come through the North West Region the previous week and the rumors of abundant undercuts due to the unstable geology. Rick and Dan lead us to a put in just above Chocolate Chips that avoids the mile of wood and flat water above, its exciting starting the day off with a class five! The rapid starts off with a small boulder garden that progresses into a series of small ledges where the water is eventually funneled into 7ft wide crack. The first 3 boaters flipped, and the last 3 stayed dry. Moving into the next series of rapids is a pushy technical boulder garden that is leading into Chicken Little. This rapid looks ugly but go's pretty smooth; there is one massive old growth that looks like it has been stuck in the rapid for a while but is easily avoidable. Portage on the right, if you're not feeling it. After finishing the crux part of the drop the river is split into two channels for about 200yards. Both channels are currently clear of wood.  As the channels regroup the creek rips into a technical boulder garden that is quite long and fun.  The last horizon needs to be run on the right (easier said than done). At this level a couple of us were able to cut right from the left channel which worked, but is not the preferred line. The left half of the river pours into a nasty sieve with a root wad stuck in the middle.

       Next up was a ledge drop that was very reminicent of sacriledge on the the little white. Big hole and all. A few more boulder gardens and a flume found us scouting Stuff Sack, more commonly known as Demon Seed. Three people ran stuff sack on this day. This drop has a very clear line and a very clear undercut pocket on the right. Terminator is the next significant rapid followed by Day of Judgement, both of which you can scout from the road as you drive up to do the upper section. Terminator, which is known for the nasty sieve on river left, is cleaner than I had imagined, but still possesses significant consequences for a blown line. Both the aformentioned seive and pocket on the right side complicate things. There is a sneak on the left for Day of Judgment at the flows we had that starts off very manky and ends in a clean 8ft ledge.

The section imediately below Day of Judgment should be approached with extreme caution. It is the only section on Canyon Creek that cannon be scouted and is un-portageable. It is very important that after committing to the lead-in, you catch the large eddy on river right just after to gorge walls close in. From this eddie, you can boat scout the crux section (Jacob was able to hop out and get a visual, but that option may not exist at lower flows). The entire right side of the river charges beneath an old growth log and then flows into an undercut. The left side of the river is very manky and contains several rocks that could pin a boat. The line is the cut just above and to the left of the old growth root wad in the center of the river. This line splits the two hazards and is reminiscent to Zoom Tube on Cherry Creek. If you run this thing correctly, the spray from the water hitting the root wad will actually envelope you as you drop through the narrow channel. Although this drop isn't too difficult, it is one of the more consequential rapids on Canyon Creek. Below this gorge, the run then alternates between large ledges and flatwater. Before you reach the put-in for the lower section, there is one giant ledge hole to be aware of. On this day, two of our group went for a ride, but were able to escape.

It is common for boaters to just run this lower section (class IV), however the first ledge of the lower section held a swimmer for about a minute on this day, so be sure you have a solid boof before attempting the run, especially at this level. Watch out for Osprey after the first mile or so of flat water, it would be easy to mistakenly enter this rapid. Dry out in the brush on the right to scout. The run over all is generally clean and definitely worth doing.

A special thanks to Dan Rubado and Rick Cooley for showing us the lines, we would have been in the dark without you guys (literally).

Canyon Creek, Oregon from Andrew Bradley on Vimeo.
-Andrew

Flood

2012-01-30T14:56:00.000-08:00

Photos by Aqualegia Leet

PNW got hit with huge water last week. We had gone from no water to a state of emergency in nearby counties. Finding a river to run seemed just as hard as with no water unless you were willing to playboat as all creeks were too high. I ended up not trying to force anything and day one just scouted the local falls near our school that has yet to be run.

Still looked pretty ugly, the recycle at the bottom being the main concern. Maybe it will get run at some point, but I won't be the one to do it.

The next day I went for a nice paddle with a school friend through Helmick State Park. The Luckiamute had gotten absurdly high and we were paddling on the road that is usually 20' above the stream.

Normally a dry field.

Aqua checking out the roof on a sign board that is normally overhead.

It was easy to paddle from the park into the river, so I paddled to the top of the park, peeled out into the river and road the 15,000 cfs of flatwater to the end of the park (the river was at 30,000 cfs the day before).

Mid channel.

I paddled under the bridge which is usually 30 ' above the river and tapped it with my paddle.

I then came back up and eddied out behind this tree. The current was really moving through the park, you can see this here.

There were some conveniently placed steps at the gauging station that I used to get out.

The next day I woke up really late and some of my friends decided to join me as we looked for a "secret waterfall". I had little hope of the drop being runnable because it was so shallow in the summer when I had last scouted it. We got there and kept on the down low as we crossed a field and got our first glimpse at Shivley Falls on the East Fork of Drift Creek. It had a ton of water and I excitedly headed down to check it out from water level. The drop is a two tiered, 40 foot drop with the top drop landing directly on the bedrock creating the second tier (no go). I had hopes the second tier would be do-able.

I took a trip behind the falls to the other side and decided I would run the lower tier.

Walking over to check out the options.

Patrick Stephenson photo.

We went back to the car and I geared up, going over all the things my team needed to know to keep me safe. The big concerns were the 2 ft' deep landing and the zero eddies to take out in.

I carried my boat behind the falls and set up next to the base of the first falls, Pat would push me directly through the edge of the first curtain and into the second drop.

The landing of the first falls, and the lip of the second.

Patrick Stephenson photo.

All went according to plan and I had a fun line, landing perfectly before peeling into the current towards the right bank where I grabbed onto a tree while Aqua grabbed my boat and I jumped out, stoked on such an impromptu and fruitful adventure. All said and done we were there less than an hour before we were headed back to Monmouth for a birthday celebration.

My friend who was holding the camera was nervous and forgot to take pictures of me running the drop, and this blurry shot is the only picture of the entire falls.

Shivley Falls

Thanks to the team from WOU for coming and setting safety!

Butte Creek needs to be over 1,000 cfs before this should even be considered.

-Jacob

The portage on Mccoy

2012-01-16T17:54:00.000-08:00

This was written up by Rick Cooley who has multiple descents of Mccoy creek and has dialed in the tricky portage around the big falls. This bit of information may save you a lot of effort and be the difference between finishing in the light vs. the dark.

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Portage on McCoy:

Shortly after the intimidating but fun 25ft falls on McCoy Cr and about 1/2 mile before the confluence with Yellowjacket creek, there is a mandatory portage around a 40-50ft waterfall that will make even the most seasoned of class V paddler's ass pucker just by looking at it. There are two ways to portage this drop: the right way and the wrong way. The right way takes about 30 min with a relatively small and focused group, and you can shoulder you boat for most of it. The wrong way can take 2+ hours and will require all of your ropes, multiple pulleys and z-drags, and sketchy cliff scrambling.

The horizon-line for the portage is quite obvious. Eddy out on river right about 100ft above the drop. The initial climb up is too steep to shoulder your boat, so send someone up with a rope to pull boats up as high as you can. From there, the boats can be shouldered to the top of the ridge. As the ground finally levels out, walk with your boat downstream through the brush about 50 yards or so and drop your boat.

At this point you're about 200 ft above the river and it seems like there isn't any reasonable way back down. Many people (including myself) have gone wrong with this portage by continuing to walk another few hundred yards downstream looking for an easier place to lower your boats. Trust me when I say you won't find one. If you can look upstream and see a shallow river wide 6ft ledge, you've walked too far.

Instead of walking further downstream, immediately begin searching along the steep edge to your left for small signs of a deer/fisherman's path. You'll eventually find a narrow and steep, but walkable ridge that leads right down to the water's edge approximately 50 yards below the unnrunnable waterfall. Once you find this, go back and grab your boat and walk your way down to the river. There are a few spots along the carry down where lowering your boat with a short rope may make life easier, but you can shoulder the boat for most of way down. Once down at water's level, you'll be just above a 6ft tall, river wide ledge and below a fun 20ft slide (which you can carry up and run).

The 20' slide.

Photo: Matt King

At this point, you are about a 2hr paddle from the car that consists mostly class I-III with the occasional class IV drop mixed in on Yellowjacket.

~Rick Cooley

The Gray's: Not to be Forgotten

2012-01-09T15:50:00.001-08:00

While on Canyon Creek this past November, Chris Arnold mentioned to me that he was interested in getting back on the Grays River in Washington. I think my response was something like "The Grays? Where the hell is the Grays?" Needless to say, its not a river that gets much publicity, despite being near the front of the guidebook. When I asked around, most people said that they had never actually given it a shot, sighting a long drive as the restricting force. However, those who had ventured to this isolated gem, had positive things to say about the creek and often noted how they had a desire to get back on it. After consulting a map, it became evident that the creek isn't that far away from Portland. It took us under 2 hours from the front door to the put-in and could be done faster by those who push the speed limits more than I do. Another positive that emerged during my research of the run was that it has a very wide range of flows. When most other options are all but dry, the Grays often has a nice medium level.

This past Saturday, I finally convinced a few friends to tag along and give this oft-forgot creek a go. Ben Morton and Andrew Bradley joined Jacob and I as we headed out from Portland around 10 Am. I threw the bike on the back and hoped for a reasonable bike shuttle. Alas, I only have a road bike and the road turned out be to be loose gravel (I was not looking forward to the last leg of my journey). Jacob had actually done the run once before, but it had been over three years since he last visited the area. We jetted up the 5 and then headed west along the Columbia once he hit Longview. After ditching the bike at a point where Fossil Creek road nears the Grays, we headed up to the Put-In and were happy to see a healthy flow pushing through a tight canyon under the bridge. (The Naselle River was reading around 730cfs when I left my house that morning.)

We geared up, put on, and immediately were confronted with the first gorge, which we had given a brief scout from the bridge above. I think we were all a bit surprised at how pushy the rapid was despite it's benign look from 50 feet up in the air. We all came crashing through the big hole directly below the bridge and knew it was on. The next mile and half was characterized by steep bedrock ledges intermixed with large boulder-strewn rapids. We scouted often and were really enjoying the diversity of each drop. There was one river wide log in the first gorge that we were able to boof over on the right, but other than that, the run was super clean.

I'm not sure of the named rapids in this first section, but below are a few shots that I was able to snap while we made our way down stream. I believe that one of these drops is described in the guide book as 'Triple Drop'. All were class III-IV affairs and were great fun.

Cruise Control happy to be paddling and not hiking through the woods.

Ben Morton working hard for the money.

Andrew Bradley: Vancouver Maneuver

Before too long, Jacob's spider sense started going off and we got out to scout the class V drop known as Superbowl. When I got my first look at this behemoth, I was astonished by the technical nature and shear size. Superbowl is a legit class V drop and has more than a few things going on. In addition to the man-eating hole at the bottom and the tricky ledge 10 feet upstream, there also exists a small hole in the lead-in that is perfectly positioned to push you off your line. I was a little hesitant to run this drop at first, but after watching Jacob probe with a nice line, the race was on. Below (at the bottom of this post) is a quick clip of Jacob stylin Superbowl. Andrew also had a picture perfect line, sadly, the camera was done by the time he gave 'er.

Next up was the infamous Picnic rapid. I'd heard word that this class V drop has changed in recent years and become significantly harder. It's worth noting that it's much easier to get out and scout if you pull off before the river bends to the left. We scouted this drop from the bottom up and were all a little nervous about the nasty seive at the bottom left of this long intricate boulder slalom. Picnic is over 100 yards long and probably drops somewhere around 30 feet from the very top to the bottom. The crux of the drop is surely near the bottom where the main channel constricts down between a large boulder and the right bank before pounding through a giant wave hole and into a vertical gorge. That being said, don't overlook the long boulder garden above the crux. There are more than a few f-you rocks and ledge holes that could really screw with your line. Oh yeah, there isn't really anyway to run safety of this guy either! We opted to run the drop as a group from top to bottom. I led the charge while Jacob and Andrew followed behind me by about 50 feet. Everything went according to plan, but I think we were all a little surprised to have made it through the crux hole upright and paddling. Ben opted for the high seal launch into the canyon. You guys have to trust me on this one: Picnic is one hell of a rapid. Too much fun!

Next up was broken paddle, which really didn't compare to the two previous drops. The mainline on the left looked pretty sticky at this flow with a undercut wall complicating the matter, so most snuck the drop down the right side. A little manky, but more preferable than the munchy left.

We were soon in the run-out, which isn't short, and booking it down stream towards my bike... and the beverages. Within minutes of hoping off the creek, a pickup truck drove by and offered us all a lift up to my car! Red Wine Success! We hid the boats in the woods and jumped in the back. The guys were nice enough and we rewarded them for the ride with a handful of Tecate's upon arrival.

On the drive home we stopped in Longview and made some questionable decisions regarding our choices for dinner...

All in all, the Gray's is certainly worth doing once or twice a season and it really isn't much further than BZ from Portland. Class IV and V paddlers alike will find plenty to enjoy on this scenic section of river. And again, Picnic is one of the more fun drops I've run in recent memory! Go get it!

Best Regards,

Nate

Jumping The Gun

2012-01-05T22:47:00.000-08:00

I tried writing this earlier, but I couldn't, I'm not really sure how to even still. As long as I have been kayaking I have been pretty cautious. This probably came from my first mentor, my dad. He always made sure I was way more prepared skill-wise than the rivers I was running. He would tell me I had to be able to catch every eddy in every rapid on a river before I could run the next one. It was frustrating because even then I wanted to see as many different rivers in the area as I could. I kept practicing and after 3 years on class 3 he finally let us run Copper Creek, WA. Needless to say, after all the practice on class 3, this run felt pretty easy. The slow start into consequential whitewater meant that once I was there I could concentrate more on the stream as a whole and less on whether I could make it through a rapid. Anticipating where things would go wrong was something I felt I picked up on quickly. This paid dividends later on when we explored new runs where time was of the essence. On those new runs, there is not always enough time to set safety and scout every rapid. Having years of experience analyzing where problem spots are has lead to a style of river running that has served the crew I paddle with well. I always try to be as prepared and knowledgeable as possible for the streams I set out to kayak. I have always been proud of my choices. There have only been two choices I have made kayaking that I have truly wished I could take back. Both times my thought process consisted of, "this doesn't seem right, but things always seem to work out for me, so I am sure it will turn out fine." Both times this foolish rationale almost killed a friend. Both times I also looked back thankful to be alive, because I had allowed this choice to leave my hands.

Last weekend I attempted to run a creek in the Columbia Gorge (word is already getting out where it is). This run was above my head. I had spent four days this last summer finding access. That does not include mapwork, only driving and hiking to find out if my mapwork was correct. What I discovered was that this was the least accessible place I had ever attempted to go. However, on my fourth try, I found the way in with the help of Andrew Bradley. After missing the run the first time it rained this year, I was determined to get in there whatever the cost. This run is the pinnacle of exploratory kayaking in the Columbia gorge, in my opinion. The deepest gorge on the maps (600 feet per mile) and pictures of glorious waterfalls filled my thoughts.

When the opportunity came, Emile (pronounced Eh-meal) Elliot and Anna Herring were willing to put in the work to scout this run with boats. I was hoping for low water, but nature had other plans. I was so entrenched with getting onto the river that the flooding going on around us didn't deter me.

I knew we wanted an early start. Leaving Monmouth at 4 AM seemed like the ticket to me. We pulled this off and, with a shuttle driver, gave ourselves the best opportunity for getting through the run in the daylight. We started hiking just as the first light turned the sky from black to grey. We made it to the put-in very quickly and were pleased with the water level; it looked ideal. The only problem was that I wanted low water, but we decided to go for it anyway, knowing we had a mile to make the decision to hike out. The put-in drop was a sweet 12-foot waterfall that Emile and I ran. The next half mile was class II-III with some wood, but the portaging was as easy as it gets and there were some fun slides in there. Eventually, we eddied out above an ominous corner. We found a magical looking 40' drop consisting of a slide into a 25-foot boof. Small pockets on either side would necessitate safety. Both Emile and I very much wanted to run it, but in the name of saving time, decided to walk around. This turned out to be a good choice in the long run.

Shortly below here we came to a really nice looking Class V that had a couple of branches hanging down just above a macking hole. Once again we walked, this time deciding to scout downstream in anticipation of the known gorge. We saw...the most intimidating gorge I have ever witnessed. This gorge picks up where the Salmon River Canyon leaves off. It has an entrance drop reminisent of Final Falls, with a stout 25-foot lead-in drop. This locks the stream into an inescapable gorge 200-feet deep with near vertical walls. We started hiking, aiming for the road 1000 feet above us, hoping to make it around this section and put-in below. After an hour, the GPS showed we had make very little progress. We ditched the boats, now trying desperately to make it out before dark. It was 1:30.

We were about halfway up when we decided to send a text to my dad letting him know we would be late. Half an hour later we sent another text saying we needed help and we began to worry that we would not make it to the road before dark. The road was still over 10 miles to the nearest outpost of civilization, and over 20 to the nearest city with a gas station. We finally made it to the top and the road we were aiming for was not there. This is when I realized I had left the GPS and maps behind during a gear exchange. My heart sank: our only navigation tools were now somewhere on the hillside we had just come from. We were disoriented on the top of the divide and I decided I needed to go back for the GPS. I followed our tracks for some time, but it was snowing now and our tracks were quickly covered. I eventually turned back knowing I would not find the GPS and we needed all the daylight available for this now unfathomable task. I was awestruck that we were now stuck in the least accessible place I had ever attempted to be in without anything to navigate on other than my recollection of the map and our instincts.

When I returned with the bad new about the GPS, the gravity of our situation became visible in every person's eyes. The decision was made to abandon the search for the road and start going downstream. Emile was not wearing a drysuit, and thus would not survive a night in the snow. We began our march downstream, knowing we would eventually hit a road 3-5 miles downstream. We set off into a cliffed-out hillside in the waning light.

From this point to the time we stumbled across a clearcut I will not tell in detail, because what happened cannot be expressed in words. I can sum it up as not only were we in terrain steeper than the 32 degree landslide threshold, cliffs above and below, in the snow, with multiple creek crossings (gradients over 1,000 fpm), and a team member fighting off hypothermia, but also, halfway through our 8 hour treck,the sun set and the light followed. My most vivid memories are of losing my footing, then clawing at brush while sliding trying to get a grip before flying off the cliffs and 400' of remaining gradient to the stream below (5.10 booties are amazing for rock, but like skies on snow. I eventually took them off and walked in my drysuit booties for most of the trip). Or the view when I looked at Emile's bloody shins and he had swollen feet after hours of hiking in shorts and booties. The most rewarding memories are of when we would take a break and eat or drink something, discussing our next move, everyone perfectly aware of the situation at hand, everyone refusing to break down.

At the end of it all, we reached a clear cut. We knew we had to be close to a road. We tried Anna's dying phone one last time, reception!! She dialed 911 and we figured out that people were already searching. We informed them of were we thought we were. We listened for the police sirens and I scrambled to the top of one last hill looking for the cars. I saw a car only a few hundred yards away and hollered down to Emile and Anna. We whistled and hollered and shined lights. I slid most of the way back down to my friends all the while with the sickening vision of the car turning and leaving. Hoping they had seen us, I joined the rest of the team and we headed off towards the light and finally made contact. Knowing it was over was a huge relief. We got in the car and headed back towards Stevenson.

My sister and her boyfriend showed up at the station and informed us of the multitude of people who were out looking for us. My dad sums it up here.

I just wanted to publicly acknowledge everyone who stepped up on
Friday when the calls for help went out. Jacob had been looking at access for
a creek in the Columbia Gorge for many months, and he, Anna and Emile gave it a
shot on Friday, December 30th. I didn't know about it until I got a call from
Aqua (their shuttle driver) around noon. Shortly after that, I got a text from
a different number saying, "hiking out, will be late." At 2:30, another text
saying, "need help. sunset hemlock rd 2 miles south of fs 43 intersection."
And that was all the contact we had with them until we heard from the sheriff at
8:30 pm that they had been found. I immediately left work downtown and started
dialing the phone. Thanks to Val Shaull for dropping everything and meeting me
at Lewis and Clark with lots of gear, to Rod Kilner (paddling friend from
Stevenson) for going to the Skamania County Sheriff and getting them rolling.
Our friends the Heesackers, whose whole family came out with paddling, climbing,
boating and GPS equipment. The two paddlers who I met at Lewis and Clark
(please write to me with your names, I'm so sorry I forgot in the chaos) who
loaded up on Val's rig and came up to Carson with us. Sam Drevo, Dan McCain and
his friend John, Dwight and Jordan Englert, Masaki Hisamoto, Ed Hall and unknown
others who were going to be there at first light the next day. Thanks to the
Portland Fire Bureau who offered their technical rescue team if needed. Fellow
Portland firefighters Randy Brusse and Gerard Pahissa who both live in Carson.
They were both great at rallying the community and we had many volunteers coming
out of the woodwork to help search the next day if needed. Gerard deserves a
special thanks for letting us use his "Old School Bar and Grill" in Carson as a
staging area, and he fed a bunch of us and refused payment. You should eat
there not only for the great food, beer and vintage video games, but because
Gerard is a good man who went way out of his way to help. Finally, thanks to
Officers Hastings and Clifford of Skamania County Sheriffs, whose persistence
and knowledge of the area saved at least one life that night. And one last word
of thanks to Jacob, who took another few years off his dad's life last week.
Probably would have just spent it vegging out in a nursing home anyway.

We drove to Rod Kilner's house (who lives in Stevenson) and got to see and thank all the people who had put their lives on hold for the day to help in the search for us. It was amazing to see the efforts people had put in. I have been overwhelmed with gratitude for the last few days knowing what these people did for us. All of them coming together really showed the health that is still present in humanity. This day will forever be a building block for how I view the world and the people in it.

So I will say...

Thank you to all the people who came to help us yesterday, it meant a lot to get out of there and see and hear about all the people who cared. I will not forget.

A special thanks to the Heesacker's, Rod Kilner,Val Shaull, my parents, Skamania county Sheriff, Aqua, my sister and her boyfriend John Church for putting in a huge effort to find us.

A special thanks to Carson residents Gerard Pahissa and Randy Brusse for their support of my family and friends while they were in Carson.

Also Dan Mccain, John Watkins, and Sam Drevo for planning to come in the next day to float the stream and find us.

Dwight and Jordan, Masaki and Ed Hall for also planning to be there the next day to help.

And everyone who voiced their thoughts through writing and phone calls, it meant a lot to hear from all of you.
I hope to never put any of you through that again.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Worthy of note

-Losing the GPS and map turned this from a horrible hike out into a life threatening situation.

-Anna's phone and the collaborative will (lead by Emile) to get out of the canyon may have saved a life.

-I should have waited until Spring when we had more light even if it meant risking snow on the access road.

-I should have scouted this run in the summer at low flows first with a canyoneering team.

-Anna went to the doctor and it was confirmed that she had frostbite from the trip (she was wearing a drysuit, wool socks, and booties the entire time). It is likely Emile got frostbite as well, it doesn't only happen on Everest as my dad said.

-Jacob

Little North Fork Wilson

2011-12-29T16:07:00.000-08:00

Pete brought Andrew and I along on a fun trip into the Wilson river drainage Thanksgiving weekend. It turned out way better than I expected. Here is the trip report.

-Jacob

Riverhouse/Dillon

2011-12-18T21:23:00.000-08:00

Anna stands guard over the realm of the falls.

We got on the Riverhouse and Dillon Falls section of the Deschutes this weekend. Andrew came prepared with his new rear mount for the Gopro which resulted in some cool shots.

We all did many laps on the 25' dam at the put in which is a total blast. This drop is really easy center right, but has a pulsing hydraulic on the left that is either a smooth ramp or sticky hole depending on the surge. There was an exciting moment when Nate got caught in this hydraulic, but a combo of composed surfing by him and Skip being on top of his game (especially for a non-boater) got Nate out of there safely without a swim.

Nate and my first run went as hoped.

Dualing Green Nomads

We did the rest of the run without scouting from shore (which would have been a pain with the thick brush and sharp rock) which upped the fun level fun. Every drop was boat scout-able except one which we ran blind. There were two others that wouldn't hurt to scout.

There was some good quality stuff in there. This would be a great backyard run.

We then headed up to Dillon Falls. Everybody was a bit cold, but Nate and I still decided to give it a go after various heating techniques were applied.

Nate had a sweet boof line down the left into the fold, and I did a delayed boof in the center.

Nate with a silky line.

We waited while Anna decided to join, she wanted to seal launch in below the falls and just run the gorge. There is a notoriously sticky hole just below the falls that she was funneled right into the center of. She was able to roll up once but after multiple ends pulled and swam to the right shore. Her boat pinned on the left in the gorge.

Last breath of air for awhile.

Nate lowered me in my boat to a point I could connect another rope to her boat. He pulled me back and we struggled getting the pinned boat to budge. We had a pin kit in the car, but the ground crew was unable to find it. With darkness closing in and no pin kit, we left the boat tied off to a boulder and headed downstream through the short remainder of the gorge. We changed and by the time we made the short drive to Bend it was dark.

Nate and Andrew cold, but happy with the day.

We spent 5 hours getting dinner then off to our final destinations for the evening.

Andrew made a quick video of the two bigger drops using his Gopro mount on the back, then the normal use of a Gopro, then a final one of it mounted on a boom. It turned out well I thought. Here it is.

Riverhouse run Upper Deschutes from Andrew Bradley on Vimeo.

It was a long trip, but without water over here in the Valley its a worthy journey. With many runnable sections, the Deschutes offers a low water respite.

-Jacob

Third Person Mount

2011-12-15T20:45:00.000-08:00

1. Remove all gear in the stern of youre boat and take off rear grab loop , nuts and bolt.

2. We went to a Ace hardweare and looked around in nuts and bolts for awile picking out the things to use for the mount. We had some scrap sheet metal laying around that we used to connect the nuts and washers. Also it was used for the base and top of the mount where the gopro sits and the mount rests a square peice of quater inch tubing was used to get the height for the mount.

3. Welding the peices together we did not use stainless steel so we painted everything after it was all said and done. The bracket that the mount connects to we spot welded.

4. Bothe of the pictures show front and back side of bracket we welded. We did this so the bolts do not have to be held on the inside when taking off the mount or putting it on the bolts will not spin on you.

5. We drilled the holes on the boat just alittle bigger so we didnt have to force the bolts in.

6. Measuring the hole distance for both the the mount and bracket.

7. The flat part of steel that base started out as for the mount we bent with a rubber mallet to form to the outside of the boat.

8. As one person drilled the holes on the mount the other took the back piller out, to put the bracket in.

9. Holes are drilled for the mount put it on and bolt it down. Make sure every thing is done and set with the brackt you may have to bend it up at an angle to get the piller to sit back in its spot.

10. Foam piller is back in make sure it is snug and in the right spot.

11. If you are to set your boat up in this way I would recomend making your bracket peice very strong. The way we set it up is we can innerchange both the mount and the grab loop in a few minutes so you do not have to paddle with the mount for the whole run. Also using a pool toy noodle as a soft out side and leash on the gopro and to help the mount float if it is to get nocked off on the water.

- Andrew

~Andrew Bradley

Black Rock: Under Crossed Polars

2011-12-10T19:46:00.000-08:00

I had a team video project for school and we decided to make a film about a fellow Earth Science student Patrick Stephenson, and the Black Rock mountain biking area that he rides and builds at. It was my first attempt at documentary style movie making instead of just eye candy (there is still some of that at the beginning and the end). There is one kayaking shot of Matt King, then Andrew Bradley running Spirit Falls. I know some of you are mountain bikers and have visited this place so you might appreciate it.

We will probably show it again during the academic showcase this Spring, so it should be a bit more clean cut by then.

-Jacob

PDXfilm festival

2011-12-03T15:43:00.000-08:00

As is par for the course for me, I wasn't able to go to the film fest this year. I did spend an afternoon editing something for the blog, then figured what the hey, might as well enter it in the film fest. I had some issues with the school network so could not come back and take this any further than a rough draft, so please excuse the cheesy, choppy introduction.

If nothing else comes from this video, realize there is still good stuff out there to be explored. Don't be a part the 99% who have never run anything not in a guidebook ;)

Ok, two cheesy thoughts on one blog post is enough, here is the video!

*Most of the footage was taken by Ryan Scott.

-Jacob

Hagen Update

2011-11-21T09:24:00.000-08:00

With heavy rains on Wednesday night, I was able to bust out from work early on Thursday and got in a quick run down Hagen Gorge. Andrew Bradley and I started the hike around 1:45 and took off the NF Washougal at the first bridge before 4 oclock. Happy to report that the gorge is clean of any nasty wood. The log at the bottom of Euphoria Falls is still there, but is still easily avoidable. As was reported last year, the jam/dam at the top of the gorge is nastier than ever. With a good flow, it would be very easy to get flushed into the logs. I managed to catch a small one boat eddy on the left, but it involved grasping onto bushes and a sketchy exit from my boat. Andrew basically drove up onto the gravel bar in the center of the river and had to ninja move out of his boat on the fly. Be careful approaching this hazard and eddy out early. Other than that, the trip was a blast. Having missed out on this creek last season, I was happy to get back on and remind myself how much I love the Hagen Gorge.

-Nate M.
-------------------------------
There is another put in that avoids this sketchy move altogether and puts you in 50 yards below the log deck, at the start of the gorge.

Some past Hagen Goodness from Andrew.

How to: Right side of island Drop

2011-10-28T10:17:00.000-07:00

Eric Fostermoore just sent me this video of Matt King, Dan Rubado, and Rick Cooley running the right side of Island drop.

I have only seen video of this section of water, but all the shots Iv'e seen make this drop look really hard to run clean.

Until now! Watch all three of them hit their boof off the top drop. The word from Rick... boof early.

Level around 545 cfs. September 18, 2011

-Jacob

Bomb Proof

2011-10-19T14:17:00.000-07:00

First off, the method I describe below is really only necessary when other more traditional patching techniques just won't cut it. I've seen traditional welds work just fine. However, this particular situation called for something a bit stronger. There was quite literally a hole in the bottom of my boat (a result of a poor attempt at a traditional weld and some very thin plastic.)

I first got this idea from Pete G. who has succeeded at patching several boats in a similar manner.

It actually works!

What you'll need:

4-6 Machine Screws and nuts

Duct Tape

2 sheets of plastic from an old boat (mine were about 4in by 4in)

Aqua Seal

Drill

Sand Paper

First Step: Cut out two sheets of plastic from your buddies old boat. Both should be equal in size and should be considerably larger than the area you want to patch. I found plastic that was the same color as my boat, but that this is not necessary. In fact, plastic of another color would just make it that much classier.

Step 2: Place one of the sheets over the area you want to seal on the outside of the boat. Drill holes at the corners of the sheet strait through the boat.

Step 3: Line up the second sheet of plastic on the inside of the boat and drill 4 matching holes through the inside sheet.

Step 4: Now that you have the machine screw holes all lined up, place the sheets of plastic aside for a moment and cover the inside of the crack (hole) with several layers of duct tape. I used a heat gun to heat the duct tape and it conformed to the crack pretty well.

Step 5: Line the sheets up correctly and place a nice thick layer of aqua seal over the entire underside of the outside sheet. Insert the machine screws. They should reach from the outside of the outter sheet through the inner sheet.

Step 6: Twist on the nuts on the inside and tighten er down snug. As you tighten the screws, the heads on the outside of the boat should sink in create a nice smooth surface.

Step 7: Once the patch is tightened all the way together (like a sandwich), use the sandpaper to sand the edges of the outer patch down. It doesn't need to be perfect, but it helps to have the edges as flush as possible to prevent the patch from 'catching' on rocks.

Step 8: Test your patch on low water Olympic peninsula runs in early October. If it holds up (like mine did), you're stoked.

And a quick photo drop: (fall 2011)

Gifford Pinchot

Upper Lewis

Our humble abode for the weekend. Olympic penninsula overlooking the Puget sound.

Part Four: Save the Best for Last

2011-10-10T15:43:00.000-07:00

We finished the creek from part 3 in very high spirits. Matt had a found a really good one, but we still had plenty of energy and another mission planned for the next day. We spent some time driving around figuring out access and giving the flow one last check before getting after it that same evening.

It involved a pleasant hike through the Eagle Cap Wilderness.

Access would involve a 4 mile hike in, with the first mile being uphill. We shouldered our light boats in the night before to the saddle signaling the downhill part of the hike. It turned out to be a bit longer than we had thought it would be, but that just made the next days portion a little easier. Matt and I arrived at the saddle about twenty minutes after dark. We headed back down the trail to find Ryan (who opted out of this trip), and headed back to our cars in the dark. We camped at the trail head excited about the next day. We said farewell to Ryan in the morning and hoped to meet up with him somewhere near the end of the run as he would be following another trail trying to intersect us at some point.

As Matt and I made it to the saddle, we were blown away by the view. It was hard to capture, but Matt did a good job with the picture that heads the "stream guide" page on this website. We took some time to eat and set up our carrying systems, then it was off down the backside of the trail.

Exiting the saddle and on our way into the valley.

We took a few breaks on the way down but made good time. As we approached river level the anticipation grew.

The put in was gorgeous, both upstream and downstream. It was a nice little meadow that would make a great camp.

We paddled a short bit of meadow with no wood till we came to the first granite outcropping.

It turned out to be a really cool looking drop, there was a log in the runout creating a bit of a sieve and neither Matt or I wanted to start a trip of this nature off with a bad moment so we took the super easy portage on the left.

Matt gives the " Snakepit" a look.

The easy portage on the left.

We buggied some more class III-III+ down to the next bedrock outcropping. This one did not have the same smooth look to it and had wood in the runout. We regretfully shouldered out boats again, not knowing that this would be the last time we portaged a rapid on the trip.

The wood in the runout should be gone next year, in which case it will be runnable.

Below here was a short bit of boogie before our dreams were fulfilled. We found gorge after gorge after gorge. A few of which required half hour scouts to see the whole thing since they were totally boxed in by vertical walls. It seemed that each gorge got slightly harder. All were incredibly fun, sometimes classic, sometimes unique, drops. I actually cannot recall many of the rapids because there were plenty of gorges, each with many rapids.

Matt scouts one of many.

After some time we arrived at our first class five gorge. This one required a long scout and a relocation of a small tree. Matt spent his time working out the first drop (the hardest), while I figured out the route through the rest of the rapids. The first one was unique and difficult, we ran a chute down the left, then worked to avoid a wall on the right and the left. Matt lead into "The Leftorium" and we regrouped below the entrance.

Entrance to "The Leftorium"

This dropped us into the heart of the gorge. I went by Matt who was eddied out. I called out "follow me, every drop goes on the right". I proceeded to be able to see the whole picture at this point and ran the first drop on the left :) Matt wasn't thrown off and we had a good run. The next drop locks you in completely and we finished as we started; left, left, left. Improvisation certainly has a place. Exiting the Leftorium was a short class III-IV respite before getting right back into more gorges.

We exited this gorge only to float a short distance before a large horizon line between high walls. This one we scouted on the right and had us smiling. It was a fun, non consequential looking rapid through two drops with a fluffy hole at the bottom. I tried to tuck and go deep through the bottom hole for fun, resulting in the only roll for either of us this day. On Matt's run, he resurfaced just as a salmon headed the other way took his shot at the rapid!

Myself launching into the rapid.

We had this short bit of flat water before we could see what looked to be another gorge section looming in the distance.

We scouted and ran a couple class four drops before we turned a corner and saw a very large logjam.

We portaged over the boulders on the left, bummed to see that the jam had ruined what looked to be a sweet 8 foot boof. Looking downstream, we could see there was something big. With the steepness and the spray from upstream I assumed it would be unrunnable. Matt was scouting on the left and the crawl over the boulders looked energy consuming. After I could tell he was scouting the rapid and not a portage route, I saw a way to scout on the right. I came down and saw a very big rapid. The first two holes were serious moves, followed by a very marginal goal post move that landed on rocks. This lead into some very pushy looking water that lead into a boulder fence that had to be run far left to avoid some sieves. I describe each individual move, but this was one rapid, there was a small eddy after the first hole that Matt ended up catching, but after that there was no stopping and it was full on. I really wish we had gotten pictures, but we were both very focused on the task at hand. After scouting for awhile I decided I would run it, Matt was certainly feeling the same. The portage on the left is doable, but it would take a very long time lifting over car sized boulders for 200 yards. Once we committed, I went back for one more scout and saw what looked to be a way around the goal post move. I decided to take this, though it would require some very tight boating. I entered the green water into the first hole angled right with a big stroke, landed moving right and dropped a ledge with a big hole on the right with right angle and came up stroking to get right of a large boulder separating my line from the goal post move. I turned the corner and dropped a six foot ledge landing right next to the goal post move, waiting for Matt to come through these posts. The whirlpool I was waiting in was trying to push my every which way, but I saw Matt make his move(successfully) and I exited, making a precise effort to get back angled left and avoid getting pushed into the right wall, then subsequently the sieve. I succeeded and drove left through the rowdy water. My edge caught for a second, but I was able to brace without missing a stroke and kept driving left. I shot through the last technical boulder fence move on the left and cheered with Matt as we floated through the class four into an area with eddies in the gorge below. Matt ended up having a flawless run as well, and we took just a moment to celebrate before Matt headed off while I stayed in a small eddy waiting his direction.

Looking back up at this rapid in "Inclination Gorge" doesn't quit capture the story, but you can see something is happening back there.

Matt hopped out below this next rapid to take pictures and signal me through. I thought it was going to be an easy drop and we had some miscommunication, so I paddled into this small drop thinking it was a small class four with two ledges. However, I came over the first drop and was starring down the barrel of the least punchable hole I've ever dropped into! Luckily it was easy to ride out on the left. We had a good chuckle over that one as both of us had a big surprise as we came over.

Not even close to getting over the steep, backed up pile. Looking back at the slot we both surfed out on the left.

Below here were even more unique, fun class IV-V drops. We couldn't believe it. The run was everything we had wanted to find and more. I won't ruin all the surprises, but definitely don't just run stuff on this river without scouting. The last scout revealed a small ledge, then a big eddy on the right above this log jam.

The easy portage on the right lead to this view, a straight shot of flat water leading out of the final gorge and into the runout!

We both took advantage of the fun seal launch and soaked in the last 50 yards of canyon as we emerged grinning ear to ear.

There was about a mile or two of busy class II-III and no wood portages before we rounded a corner and saw the bridge and Ryan! It turns out he spent his day chasing Oakland around and never got a chance to get past the runout. We shared in a victory beverage and some food as we geared down amazed at what we had found.

~600

-Jacob

Part Three: Getting to the goods

2011-10-02T21:59:00.000-07:00

"The river delights to lift us free, if we only dare to go.

Our true work is this voyage, this adventure." -Richard Bell

Wallowa Wiki #1 really stood out on the maps because it's a deep granite canyon with lots of steep sections and has a road that more or less follows the creek way up into the mountains. If you think of the streams in the Wallowas as the spokes of a bike wheel, this is one of the few where the road gets past the rim. The easy access, great camping, and steepness was calling my name and so I started my exploration there, heading up to the creek several times over the course of spring and getting a sense of what flows we needed. When Jacob and I ended up there during our circumnavigation, flows were too high, but we definitely saw the promise, and we got a delicious taste when we knocked off Cherry Picker.

The highest water season in decades forced me to wait what seemed like an eternity for the water to drop, but finally the time came. It started out with some emails, trying to get some good boaters to make their way east. That's one thing that's been hard about moving to a small town in an area not known for kayaking: there aren't many kayakers, you've got to import them from elsewhere. Thanks to some good convincing by Jacob that I wasn't just crazy and the whitewater wouldn't just be a manky-woody-portage-fest, some folks expressed interest. With the groundwork done, and a solid idea that the flows were right, a small group finally came together. First, we knocked off the obvious treasure, Wiki 1.

The first time down the creek we had Chris Arnold, Ty Overeem, and me. We spent a lot of time hiking off the road and scrambling down, only to get a look at a few hundred yards of clean stream. We couldn't really tell how steep stuff was since we were looking from so high up, but some of it made the creek seem like one giant steep boulder garden. Once we noticed the abundance of single-boat eddies, we decided we might as well go for it and we put on. The put in, by the way, is really nice, some wooden steps lead from a campsite to a serene pool with a gravel beach, a stark difference from what lies just around the corner.

Ryan Scott contemplates the calm before the storm.

Heading around the corner from the campground, the creek immediately begins to tilt on edge and starts rolling on downhill. There are lots of nice little eddy moves and smaller boofs as the river gives you a chance to warm up and get acquainted. About a mile into the run, the first recommended scout shows up, pretty much at a blind right-hand corner. Again and as always, never run a blind corner! It's best to hop out at a landslide on the right and walk down to scout. This one really makes you turn back and forth a lot while dropping at a dizzying rate; we called it Tailspin. The photos only include the middle part of the rapid, it's nearly a quarter-mile long end to end. The most important move was a really nice cross-current boof to avoid a nasty log jam blocking half the river.

The Crux move in Tailspin

The Satisfaction of being post-crux: Jacob, Ty, and Ryan get it done in perfect formation.

Still Spinning.

Following Tailspin, the river eases off a bit, but there's no point on this whole run where you can relax. Constant boulder boofs and some wood avoidance keep you on your toes. At some point, there's another blind right corner with some house-sized boulders coming off of a landslide on river left. Stop early for this one, an eddy at the corner is deceptive and caught one of our paddlers off guard on our first decent, forcing him to run the corner.

Condemnation Corner

Once he knew he had missed the eddy, he turned and saw that he was headed straight for a river-wide log. Seeing no way out in his boat, he jumped ship and scrambled on to shore, sustaining some severe bruises but otherwise fine. By the time the rest of us ran down shore and made visual contact, he was standing up on a huge boulder and OK, much to our relief.

No good line.

Condemnation is best scouted and portaged on the left, but hopefully by the time this one comes in again, the wood will have disappeared. And after the portage- more bouldery goodness! There were a couple spots that required some tricky wood-avoidance, but this section was mostly clean as well and quite enjoyable.

Soon the walls start to rise, and the Last Delight Gorge emerges from the forest. You can see it coming from well upstream because there's a huge granite face on river right with nothing growing but stunted little bonsai trees. Once you see this wall, get out on the left to scout/portage the entrance drop, which had wood for us.

Once you get past the entrance, the deepest part of the gorge comes into view, and the substrate changes from boulders to bedrock.

Feeling Delighted!

The gorge is short, less than a quarter mile, but it sure packs a punch. There's a diagonal hole at the top, then a moving pool into a killer boof. We saw this one when we were scouting before the run, standing on the rocks above like giddy school boys. I've heard from some locals that the boof ledge is the best place around to watch salmon jump. At about 8 feet, they can get above it, but most fish will have to make a few attempts and will enact their best aerial gymnastics.

Scouting the boof

And downstream of the boof

Jacob digs deep.

Ty styling the main attraction.

Below the boof, there's a log jam that looks unrunnable, but can be snuck under on the left. There's a hole under the logs that you kinda blast through while ducking, but the move is quite manageable.

Getting ready for the logjam.

Many logs, one line.

After the jam, there's a nice eddy on the left that we all stopped in, just above the last move of the run. The final move consists of a 90-degree turn against a wall that leads immediately to a speedy ski-jump style launch into or over a big hole. The hole took a couple of us for a ride over the two runs, but didn't hold on too tight and everyone fought till flushing.

Coming to the end.

At the take out, we all enjoyed a cold one, thanks to Oakland who dutifully guarded the cooler while we were on the river. I was really satisfied that this run turned out so well and the boys were far from disappointed. In fact, we all agreed that in terms of steep, bouldery goodness, this was the best whitewater any of us had done... too bad it's only in a few weeks a year.

~500

Kayaking in Yellowstone

2011-09-24T13:23:00.000-07:00

This area has always been off limits.

http://www.123rf.com/photo_9987062_double-rainbow-in-the-mist-of-a-waterfall-in-a-canyon-in-yellowstone-national-park.html

There is now a petition to open the park up to boating. I know I'd love to go boating there as I am sure many of you would. If you could take 2 minutes to sign the petition it would make a lot of kayakers very happy!

https://wwws.whitehouse.gov/petitions#!/petition/allow-kayaking-yellowstone-national-park/XLs9wq2D

^link^

You have to sign up, but it takes 2 minutes and they don't send spam.

-Jacob

Part Two: Circumnavigation

2011-09-24T09:04:00.000-07:00

Hoping that water would have dropped to a reasonable level after our trip to Idaho, Matt and I loaded up and headed out to see what the creeks of the Wallowa's would look like with water in them. Our first destination was magical looking V+ that would go with less water and I am certain Matt will be back to give it another look next year. Navigating the gravel roads was challenging at times, but we kept it on track for the most part. One wrong turn lead to this old house we checked out that was pretty cool. The inside was falling apart but the location was superb!

After a 22 mile gravel detour around a 3 mile section of closed road (including the first of two bobcat sightings), we made it up to a promising fork that had plenty of water. We saw a massive granite face across the stream that was enough to get us to hike up the trail a ways hoping the stream would loose its sediment character farther up when this granite intersected the stream. We made it about half mile before deciding it would be more promising to head elsewhere. Higher up could be worth it, but we didn't have the time to explore at the time.

The massive granite face.

A gorgeous place.

What we were driving across may have been a road at some point, but at this point it was just a part of the creek.

Matt had a lead on a promising section of stream on the main fork, so we scoured the maps and this looked like a good put in.

I thought this sign was silly as we had been on loose gravel for the last 4 hours.

The river was very deceptive as it was running clear, but it was obvious once on it that it was high water. There really were not good eddies. Just slow spots near the shore with shrubs to grab onto. We almost portaged the jam in the next picture as we had to stop 100 yards upstream as there were no more eddies and it looked like it blocked the whole river. I portaged high, Matt low. I was able to get another vantage point and informed Matt it was a very clear route. It may look like there is a large eddy on his left, but that is deceptive, it was moving downstream quickly.

We came to some odd ponds on river left that signaled that we were about the enter the gorge. The next half mile was stressful and ultra fun at the same time. It was endless class four boulder gardens (or would have been at lower water) with boof after boof and lots of splashiness. The stressful part was it was challenging to stop and the river was moving fast. I made a move to catch a shrub on the left above this drop as did Matt.

Don't go around blind corners on exploratory trips!

We ended up portaging as the initial hole at the top was huge and uniform, and it was a really big drop with a large hole at the bottom. It would be much more runnable at low water. Below here was a section that was trying to be class five, and maybe it was, but it didn't last long. More class IV lead to a campground, our take out, and some nice people willing to help us shuttle. This section would be a classic in western Oregon and is still worth doing if you make a trip to the Wallowa's.

The take out.

A good day on the water, no real eddies at the take out either! A local told us he hadn't seen the river this high at this time of year his entire life.

The next day we decided not to run our first choice as it looked really high. So off to complete the circumnavigation of the Wallowa's and finish our scouting. The stream we spent the most time on had wood in bad places for the amount of water. The water continued to be very deceptive as it was clear, but there were not any real eddies where we needed them. We found one really good drop, that we ended up cherry picking as the rest of the river was not calling to us that day. Matt ran it twice.

Head cam footage of the Cherry Picker Rapid.

A picture perfect take out.

Get out and explore!

-Jacob

Weekend fun

2011-09-20T13:10:00.000-07:00

Youngin' Andrew Bradley came along with us this weekend for some fun in the rain. He put together a little video of our Lewis River run.

-Jacob

Part One: Starting with the Guidebook

2011-09-07T10:27:00.001-07:00

When I made my way out east, I knew there'd be lots of good outdoor activity to be had; skiing, hiking, fishing, ect. On the other hand, I was moving away from kayak central and had no idea if there'd be anything good to run. So I started with the guidebook, which pointed me straight to the lower end of of the Imnaha River. When flows started to rise in the spring, I knew the time had come! I scrounged up my kayaking gear from it's winter hiding spot and headed down the Dug Bar road into the canyon with a modest crew: Caitlin and Oakland the dog.

The Imnaha River drops from the east side of the Wallowas and parallels the Snake in Hells Canyon until the Sake takes a turn and the Imnaha cuts in. Needless to say, the canyon is impressive!

Dropping into Hells

When we got down to the last bridge over the Imnaha at Cow Creek, the river was raging, but still had eddies and some pools. I later looked at the gauge and saw that it was over 3300 cfs, which is a bit over floodstage. But it looked good to go, and I put on and left Catilin and Oak to hike the trail and do the camera work. The water was big and pushy, but there weren't any big holes you had to hit and no real class V's, just lots of really fun wave trains and even a few boofs. It was easy to hop out and scout on the trail most places too.

Big Water Goodness

The last mile or so has the hardest drops and is the only really continuous part, but it empties out into the Snake and is consumed by the flatwater. There's some really cool history at the confluence, with some terraces from a doomed hotel, and a huge bar that's perfect for a picnic.

Then there's the hike. While you could continue down the Snake to Heller Bar, the shuttle is heinous and makes the hike the best option, with a kayak at least. This run would be great in a raft, but you'd certainly want to float down. With minimal gear, the hike's really not that bad: 4.5 miles on pretty flat terrain, definitely worth the effort. The trail is also in great shape, albeit shrouded in poison ivy and a had quite a few ticks (we pulled 100 off Oak, then just stopped counting...).

The Imnaha proved to be a fantastic run and definitely one that's made annual list, but it only piqued my curiosity of what the headwaters looked like. But that's a story for another day..

Signing Off,

Matt "The Labrador" King

Wallowa Wiki's

2011-09-07T09:58:00.001-07:00

Matt just moved out east to Northeast Oregon. His desire to explore had him seeking out runs in this not often sought out area of Oregon. Map work and good fortune had it that he had landed on a gold mine of creeks. The geology and steep terrain proved to create some very high quality creeks. I was in the area twice this year and was fortunate enough to get on three very good runs over there. Two of which happened to be best class five runs Iv'e done in Oregon!

In the midst of a long Class V

Stay tuned for parts 1-4.

-Jacob

Tube Scouting

2011-08-10T09:43:00.000-07:00

I haven't posted anything for awhile, so here is some tubing.

-Jacob

------------------------------------------
County Teaser #2

-Jacob

Ohanepecosh Update

2011-08-08T10:16:00.000-07:00

The ohane is open for busniness. As of Sunday, there are three new pieces of wood to note (between secret camp and la wis wis) that have accumulated since last year.

-About a quarter mile below secret camp there is a log jam that is easily portaged on the left. (This is the drop directly after the six foot boof on the right). There was a moving pool leading up to this drop at our flow (2100 cfs approx. on the cowlitz).

-The second piece of wood is directly below the ledge with the old growth log stuck in it (about 3/4 of a mile into the run, I think it is called rail slide). The new piece of wood is in the run out below the ledge and is avoidable on the far right, but makes the drop more consequential. Most of the current kicks into a root wad. It also complicates the portage on the left. We found an easy portage route on the right side (The eddy was immediately above the large boulders blocking the right side of the river. It was easy to catch, but no promises that it exists at low flows).

- The triple drop is still woody but runnable.

- The next was in the rapid that is a boulder garden leading into a low angle slide on the right. We were able to find a route that zig-zagged down the left side, before catching an eddy and relocating into the right channel to finish off with the slide.

- The rest was squeaky clean (except of course elbow room, which was nasty)

This drop was newly clear of wood!

Nate M.

Snoqualmie Pass for the Weekend

2011-07-25T09:58:00.000-07:00

Nate checking in. I'm throwing this post up in a hurry because the runs detailed below won't be in for much longer. Get em' while they're hot. With a week long business trip to Turlock, CA looming in my future, I began to lay plans for the following weekend. After spending several days in the 100 degree heat of central California, I figured that that best way to relax would be a leisurely camping and paddling trip. Having spent the last few weeks paddling the stuff around Portland, I decided that it was time to branch out a little bit and quickly convinced Anna Herring to join me on a foray deep into Washington. We initially had our eye on the Ohanepacosh, but after watching the gauge for a few days, we quickly realized that the ohane (my favorite run) was still going to be too high by the time the weekend rolled around. After examining a few other options, we settled on S.F. Snoqualmie River, east of Seattle. The South Fork, often referred to as Fall in the Wall had been described to me as a miles worth of class 4 ledges ranging from 5 - 10 feet. . I'd also heard about the 20 foot falls (fall in the wall) at the put-in with a rep. for pounding paddlers into a cave/undercut combo. By the time we were saddled up and ready to embark on our mission north, we had picked up Chris Harman and my girl friend Claire (who was down for a weekend in the woods even though she doesn't kayak. Thanks for the shuttles by the way!) We all met up at 9am on Saturday morning, loaded up my Outback and were on the road by 9:15. With a few stops along the way, we arrived at the Put-In around 2 Oclock. Upon arrival it is immediately evident how unique this creek really is. Not only is this section abnormally high in the drainage (the section is less than a mile from the pass where water starts to drop east instead of west) but it is also located between the lanes of I-90. Despite this fact, the run feels completely secluded and you really feel like you're paddling through a tunnel of old growth the entire trip. After scouting Fall in the Wall and descideing to save it for another time, we rounded the bend on the way to the lower put-in (below the 20 footer) and ran into two other kayakers (Boris and Kent?). They immediately offered to show us down the run and we didn't hesitate to accept there generous offer. 10 minutes later we were geared up and floating above the first series of drops known as 'the fearsome foursome'. I believe we ran right, right, right to left, and right again respectively through this series of 5-10 foot ledges. Nothing difficult, just good clean fun. The rest of the run was littered with tight chutes and steep falls. Everything was separated by beautiful emerald pools which made this run a great class IV experience. We had about 300 cfs on the SF gauge.

Anna Runs one of the Fearsome Foursome

After finishing up the 1 mile long section with a left line down the rapid known as root wad (the root wad is no longer present) we hiked our boats back up along the road to the put-in for round 2.

Chris digs in for the boof at the bottom of Root Wad

As were preparing to put-on for our second lap of the day, I decided to take another look at Fall in the Wall. After warming up on the first lap, I felt confident I could hit the fine line on the 20 footer and avoid being stuffed into the cave on river right. The photos I've thrown up don't quite paint an accurate picture of how consequential fall in the wall really is. What's not shown is the vertical wall the sits directly in front of the base of the falls (about 7 feet from the edge of the veil) perpendicular to the current. Basically all the water pushes into this wall and then splits (about 70% pushing right into the cave and 30% kicking out to the left and downstream.) In addition to the wall, there wasn't much of boil at the bottom, so boofing the drop was a scary proposition with the inevitable hit at the bottom. After talking with a few more of the locals (who had seen the drop run before), I opted to give er'. The plan was to eddy out at the lip of the drop to kill my speed (for fear of launching too far and flying into the wall). From there I was going to slowly roll of the flake at the lip taking half of a right stoke just enough to push my bow a little to the left and keep my boat around a 45 degree angle when entering the water. Having safety set and my line defined in my head, I jumped in my boat, hit the eddy, and dropped over the lip. Things went according to plan and I kept 'er up right at the bottom while avoiding the nasty wall. I subbed out pretty deep on the landing, which made of a really soft touch down. Thanks go out to Chris and Anna (also the other paddlers we met) for setting great safety and helping me get my boat up the canyon wall and around the portage after the falls.

Nate at the lip of Fall in the Wall And down we go..

Feeling stoked already, we bombed down the second lap stopping only to shoot photos here and there. It was really an excellent day on the river. By the time we were setting up camp (a few miles down the road) all memories of the long drive had faded away and we were stoked for day 2 of our trip.

The crew all smiles at the takeout.

We had initially planned to venture over to the skykomish on Sunday morning. However, the locals we had met at the South Fork advised us to keep heading east and tackle the Cooper River near Cle Elum, WA. I quote " We run the Skykomish all year when nothing else is running; the Cooper is what we look forward to running all year" With this description, how could we say no. After a waking up and breaking down camp, we were on the road headed east towards Cle Elum round 10 AM. After a few wrong turns, we finally ran into some other kayakers who go us on the right track. We arrived at the Put-In to find a pretty large conglomeration of boaters gearing up and starting the hike into the Cooper river gorge. After chatting with a few folks about the various rapids and hazards on the run, we were again invited to tag along with an experienced group of paddlers. Oh how I love the boating community. JD and Scott, especially, thanks for all the beta. note: Make sure to follow the trail all the way to the river. Don't be tempted to put in where you first see the creek. A 50 foot un-runnable falls lurks just around the corner. Put-in below the falls! Sadly, we didn't get a chance to snap any photos on the Cooper River, but rest assured, the run is spectacular. A secluded canyon with quality class IV ledge drops that come one after another. Great boofs everywhere! Highlights included Sharks tooth (the lone boulder garden on the Cooper) which had a boat horizontally pinned about half way down and S-turn (a chaotic rapid in which everyone had to throw a brace). We'd been warned abut Norm's Resort, but with the beta and guidance we had from the group, it was really an easy drop, just charge right (similar to bowey hotel on the the LW). According to the guide book, we were at running at fairly high flow (around 1200cfs), but talking with the local guys revealed that the level we had was about medium or even on the lower end for normal runs down the stretch. I strongly recommend everyone to give this one a shot. A true classic! Worth the drive. Do multiple laps! After a little cliff jumping at the take-out and some lunch in the sun, we reluctantly loaded up the car and began our voyage back to Oregon. The drive went by fairly quickly and we were back home and de-rigged before night fall. Great mission guys, thanks for coming along. Until next time. Nate, signing off.

The Middle Fork

2011-07-13T19:59:00.000-07:00

Most of the crew assembled in Portland ready for the long drive to The Middle Fork.

The Middle Fork of the Salmon river in Idaho is considered by many to be one of the premier wilderness rafting trips in the lower 48. Cutting a path strait through the Frank Church River of No Return Wilderness, the MFS flows for 100 miles from the heart of the Saw Tooth Mountains to the confluence with the Main Salmon near Salmon, ID. This would be the setting for our annual multi-day rafting trip. In addition to the Into the Outside Crew, for this mission we had an eclectic mix of paddlers, rafters, friends, and family. List of paddlers participants at the end of this report. Although the river isn't known so much for intense white water, it still demands respect from boaters of all skill levels and this fact was only amplified by the sky high river level we were facing leading up to our launch date. Given the record snow pack in the area and below average temps this spring, the water level on the middle fork was still well above 6 feet by the time we arrived at the Put-In and would reach levels up to 6.8 feet while we were on the river. The fact that 5 feet is considered the cut-off for recommended flows on the mfs convinced one of our party to fly in to Indian Creek and skip out of the continuous and difficult, upper 25 miles.

The boat launch @ Boundary Creek

Day 1: Boundary Creek Boat Launch to Big Bend Camp After a long morning of rigging and a nice meeting with Maggie the ranger, we put-on the river around 1oclock on June 26th. The night before we had discovered that Matt's frame for his 14ft gear raft was missing some key components. With the aid, of some near by branches, pvc piping, and some ingenuity, we had his rig up and going with time to spare.

Creative and Effective

The boat lower @ Boundary Creek

We had scouted the boat eating hole at river mile 0.9 known as Murph's the night before. However, that didn't prevent some apprehension leading up to this drop. A lot of trips run into trouble right off the bat at high water at Murph's. The problem is that with the river moving at 8-9 miles per hour, gear rafts have only a few minutes to shake the rust off and get used to their heavy boats. We made it through with only one raft surf and a couple hoots and hollers.

Skip, Matt, and Carey taking a right line at Murph's

Anna and Claire: Going for a ride

However, our luck did not last. 3 miles later at the bottom of Hell's Half Mile rapid, the high water caught up with us and one of our gear rafts went upside down. As the boat floated down stream towards Velvet Falls (the biggest hole on the river) we had to scramble to arrest the upturned raft before it washed through this class IV drop. Not an easy task with no eddies to speak of. Alas, the upturned boat (with the captain on top) ran through Velvet followed by everyone else with suprising success. Another mile down stream and we were finally able to get the boat clipped with a line and tugged to shore. Props to all those who kept a cool head and were able remedy the situation. Sledge and the Omni Wolf came up big for us on this particular day. Still, the MFS wasn't quite done with us for the day. Upon inspection of the now righted raft, we were dismayed to find that somewhere along the line, a rock had torn a nice gash in the floor. With 10 miles till our intended camp, we opted to take an emergency camp at Big Bend (mile 6). All in all, a lot of adventure for one six mile section of river. The camp turned out to be a pleasant experience. Claire and I cooked up Pizza Frita's and Pasta, we passed a bottle of Johnny, and we all enjoyed the high alpine forest environment.

Nursing Anna's Raft back to Health

Day 2: Big Bend to Pungo Creek Camp The next day we got an early start with the intention of meeting our 15th member at Indian (mile 25) Creek around noon. The morning started off with the Chutes, followed by Power House rapid (class IV). I think everyone was pretty tense through this section. With no eddies separating long, pushy rapids, a flip anywhere along here would make for a long swim. Everyone pulled through and we all agreed that the big water waves of the Chutes were some of the best we'd ever seen. An hour later we were dropping into Pistol Creek Rapid (scouting was pretty impossible everywhere on this river). I think Pistol Creek was the hardest drop on the river for the kayak contigent. I personally got worked in two boils cracking of several rolls before finally flushing down stream and another boater joined the swim team. After recovering his boat and eddying out at Indian Creek, we were happy to see a plane come motoring across the landing strip with our last com padre in tow. Another 2 miles of class II and we had arrived at our intended camp. Pungo Creek was something special. Ponderosa's lined the perimeter of our river kitchen and a short hike led to an old abandon mine. Fish taco's, sangria, and hula hoops punctuated night II.

Cavers (Skip, Chris, Robbie, and Jacob)

Day 3: Pungo Creek to Shelf Camp Day 3 was fairly uneventful from a white water perspective. We got a lazy start but were still able to cover 18 miles down to our hot springs camp by lunch time. (Each trip is allowed to spend one night a hot springs). It was a bit of a hike from Shelf camp up to Loon Creek hot springs, but everyone was game for a beautiful walk. After scarfing down Fajitas, Pineapple Upside down cake, and dinner mints, the crew descended upon the springs for some late night soaking. Upon arrival at the pool, we all got in a starring contest with a bear across the creek. He hung around for a little while before climbing a tree as darkness descended upon the scene. The stars were out and in all their glory and good times were had by all.

The Good Life

Day 4: Shelf to Camas Creek We awoke on the morning of day 4 all feeling a little worked. After a long night of soaking and hanging around the camp fire, people were pretty slow to get up in the morning. Jacob and I took advantage of the slow start and shouldered our boat up Loon Creek to the hot springs. We had heard word of a class V gorge above the springs, but given the extremely high water in Loon, we opted to put-in below the really tough stuff. Instead, we were treated to some fast moving class IV waves and the occasional hole dodge. Really fun stuff. Jacob was feeling motivated and ended up running a side trib to Loon Creek on river right just down stream from the hot springs. The drop leading into Loon was manky and chaotic to say the least, but it actually went pretty well.

Loon Creek Trib

(Matt Servia photo) Nate (author) charging Loon Creek

After our side mission, we quickly hiked back upstream to camp and helped everyone finish up with their boat rigging. Only having ten miles before Camas camp, our day on the MFS went by pretty fast. Again, we were at camp before lunch and sipping Bloody Mary's by happy hour. Camas creek was another trib we had been told to hike in search of more class V goodness. Upon our scout, it became immedately apparent that the gorge section of Camas was far too high to run. Serious class VI rapids that were made even more scary by the fact that lines did exist. We made a plan to hike back up the creek the following morening and run the last drop of the gorge and paddle the class IV boogie water back down to the MFS. The rest of the evening turned out to be a blast with sunset hikes and Hobo dinners for all. Day 5: Camas Creek to Little Pine. Again, we were facing a mere 10 mile day on the Middle Fork so things were moving pretty slow in the morning. After a breakfast of pancakes and melon, the whole group headed up Camas creek to watch the kayakers navigate the lower gorge. Not having the proper boat for such a rapid, I opted to put-in directly below the class V drop at the bottom of the gorge proper. Chris 'the omni wolf' Harman joined me while Steve, Jacob, and Matt styled the pushy rapid. Steve had to throw a last minute boof over a nasty hole but pulled the alteration to his line off with style and we all boogied down through the super fun run out. My ride seemed especially fun as I was dodging holes and attempting to keep the slicey stern of my boat from squirting all the way down the river.

Steve about to throw an emergency boof on Camas Creek

The crew blasting down Camas Creek

Back on the MFS, we quickly arrived at Flying B ranch, filled up our water jugs, and all marveled at the concept of a $30 12-pack. Back on the water, we were greeted by the beginning of the lower 'tough' section of the middle fork. Haystack rapid saw one person eject from a gear raft and Jack Creek canyon took everyone by surprise. Apparently our camp took one of our boat captains by surprise as well. As he nearly floated by the last chance eddie, we had to throw bag his loaded raft over to the side of the river before he got swept into the next drop. (Even in lower section with a lower gradient, eddies were still in short supply and rather hard to catch with over loaded rafts.) That evening, Matt and Caitlin treated everyone to Chili Colorado and roasted Bell Peppers before we all drifted off to sleep.

Evening at Little Pine Camp

Day 6: Little Pine to Ship Island Weber Rapid is about the only thing I remember about this particular day on the water. Everything was moving very fast and most of the drops blended into each other. I really felt like we had finally entered impassable canyon about mid way through our 12 mile float on Day 6. The walls began to tower over head and all the creeks pouring into the river had serious gradient to them. Waterfall creek in particular looked mighty impressive as in cascaded down into the MFS. The sheer power of the 100+ foot cataract was entirely impressive. I believe Jacob got some footage of the this scene, look for it in the video soon to come. At camp, I felt like we all had a sense of urgency knowing that this was our last night on the river. I certainly wanted to make the most of this beautiful campsite nestled in the heart of impassable canyon. After eating a quick lunch and de-rigging the boats, most of the group headed up Papoose Creek with the intent of finding an adventure. An adventure we did find. Papoose creek is less of a hike and more of a climb. With the flow the way that it was, we were restricted from moving up the creek at river level and instead had to scramble and claw our way up the rug id canyon falls towering over the tiny drainage. After attaining a large 'patio'esque rock about 400 yards up the creek, most of the group had had enough and hung out on the giant boulder and took in the crazy class V rapid directly below. Again, this cataract definitely had a line....

Papoose Creek Class V

Back at camp, we sang songs around the fire and ate another excellent meal (Chile relianos) cooked up by Anna and Robbie while we tried to kill off the last of our beer and liquor supply. Some folks ended up crashing out early as the exhaustion of the past 6 days finally caught up. Some folks stayed up late and performed a spirited rendition of the Star Spangled Banner (one lick everyone new the words to) as the stars came out over impassable canyon.

Ladies of the MFS mixing up some Witch's Brew

Ship Island

Day 7: Ship Island to Cache Bar Boat Ramp (takeout) Our last day on the river started early. After a quick breakfast of leftovers, we were on the water by 8:15 AM. We had about 19 miles to cover before we were supposed to meet our shuttle driver at noon. This particular stretch was supposed to encompass the biggest rapids of the trip and had been described to me by a friend as 'pretty rowdy'. Given the events of day 1, we left ourselves lots of time to make our way down to the confluence with the main salmon. As we pulled out from Ship Island, everyone was in good spirits and as we floated down towards the big stuff, the excitement of the group was definitely palpable. All I can really say about the last ten miles of the trip is that it came on fast and didn't rellent. After lower cliff side rapid, everything really began to blend together. I remember dropping into Rubber rapid and thinking that the waves I was about to crash were bigger than anything I had ever seen before, which includes everything in the grand canyon. After that, it was a full on race to the finish. No eddies (for rafts) and very few places to even slow down. The kayakers all adopted a routine of running a rapid, eddying out just long enough for the first two rafts to enter the drop, then two kaykers would peel out and try to get back out in front to set 'safety' below the next drop. At one point I yelled to Matt (who had a guide book) "is this devil's tooth?" to which he replied. "I have no idea anymore, I have not gotten a chance to change the page on my book for almost 3 miles!" Seriously fun stuff. I did roll over on some drop in the middle but was back upright immediately. It's definitely worth commending all the raft captains for a job well done navigating the lower ten miles of the MFS. Everyone was solid when they had to be and we ended up busting out the 19 mile stretch of river in under 2 hours! When we finally hit the confluence with the main, I looked back upstream from where I had come and marveled at the intimidating view of impassable canyon. Just as my feelings or sorrow and longing to remain in the wilderness couldn't have been any stronger, a jet boat flew by and amplified my reluctance to re-enter 'the real world'. A quick mile down the main salmon found us at the takeout where we quickly de-rigged and rolled all the rafts. By the time the shuttle driver did show up, around 11:30, we were all ready to go. (we had booked a 15 passenger van and utl. trailer to pick us up and drive us back to our cars at boundary creek). The loading process went fast! The drive to boundary creek did not. After 5 hours in the cramped van, I think we were all pretty happy to see our cars at boundary creek (even if it signified another 9 hours of driving and more shuffling of gear).

Confluence of the Main and Middle with Impassable Canyon in the Background

I'll try and keep the corny stuff to a minimum, but I do believe that everyone was a little reluctant to leave each others company and the fantastic scene nestled in the saw tooth mountains. Thanks guys, for making it a truly amazing trip. The players: Nate Merrill (author), Jacob 'Cruise Control' Cruser, Matt King, Claire Rothstein, Stephen Cameron, Chris Merrill, Gary Merrill. Scott 'Skip' Rasmussen, Chris 'the omni-wolf' Harman, Robbie Herring, Anna Herring, Will Benet, Caitlin Ecklund, Matt Servia, and Carey Moran.
Until Next Time.
Nate

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The Trip video

The Chase

2011-07-06T12:12:00.000-07:00

A quick teaser of Matt's new stomping grounds. We found this fantastic rapid after being skunked by too much water (in July!). There will be a much more thorough report coming in the next couple of months.

*There is profanity at the end.

The Chase from Jacob Cruser on Vimeo.

We had been scouting a promising stream, but it was too high to safely negotiate with the lack of eddies and common log issues. This lead to us "Cherry Picking" this drop, resulting in the name of the rapid.

-Jacob

Sandy River in a day

2011-06-23T00:43:00.000-07:00

~as told by Rob Cruser

20 years ago, my friend Scott Heesacker and I first started speculating about the feasibility of running the entire Sandy River in a single day. 5 or 6 weeks ago, after a trip down the newly remodeled McNeil Run on the upper Sandy, Jordan Englert started speculating about it on our way home, reviving my interest. There are quite a few factors that I knew had to come together to make this possible: 1) Lots of daylight, 2) Enough water to get down McNeil and not too much in the Gorge, 3) Minimal delays, i.e. portages, 4) Being able to carry or cache enough food and water for 45 miles of paddling and, 5) A small, compatible, motivated and mission-oriented crew. 4 out of 5 didn't turn out to be so bad.

I started assembling a willing crew of folks I knew and trusted: Jordan Englert (grew up on the mountain paddling the Sandy), Scott Heesacker (original idea man, firefighter, always up for an impossible adventure), Casey Heesacker (Scott's son, IK'd the Grand Canyon 4 years ago as a teenager), Rod Kilner (smoke-jumper, tough as nails, up and coming kayaker) and me, Rob Cruser. We started doing the math to see if it was theoretically possible and it appeared to be, barely. I did a time trial on the upper Sandy above Brightwood, and at a healthy flow, 5 miles an hour looked like the best we were going to do, with everything else being slower, sometimes much slower. So at best, averaging 3-4 miles an hour divided by 45 miles equals...hmmmm. Well, it didn't work out on paper, but we weren't paddling on paper, so we decided to at least give it a shot.

In the week prior, I scouted and marked the first few portages on the McNeil section to speed things along as this was going to be our slowest leg (10 portages or so, remember what I said about '4 out of 5?'). I also coordinated with our friend Mitch Williams - who lives at the Marmot bridge - for a lunch-stop and upper river shuttle logistics. We left a truck big enough to carry all of us and our boats at the take-out at Troutdale airport and another 'bail-out/food and water cache' van at Dodge Park. My biggest worry was the high level in the Gorge. It had risen to a pretty beefy flow the week before our run and it was slowly falling into what I hoped was going to be a reasonably friendly range. I have paddled the Gorge at least 30 times and higher than our level this day a couple of times, but that was a number of years ago and we had one first-timer and three second-timers for the Gorge, so I was a little nervous.

Put-in below McNeil bridge

Nice rapid between first and second portage

On Sunday, June 5th, we put-in just downstream from the McNeil bridge with one hardshell and four IKs (10.8/4000 or so on Bull Run gauge, high 2000's heading into the Gorge). Our goal was 7:30 AM, but it was more like 8:30 when we actually got on the water. Our first portage was 200 yards downstream, with the next one 200 yards below that, both of which went smoothly. We had an IK'er pin a couple of times in this, the most technical stretch, which slowed us down a tad. Further on, we had another IK'er slip getting out of his boat in a micro-eddy above a nasty log that was followed by a really nasty logjam. He got to shore but his boat took off and snagged under the first log. With some heroic work by Jordan out on the log, we were soon able to rope the wayward IK back to shore. Yikes.

Typical upper river scene

Jordan Englert getting a rope on a snagged boat

Casey Heesacker waiting for a 'go' signal

By the time we got to Lolo Pass, I sensed that time was slipping by too quickly. We cruised through the Lolo to Marmot leg and stopped at Mitch's house for lunch and water. When we passed under the Brightwood Bridge, a pedestrian asked us where we were taking out. I yelled back, 'The Columbia!' He gave us a 'shaka' and yelled 'Yeah!' I'm sure he didn't think we were serious, but we were glad for the encouragement anyway! So, it's about noon, we've covered maybe 10 miles with 35 to go...oh, well. I didn't think the math was going to work out in our favor at this point, but after a 1/2 hour break, we pressed on.

Somewhere near Alder Creek

The run down to the old Marmot dam-site went well. As we approached the Gorge, Jordan and I started discussing the wisdom of continuing. There is a last-ditch bailout spot about 3/4 of a mile below '64 Logjam, so we decided to poke our noses in there and see how everyone felt at that point. As it turned out, a lot of the rapids were biggish but washed out some at this level, so it was actually fairly friendly and moving really fast. There were a lot of big holes scattered around, but also room to miss them. We did the far left cheat at Boulder, portaged Rasp Rock (ugly keeper at this level, the boulder on the downstream side was totally under water and backing up the hole and I had decided well in advance that we would walk this one) and Drain Hole. If we had just been doing the Gorge, we probably would have run Boulder center and some of us possibly Drain Hole, but we didn't have time at this point for scouting and indecision over who was going to run what and where and how to set safety, etc., so we opted for downstream progress. This same philosophy came into play at Upper Revenue, which we also skipped. This turned out to be a good call, since we had a scary event at Lower Revenue. Scott got surfed a bit at the entrance and ended up flipping in the big keeper on the bottom right. I had already run it and all I could see were his last few valiant paddle strokes and then his boat getting tossed unmercifully with no sign of Scott. Jordan, Casey and Rod could see him getting recirculated between the pocket against the right wall and the meat of the hole and were scrambling to get close enough for throw bags - not a good situation. Scott said he wasn't able to get any breaths in the aeration and violence, so after a couple of trips through the rinse cycle, he tucked and tried to go deep. Thankfully, this worked and he washed free and was able to get himself out on the left bank just above where I was eddied out under the bridge. His boat stayed in the hole for what seemed like 5 minutes before getting spit out. Scott had recovered by this point and jumped in and retrieved it as it went by.

"Scott's Hole"

The hard stuff was done at this point, so now it was just a question of how much daylight we had left. It turned out we had made up a ton of time flying through the Gorge, so we were actually kind of back on schedule! At Dodge Park, we treated ourselves to another 1/2 hour break with food, water and chocolate covered espresso beans for an extra boost. Rod switched out of his IK into his hardshell at this point, nailing his first combat roll at the bottom of Pipeline - nice!

Casey and Rob at Dodge Park. The horses smell the barn from 18 miles away!

With the sun still pretty high in the sky, we were in good spirits and feeling like we were going to make it. We still had about 18 miles to go, but without any foreseeable delays and plenty of current pushing us along. We made good time with minimal effort to Oxbow, but that's where the slog began. It wasn't exactly dead, but we were having to paddle our way through the flats and the coffee beans were starting to wear off a bit.

Scott and Rod loading up for the final push

At Dabney, the flooding Columbia backed up the Sandy and turned the bottom 4 miles into a lake. Even at super-low flows in mid-summer, I have rarely seen absolutely no current on the lower river. At times I was sure it was actually running backwards. We were approaching 8:00 PM with plenty of daylight, so we knew we were going to make it, so it was just a question of exactly how tired and grouchy we would be when we did. Pretty tired, as it turned out, but everyone kept their grouchiness in check (even me!), which is one of the signs of a great crew. We ended up roping our boats up a steep bank adjacent to the east end of the runway at the Troutdale Airport and walked the last few hundred yards to the parking lot where high fives were exchanged and discussions of where to get lots of greasy food began. The slopes of Mt. Hood to Troutdale in one day...it still seems unreal.

This run would have been much easier and quicker, obviously, without 14 or so portages, but it amazed me that it was still possible with that being the case. Paddling with Jacob over the years has given me a new perspective on misery, and this wasn't nearly as bad as some of his 3-mile explorations (Gordon Creek or the Lower Little ***** at about 12 cfs for example), so I think I would definitely do it again. For those who might want to try it, I would say paddle the McNeil run shortly before you go to familiarize yourself with the current conditions there and be very comfortable in the Gorge, especially at high flows. Without the bigger flows in the Gorge, your trip from Revenue to the mouth would be excruciatingly slow. Not very many rivers offer you the opportunity to paddle from it's birth in the Alpine to it's mouth near sea-level, so I would love to see more people try it. It's an epic, manageable adventure in our own backyard!

South Santiam

2011-06-16T21:18:00.000-07:00

I feel this is an underutilized resource. Its probably because of the distance from Portland, it might also be the reason that kept me off it, and thats that the Oregon Kayaking report makes it look really gloomy.

I have run this section a few times now and really like it. I just got off the run today with my dad and was as stoked as always on the run. What I really like is that it runs at about 700 cfs from snowmelt for awhile, which is a descent level and the sun really makes the trip.

Today we put in at the HWY 20 bridge instead of Longbow falls because my sister was running shuttle so we wanted to minimize her waiting around.

Below the put in is a long series of fun class IV drops in a setting that feels quite isolated, even with the proximity of the road.

Part of the first series of class IV.

A ledge with a tricky hole.

The biggest obstacle on the run is The Monster. This drop is certainly runnable, but the name is fitting. We both walked it on the right today. The eddy over there is almost non-existant, be very careful. If you are not interested in running crawdad, it is probably best to portage on the left. We both seal launched into the runout of crawdad and continued our trip.

The ledge just before The Monster.

The entrance to The Monster.

Rob Cruser scouts Crawdad.

Looking downstream from crawdad and the seal launch. Below here the river pinches to less than a boat length wide.

Below here a distance was Tomco Falls, A very unique drop that is uglier the lower the levels. We did the seal launch I have always used halfway down the drop that avoids the really ugly part. This is always fun. On this trip my dad lost grip of his paddle dropping in and subbed out in the large hole below, keeping his balance and riding it out. Much to the amusement of the two onlookers with their cameras out on the side.

Below here the river enters the Hobbit Gorge, a very cool place. The first drop in here is the most difficult. It is a small ledge with some turbulence that got the better of me today when I dropped in with no speed, resulting in a roll. My dad cleaned up on it and we were rewarded with admittance to this fantastic place.

Wolf Creek enters in a pretty way.

Nearing the exit of the Hobbit Gorge.

There were no portages in here this year, which hasn't always been the case. A couple more rapids presented themselves before we reached Cascadia park and our take out.

I have always run this below 1000 cfs when everything else seems too low. Below 700 the run is less than class four except for the first drop in Hobbit gorge and the two class V drops. At 8-900 it is a super classy intermediate run that shouldn't be missed. Gauge

A video from a past trip. South Santiam segment starts at 1:50

Opal creek and South Santiam from Jacob Cruser on Vimeo.

-Jacob

Wiki Creek #1 photo drop

2011-06-03T13:54:00.000-07:00

Matt just got his computer fixed and sent the pictures from Wiki creek #1 over. And was I excited to see those!

Trip report is here if you have not read that yet.

The view from the put in. We were full of optimism that didn't fail us!

(all photos on this page by Matt King)

Entering the first canyon via the first defined rapid.

Punching a sizeable hole that has the potential to flip a boater in a bad place. The eddy you want to catch is the one visible below me on the left side of the picture.

The V+ (and very runnable) entrance to the major gorge on the run.

The pool separating the entrance and exit to the major gorge. Does the water color remind you of another famous run?

The author entering (from the eddy behind me) the waterfall rapid. The wall to my left is horrendously undercut and all the water pushes into there. It looks good to go from above, scout thoroughly if you repeat the trip.

(its worth clicking on the photos to enlarge them, Matt took some really good shots)

Fun drop, fantastic place... I love kayaking!

Here I am scouting "Smokin' Aces" with the massive river left wall domineering the scene.

Dropping into Smokin' Aces.

A critical stroke.

Finishing strong.

As euphoric as Iv'e ever been below a single rapid.

(all photos by Matt King)

Then it was just under a quarter mile of high quality class five boulder gardens to the bridge and our take-out.

-Jacob

Clear Creek and the art of speed portaging

2011-05-26T09:24:00.000-07:00

I had guided both days that weekend and had set off on my way back to Monmouth. It had been raining and I had my boat so i decided to check out a creek that I always crossed over on my way to and from Estacada. I stopped at the take out bridge and took a look at levels, low, but definitely enough to float. The one log I saw upstream didn't discourage me much, I was sure there would be a couple more just like it upstream. I dropped my gear off at the start of the hike and drove back down near the take out to start the shuttle.

The gate where I was to start my hike.

I changed and started my 3 mile hike/jog to the logging road I had dropped my gear off at. I figured I would arrive by six. It was a nice day for the most part and the rain had shut off for my shuttle aside from one brief hail flurry.

I arrived at the logging road, got my carrying system on, and started the 1+ mile hike into a place I believed was going to deliver me just below the confluence of two forks. After the logging road section, I took my pack off and started the schwack through the woods. It started very steep and I used the rope once. At one point my boat took off without my consent and yanked me straight down thte side of the hill! Luckily a stick jammed into my thigh, hard, slowing me down and my boat stalled on a tree. Below it wasn't too long until the angle of the slope cooled off, allowing for a pleasant hike through the woods.

I'm going that way.

I had to use rope again for the last 50 feet to the creek. I saw some logs but was pleased with my good fortune to have put in just below a log jam I would have needed to portage. Little did I know at the time, I could have put in anywhere along this 1.5 mile section and I would have been just below a logjam I needed to portage...

The last pitch I used a rope for.

I took 3 strokes, dodged a log, turned the corner and came to another logjam without eddies. I grabbed some grass on the side of the creek and walked to creekbed till it was easy to get out, then off into the woods.

My first 3 strokes.

Three more consecutive jams and I began to worry about light. From here out I put all my "dealing" skills to good use and was making good time for what I was doing. I constantly had to make decisions about which channel to take, or whether I could boof a log or not.

Typical scene on upper Clear Creek.

There was one rapid that could be considered almost fun, a bedrock conveyer-belt class two that was 20 yards long with a class two slide lead in. Aside from that it was just dealing with logs. For those driving by who take a peak or are running the lower section, the small class two above the bridge was the most challenging rapid of the day not produced by a logjam :(

I made it to the end before dark, then jogged the mile to retrieve my car. Rest assured, I will never be back, but at least I know what is there!

Not too dark when I got out of there...

But this was the scene when I returned after getting my car. Speedy portaging and decisions were key.

An aside: I suspect the logjams were 75% anthropogenic, the logs were often cut and most of them had pink tape next to them, leading me to believe they were placed there.

-Jacob

Wiki Creek #1

2011-05-20T10:26:00.001-07:00

It might be awhile before the majority of the pictures come in, so I'll just put this report up now and add pictures when they come.

-----------------------------------------

Matt was in town and the water was up.

The creek we decided to run had some serious potential given its geology and proximity to other high quality runs. We camped at the take out anticipating a big day to come. We found reasonable access and did a short 1/2 mile bush whack down to the creek. It was a bit taxing without a trail, but nothing to keep either of us from returning.

We reached the creek and liked what we saw. Bedrock and plenty of water. We said good bye to the ground support team and paddled off into the unknown. Right away we could tell this run had the potential to be very good. It cruised along through a nice gorge with high quality class four rapids. We scouted a couple times for wood before getting into the swing of things. The creek would exit a gorge and go through a short gravel section, before returning to another gorge. There was one log jam where Matt sneaked through on the left, but it was awfully sketchy. I took the easy portage on the right and was happy with that decision. Below here the creek entered another quality gorge section.

We were floating though an easier gravel section when we encountered the tallest drop yet as the creek appeared to enter another gorge section downstream via a hard right blind turn. The drop below us was a nice 7 foot slide into a diagonal hole. Matt went first, and caught a low eddy, but signaled me that it was important to catch the upper eddy on the right. I did so and we scouted the next gorge. Immediately after the right hand turn the creek roared over an impressive section of whitewater containing two V+ rapids that had wood in them. The first one was the only one we spent time scouting and decided it would definitely go. The wood in that one is also bound to flush. If you repeat this, scout from the left and right, and on the logs before committing to the drop as it was very hard to see the wood in the landing. We set out on an extended portage of the entire gorge on the right, but the return to the river was the only tricky part. We didn't need any ropes, but a "non-experienced portager" might have trouble picking the path of least resistance. There is a good looking rapid below here, but be sure to scout it thoroughly. There is a severe undercut on the left that once we saw up close both decided it would be prudent to put back in below this obstacle. There is a waterfall coming in on the left that makes for a really stellar scene. Below here was a move that looked kind of tricky around a log, but was actually a
really fun move, driving hard left.

Runout on waterfall rapid.

More gorges and classy class four rapids followed. The next drop I remember was a five foot pour-over into a big hole. We both came through upright and stoked on the sweet drop. The next major landmark is the most important to remember for a repeat run. There is a huge rock wall on the left that comes straight to the river. The right side of the river is a small, active erosional zone with mud and debris taking up the 30 foot high river right bank. There was a log parallel to the current that was in a horrible spot and caused Matt to drop into a scary looking place backwards. Fortunately he had the composure and presence of mind to catch a last minute eddy at the lip of the biggest rapid of the run. I knew the log was coming so was able to claw into the eddy, but be very careful here as the first drop in the next series had wood in it.

Matt hiked back upstream from this eddy and ferried across where I helped him to shore just above a sieve. Prudent boaters can come up next to the initial log, get out, and hike downstream from there. More aggressive boaters can catch the difficult eddy on river right just before the stream drops through some large boulders. The rapid then roared through the most complex rapid Matt or I could remember ever having run. It consists of a lead in, then a class five boulder garden with three crux moves all on top of each other. We scouted it for about half an hour. By the time we were at the bottom it was looking good. However, the farther upstream we hiked on the way back the more difficult it looks. In the end Matt stepped up with a picture (or in this case video) perfect line and I followed after with a quick brace, but a line I was very happy with.

Matt cleans up on "Smokin' Aces".

After this came a series of continuous class five rapids reminiscent of the hardest boulder gardens on the Little White. I thought they were a step up from the drops found on that run, though they were cleaner, while also being steeper, and with some juicy holes at our level.

The last drop above the bridge was every bit of class five the day we were there, so don't be fooled when scouting from the bridge.

Matt on the right side of the final rapid, a center to left move is recommended here.

----------------------------------------------------------------

Things to know

-The eddy above the portage gorge should not be missed. If you roll, it may be a better option to catch the large eddy on river left, though you will be committed to a harder portage at that point.

-The last boulder garden is hard and continuous.

-Gauge reference is over 2000 cfs on the EF Lewis at Heissen. Making this an alternative to Hagen for people interested in a (much) more difficult run if you tackle the last boulder garden.

cc:1000

-There is a trail along the creek. If you hike it until you are close enough to the river to scramble to it, you will put in below the portage gorge, and still get the hardest rapids.

The roads in the area are gated, but all the gates were open when we were there in April. Snow is not a big issue, especially if you hike the mile or so to the put in on the trail.

-For additional information - jacobcruser@yahoo.com

-Jacob

Wiki Creek #2

2011-05-14T06:24:00.000-07:00

We set out into the Columbia gorge searching for some new stuff. We got foiled by access to one, so settled on one I had scouted last summer.

Getting ready for the hike in.

It involves a 1,000 ft descent (I'm not making this up) descent to the creek. This took a lot of work and involved lowering the boats off a sixty foot waterfall at one point.

It was a pretty cool spot...

We arrived at a tributary, and put on. We pulled ourselves downstream to a confluence and bashed down some more till we got to the first drop. It was a nice 12 foot slide.

Dropping the first 12' slide

(photo Pete Giordano)

Not far downstream the creek entered another tight gorge that had a long slide with some ledges in the slide.

Pete about to drop in.

Around the corner was a tricky 6 foot drop that hit the right wall before going over another small ledge. Nate and I both ran this one. Downstream shortly was the best drop of the run. It had a sweet sloping boof into a narrow crack before going over a 4 foot ledge. Pete fired off a line I was a bit skeptical of until I saw him absolutely grease it. Nate and I followed and it was a total blast.

Pete puts a little Spring in his step and flies into "Son of Steve"

(Photo: Nate Merrill)

Below here the quality dropped off, but had some small slides and ledges with painfully water depleted boulder gardens separating them. There is a 30' rock wall on the left at one point on a sharp right turn. Just below here was another fun slide that went better than it looked. Below here were a couple more ledge drops, but mostly boulder gardens that did not have the water they needed.

Soon we entered the home stretch in the final gorge like section. There were two separate short double drops through bedrock formations. The second one signals the upcoming sketchy point. The creek turns left and there is a small eddy on the right (not sure what this will look like at high flows). Do not miss as the logs downstream are a death trap. A quick portage puts you above the final drop on the run. A fantastic 15' drop that would have been better with more water and a soft landing. Still fun.

I get on board with the final boof.

(Photo: Nate Merrill)

Below here we did a not so hard portage around a log jam before the last hundred feet of class two before the confluence with a much larger creek. From here, it is a two mile I-II float down to a bridge and the take out.

We had painfully low water (EF Lewis at 1200), but this might be a nice creek to return to when all other runs have too much water. This would also make the flat section after the confluence go very quickly. Watch out for wood though.

-Jacob

Nohorn

2011-05-09T12:49:00.000-07:00

We headed up to Nohorn creek yesterday. It was low but still a good time.

Clack at Three Lynx was ~3,000
I would look for at least 4,000 but we did make it happen at the lower levels.

We used the upper put in that Pete Giordano found last year. We had to hike the last mile through the snow but it was pretty easy. This added a small slide into a sweet ten foot boof. Followed by a short log jam portage and some other splashy rapids. Once Hugh creek come in on the right the creek enters a fun mini gorge section with good quality III-IV rapids. There are some in-between sections that were a bit dull at this level, but at normal levels these would move right along and the classic Oregon scenery helps pass the time as usual.

Nate and Luke waiting for Anna to drop over.

Nate paddles out from behind the falls.

I didn't know this ledge was on the trip. At higher water a sticky hole may develop.

We ran far right with a boof at the horizon line.

We kept thinking every horizon was Cookie Monster. But it was pretty obvious when we got there. We snuck into an eddy at the lip on the left. You may want to catch a higher up eddy with more water.

Nate and Luke point out the many issues with the drop.

The low water meant the big hole that usually dominates the left side of Cookie Monster wasn't in play. However, it was still a chunky drop and the shallow lead in was a bother. A couple of us ran it, but I can't say anything really good about the drop other than it is "almost" good.

The six foot ledge has a log in it now. Luke went for the rail slide which was pretty sweet, with more water I would suggest running middle or right.

Be sure to take a look at the ledge visible from the bridge on the drive up. It must be run center, but the shallow lead in makes it difficult to fall into the deep part in the center.

Pegleg is the preferred take out and everyone who went left tucked up and went deep!! Anna prepares for the plunge.

Luke scouts out his line for lap number two.

And launches a sweet boof off the ramp in the middle.

Our trip in fast forward.

To get to the upper put in. Go towards these coordinate points (can copy paste these into google maps). 44.931235489969055,-122.2170639038086

If you are looking at the creek (should be the first good view you get since crossing Hugh Creek) and see a short bedrock slide with a tree spanning the creek right over the slide.

Put in there, just above the slide to save yourself some mank upstream.

-Jacob

Via Jeff Compton

2011-05-08T23:23:00.000-07:00

Christy Creek has now been rafted.

It was epic. I rafted in the puma with josh. Dan and I fired up Rhinosex. Josh and I flipped in Balls. 1.75 feet on the gauge.

Christy

2011-05-03T11:29:00.000-07:00

Canyon creek in the South Santiam drainage is often cited as Oregon's only true class five run that does not consist entirely of waterfall (i.e. Eagle creek, Salmon river gorge). Obviously these claims come from people that stick only to the well known runs. However, there is a run out there that is known, but people have been turned off by horror stories full of wood portaging and trashy drops. As we found out recently though, there is another legitimate creek that should be added to the class five list. This is Christy creek Oregon.

This one is on a mission sort of level and is not for everyone. However, if you are a class five boater in Oregon and have not run this one, you are seriously missing out. The hike in is laborious, but well worth the effort. Not so bad that we had to use ropes, but it was taxing, especially on the knees. It was a great feeling to get down to the stream and see the perfect water level in a classic Oregon setting.

Teamwork on the hike in.

(photo: Nate Merrill)

This run has a lot more going on than I was expecting. The first mile started class III-IV and ramped up to a sprinkling of class five boulder gardens. Some clean, some not. We did portage a couple drops, but ran many good ones as well. There was plenty of shore scouting in this section as boat scouting was not the best choice. This character continued this way until we arrived at a large boulder garden. We had been moving pretty slow so I didn't give this one a thorough scout and started right into the portage when I heard there was a large midstream sieve that was hard to see from our vantage point. However, Aaron Loft ran the whole thing and made it look totally manageable. Most of the rest of us did the easy portage through the woods on the left and put in above the last boof, which I thought was the funnest stroke of the day.

100 yards below here was Rhinosex, which does not look good to go at all. Though it is runnable, the lead in drop is ultra hectic, and being upside down over the second drop has had dire consequences in the past.

To portage, I would recommend following the shelf on the left until it gets sketchy, then lower the boats down. Jeff easily did the fifteen foot repel with a munter knot to collect our boats, but everyone else traversed farther left, then walked down a log to the shelf Jeff was on.

Below here are a couple of boulder gardens, one of them trashy. Then comes a sharp left bend with an eddy below on the left, just below an overhanging log spanning the river. The next boulder garden leads into Balls Falls. Be careful here, it is worth scouting out your eddy on river left before entering the sharp left turn.

I scout while Jeff and Andy help people across the deep current over to the viewing platform.

(photo: Nate Merrill)

Balls falls isn't as sweet as I had anticipated. The transition is kind of abrupt and wants to shoot you left. Its totally good to go, but not the launch pad I had expected. The lower tiers are the main concern. There is a sticky hole leading immediately into a large ledge with two channels. You will probably end up going right. If you do this, drive at the midstream boulder getting as close as you can, take a big right stroke and have lots of left angle. Then prepare to collide with a submerged shelf. Or you can take the left channel which is harder to get to and has its own issues. We had 7 people who all ran balls falls. 5 of them had trouble, 4 of them collided with said submerged shelf. One was backwards and was immediately ejected from their boat. The one who had the cleanest line still cut his knuckles and took a shot to his right arm. I had caught the eddy above the final two pitches and decided enough carnage had been had, so Nate Merrill and I took the sloppy portage on the right after running the initial 25 foot drop.

Nate Merrill running Balls Falls

The first drop was entertaining for me, as I had not made up my mind about the line I would take. Jeff and I were going to catch an eddy on the right to take another look and scout a portage line. The lead in drop pushed Jeff hard left though, and he couldn't make the eddy and the last thing I saw was a flurry of stroked with him sideways. I charged down behind and dropped the falls as well to make sure someone was there with him incase things had not gone well. It turns out he had the best line of all of us, and was able to make the left line. This put us in a good position to set up safety in different spots and Jeff made his second boat recovery of the day when more trouble ensued.

The next drop had a sticky-ish hole at the end we all made it through, but safety would be prudent. One more short class III and we were out scouting Snake Bite. I would suggest scouting initially on the right. Most of us scouted on the left, but this left the last person to portage in a bad spot as it was slick getting into the boats without a spotter and falling meant a trip into the powerful hole at the bottom of the slide.

Three of us decided to run the drop. Myself and Aaron took the left line, which was a fun twisty slide with a critical stroke at the bottom to get through the large hole. Nate Pfiefer ran the right side and hit the seam where the hole flushed at the bottom. Both sides went, you will have to choose which looks better to you.

Below here were two more class five boulder gardens. Jeff and Aaron stepped up to the last challenging drop, while the rest of us portaged on the right. I won't describe this section, as boaters need to look at every drop and scout every eddy themselves. Below the last big boulder garden was a series of slides that would create large, uniform holes at higher levels. We stayed generally right, then back to center for the last one. Though I don't know what the conventional line is. Below here things cooled down and we had about a mile of runout to the miracle mile.

We blasted the last hundred yards of bigger water and caught eddies on the left at the bridge. Spent but extatic about the great day of boating.

We had 3.65 on NFMF @westfir. I don't know the area levels as well as some people, but I would go back if this gauge was between 3.4 and 4. Though I felt we had ideal flows.

The bridge gauge was just over a foot.

Thanks to Nate Pfiefer for doing the legwork on this one earlier this year and providing the motivation to get myself out of bed and down to Eugene.

Access and more flow beta can be found at this link. Christy Creek Beta

-Jacob

NWCC

2011-04-25T16:29:00.000-07:00

Matt and myself drop Sunset falls simultaneously.

(photo Nick Gordon)

Once again a big gathering of boaters showed up for the race this year. With higher than normal levels, the race was moved to a class III section ending with Sunset falls, which dished out more than one swim on this day.

My friend Paul, after having photographed Dan and Sigler for the last year or so, finally got in a raft and ran his first waterfall, a success!

Mccain and Thomson

photo: Gena (soon to be) Mccain.

Paul Thomson took a bunch of really good pictures at the creeking competition. I think he got most everybody. You can check them out here. He can be emailed directly at paultnature@yahoo.com onthewildsidephotography.com

-Jacob

Wiki Creek #1

2011-04-22T09:50:00.000-07:00

Coming soon...

photo: Paul Thomson
www.onthewildsidephotography.com

-Jacob

Wiki Creeks (PART 1)

2011-04-17T22:07:00.000-07:00

This is a long one, skip to PART 2 if you want to cut to the chase.

I had a bit of a revelation this past week.

It has always been a goal of mine to seek adventure through kayaking. I was never one to be content seeing the same stream over again. The unknown and the unseen always called to me. I got a reputation early on taking people on log strewn portage fests that were more hiking than boating. It took me a long time to find out why people were not having fun on these trips, as I was having the time of my life.

My dad wondering where he went wrong with me.

I eventually discovered that people did not kayak for the same reasons as I kayak. I cannot speak for everyone else, but for me kayaking is a way to fulfill a need to be on an adventure and keep my brain working towards something at all times. Solving the unknown is what keeps me kayaking. The act of kayaking down the river is more fun than I have doing most anything else, but if that was the extent of kayaking, It would not be the same sport for me. I can get the same rush and sense of accomplishment of running a big drop as I could in football, snowboarding, giving a speech in class, college and the many aspects that come with that, and really everything worth doing in life, without the looming prospect of death. So why, to borrow a phrase from Stookesberry, is kayaking "all consuming"?

Photo: Jeff Hartley

I grew up gifted at every sport I tried, able to get good grades in school. I could have followed numerous paths, but I chose kayaking. And that is because of the adventure and everything that comes with it. When kayaking, I could almost care less if I have to portage every rapid on a stream, if my group makes it through the area of challenge, that is the accomplishment I am looking for. And while the team is there, I am totally responsible for my decisions at the same time. Once I have proven to myself I can make it through a section of river, I loose much of the drive to come back if the run holds major risk. Mostly because there is so much else to see. My favorite reason to return to a river has always been to help someone else enjoy their own adventure on that river and being a part of their moment of seeing something new.

If its an adventure for them, its an adventure for me.

photo: John Watkins

I have tried to narrow down the aspects that call to me the most.

Knowledge-I have a strong desire to accumulate knowledge. When I was younger, it was books. Once school ruined that for me, I only had to wait a year before kayaking found its way into my everyday thoughts. Kayaking provided a way to attain an unending source of knowledge. Everyday I find out something new about kayaking. There was never anything with this many aspects I had encountered before this sport came into my life. It was perfect, and my brain picked up on that right away. I never run out of things to think about with kayaking. Its been a chore to refocus some of that attention on school, because even school has not provided me with enough to keep my brain constantly occupied. Kayaking has become the knowledge I seek, unfortunately it has gotten in the way of my desire to learn about other parts of life to a degree, but it feeds that hunger within better than anything else for me.

There is some interesting stuff to see out there.

shutting down "you cant do that"- I'm sure everyone hates being told they can't do something. I have put that monkey on my back in its place by kayaking. People say, there is nothing worth paddling that hasn't already been paddled, its not cool to spend your weekends in high school outside, that run has no access, you will never get in there, you won't ever find any quality whitewater out there. In my head, all those have been proven wrong, which makes it worth it to me.

Planning/Prediction- This is the part I love the most. Research, devoting time no one else is willing to give, solving the puzzle. I have always likened kayaking to reading a book. I'm always trying to find out what is coming next, put the pieces together, know what is there before I see it. And like a book, if its really good I can read it two or three times, after that it looses its appeal very quickly (when it gets to this point in kayaking, it becomes training to me).

Planning.

No one but me (for the moment)- When I find a place no kayaker has been able to, or had the motivation to get to before me, that is where I belong, I don't feel any emotion, just a total lack of doubt. That is what I strive for.

The unknown- Seeing something I have never seen before is the goal, but its a lot less meaningful to me without a kayak. Just hiking doesn't do it for me. I have to be hiking for a reason, with a goal, with a purpose, or it does not become all consuming. I have always had a theory that children are the happiest people because they are always seeing something new. I strive to always see new things, and its kept me very content, I find that I am rarely upset when there is discovery in my life.

Plus I know there are a few of these out there :)

photo: Jeff Hartley

Talent- The development of my skill set is something that I could have done with any sport (not that it is immaculate by any means), so this reason alone has very little pull in my argument, but I had to do it somewhere, so why not develop a skill that would allow me to develop many skills using only one sport?

The final puzzle-Being with the right people. You can't just go do these sort of runs with anyone, and not always do the right people want to come. Its a delicate balance choosing which runs to take people on, you can't just pull the trigger and go on any adventure, because people are not all me, they don't all like groveling across debris filled slopes above a drainage ditch. The right people make all the difference, even if the right people for the day means just you.

The right people.

photo: Matt King

So to me, there are two sports addressed here, there is kayaking, and there is adventuring with a kayak. Both are great sports and I enjoy them both, however, it is the latter sport that I practice, with the first being a fun way to train for the second.

continue to PART 2 below...

Wiki Creeks: PART 2

2011-04-17T22:06:00.000-07:00

The very basic core of a man’s living spirit is his passion for adventure. The joy of life comes from our

encounters with new experiences...

— Jon Krakauer

Which leads me to the whole point of this post. Someone who has read my blog for awhile may have noticed the change in the way I have described the exploratory runs that I do. It started out with "first descent", then changed to "first known descent", then "first documented descent", and my most recent was just titled "Warnicke". I used to buy into the fact that there was some sort of race to get these first descents and that was why I was doing them. This being first business turned out just to be another goal to reach, a reason to do what I did. But the longer I boat, the more I realize I don't really care about whether I get to label my run of a stream a first descent. What I do care about, is that it was an adventure to me, and I was able to rise to the occasion. This turned into my revelation.

Exactly where I wanted to be at that moment.

photo: Jeff Hartley

What this got me thinking about, and what lead to my revelation is why then, am I giving out all this information about these creeks? I am, in effect, ruining the adventure for those in the future who may desire to do the same sort of thing. I am taking away many aspects of the puzzle. I used to feel it was important to document these sort of runs for the cumulative knowledge of the kayaking community, but we all know there is a minuscule amount of kayakers who have the drive to make it to these runs and see these new places when there is so much quality kayaking to be had with minimal effort required. These people have their sport, they don't need the unknown and the new, they don't need to know where some mediocre run buried in Oregon's coast range is located. The people this is for are the people who do want to know there is more out there. They want the fuel to feed the what ifs in the back of their mind. They want their adventure.

Since I still love writing and sharing about what it is I do. And I am sure that others are out there, or will be out there, who will want adventure some day. As a moral compromise with myself, I am going to continue writing about the adventures I go on. The change will be that I will not be giving out the names or information on how to access the streams. I have yet to decide the format about how I will detail the character as well, though I don't think much will change about that. I still feel a need to label these runs with something. Not first descent, not first documented descent, not something thats a mouthful, but something that I can enjoy and will convey that this was an adventure and not just another day of being in my kayak (which is awesome too).

photo: Matt King

What I will be doing, is leaking out pieces of information in the trip reports, so that people know that these streams exist. If people do the work, they may connect the dots and find the stream. They could solve that part of the puzzle, and still have more to figure out. These will be my Wiki Creeks.

If I do happen to stumble upon a section of whitewater I think the community will benefit from, I will not hesitate to share all information. If someone is truly interested in a run and wants info on it, I will point them in the right direction. I am not trying to hoard the runs for myself. I only plan on keeping the last few adventures in the area just that, adventures.

Some more good people, in the spirit of adventure.

-Jacob

Little Nestucca (ready for class five?)

2011-04-13T16:13:00.000-07:00

I wanted to get some info out there about this run. Its really pretty good and seems to be underutilized, though there are a few people running it.

I think it is in Soggy Sneakers but not many people seem to get on it. This is probably due to its location, near Dolph crossing in Oregon's northern coast range.

A friend of mine from the Earth Science program here at Western has been wanting me to take them out kayaking for awhile. The first day I took her on an easy run and she seemed to do really well and wanted to run something a bit harder. I had wanted to get some pictures of the Little Nestucca, so decided I could take her there and have her walk the 3 main rapids.

The first 1/4 mile is by far the best section and is one of my favorites anywhere.

About to enter the good stuff.

(all photos taken by Aquilegia Leet on an iphone?)

I have done about 5-6 laps on it so far at higher water each time and like it more and more everytime.

The initial move.

It keeps going solid for awhile once you drop in.

This run we had about 1700 on the Nestucca gauge and there were a ton of fun moves and about 4 super classy boofs.

Hitting one of the great boofs (this one was not available at lower water)

In this section is one manky drop that is worth looking at first. It seems small but there isn't a good line. I walked it at 1000 cfs(nestucca gauge), pinned sideways at the bottom the first time I ran the drop, and have figured out the line since, which involves driving up onto a rock that wants to slope you left or right onto pin rocks.

The icky one. Would be trivial with more water.

Once past here there are two fantastic 4 foot boofs as things start to cool off.

The cool off section is still busy.

The last class 3- above the bridge has a hump of water that is awesome for launching boofs as well.

Post best two foot boof Iv'e ever launched off.

The run tapers off and there is some easy floating (great rapids for my friend to learn on) until the next main drop, Stella Falls. This is a really cool rapid. Its short but pretty rowdy for what it is. The bottom ledge doesn't look to have a dry line so I anticipated a plug. However I did manage to get a boof, though I doubt I could repeat it.

Scouting Stella Falls during shuttle.

More easy floating leads to the last drop, Uptown Falls(~6'). This has been altered and is now a lowhead dam. I suggest scouting/portaging from the right bank, but safety should be set from the left(there is a perfect spot you will find if you look). The hole is nasty looking and I doubt it would let a swimmer go as its backed up by a shelf. I was certain I could hit the clean boof on the far right though, and Aqua is a life guard, so figured for a non-boater that was as good as I could get for safety. I hit the easy line, but I didn't enjoy it very much.

It is worth noting that it is possible to get sucked into this drop unaware. Once below Stella, there is a "faky" gorge with some class two, once the stream leaves this section, the next bedrock you encounter is the formation creating the drop. Immediately eddy out on the right to scout. Cautious and knowledgeable (about the run) boaters should have no troubles here.

We finished up the run and I was very impressed that Aqua made it down with no swims (a couple of T-rescues) and she seemed to really enjoy it.

The take out.

The take out is across from this cool old barn, just upstream of Fall Creek Bridge.

So why did I title this "ready for class five?"? If you want to find out if you are ready to step it up to class five, you might want to put this run on your list. Here are my thoughts.

The first section is really fast, however, if you think you are ready for class five, you should be able to lead this rapid, pick your lines, hit every eddy, hit every boof, and feel totally in control. I felt it was a great test piece. It is not a rapid that will mess you up, but its moving, requires quick thinking, and is steep.

-Stella falls does not have the consequences associated with class five, but is tricky and if you are not a class five boater, will most likely mess with you. It also requires the scouting process of class five because you have to have the right speed, entrance, and angle to hit the bottom ledge how you want.

Uptown falls has the consequences associated with class five, but not the difficulty. It forces you to know you can make the move, and do it. It also gets you in the mindset of setting meaningful safety. Best hit that boof...

This run is out of the way for most people, but if you are wondering about whether you want to run the Truss, this is probably a good stepping stone. I think Stella is as hard/harder than every drop until Big Brother. If you are a Corvallis/ salem boater, that first quarter mile is oh so sweet (easy for lapping) and the other two drops are good and unique. Its a novelty run, but all roadside and worth seeing.

flows ----- http://www.wkcc.org/levels/?f=cv
minimum 1500
max 3000+
I have yet to see it over 2000, but it could hold a lot more water. I actually think the first part and Stella would get easier, who knows...

The put in is at a small gravel pull off 3.5 miles downstream of the turn off from Dolph crossing and hwy 22. Walk through a short field and get your warm up in the 50 yards of flat water.

This is about a three mile section, so about a rapid per mile, so its not a run for a constant bombardment of fun, more of a training ground with time to think between drops.

Disclaimer. Obviously only you can know if your ready for class five. Also, be careful with my gauge recommendation, I like lower flows than most people.

Lastly, I am talking about Oregon class five (is there any?). maybe Ill post something later titled "so you think you are ready to for Washington?". In short, don't run this and think you are ready for the Little White.

*Maybe the Truss...

-Jacob

Warnicke

2011-04-03T09:41:00.000-07:00

I had my usual difficulties getting people to come on this exploratory trip, luckily Stephen Cameron caught a whim and joined.

This stream is part of two forks that join the headwaters of the NF Siletz. When I came to school 3 years ago this was the first stream that caught my attention because of an obvious waterfall on the topo maps. After learning the nature of access in the coast range I wrote this one off quickly as something I would never get the chance to do.

Last weekend, I passed up a trip to California in order to scout the headwaters of the NF Siletz. I knew Boulder creek was up here and looked quality, plus I wanted to check out the access situation on Warnicke, while at the same time getting a look at the valley of the giants fork of the NF Siletz and take a hike through some of the few true old growth stands remaining in Oregon's coast range.

My scouting trip was a much larger success than I had expected. Gates were open, roads went farther than I expected, it was a dream come true. Another thing I noticed was the geology was outstanding. Trip reports of the NF Siletz make it sound as if its not worth the effort, but the guidebook run actually looks really good.

The highlights of this trip were hiking through the valley of the giants, which is where I saw Warnicke for the first time, as well as some very large trees. Second was discovering the road up Warnicke had an open gate. I started driving up this road and made it about a mile in the course of half an hour. There were a ton of limbs and rocks to move off the sloppy road and my Civic has little clearance. I eventually turned back, satisfied that the road went far enough to make a trip worthwhile.

Levels lined up perfectly the next weekend, so after Stephen arrived in Monmouth, we made the long drive into the coast range. We decided to only bring one car and jog shuttle, which turned out to be the right call. We made it two miles before the road bermed out, leaving us with a 2 mile hike to the put in.

The hike was pretty tame. We hiked along an old, slightly grown over logging road with a couple easy-to-nagotiate washouts. Eventually we decided to just shwack down to the creek instead of all the way to the bridge which turned out to be an interesting call. We ended up putting in just below a large class five double drop with a lead in consisting of two sticky holes and upstream? Slides as far as the eye could see. Since neither of us were very interested in the drop is was a mixed blessing putting in where we did. We missed out on what looked to be 3 hundred yards of slides between us and the bridge, but we didn't have to portage this drop.

*to those that like this sort of drop, it is veeery runnable, no wood or sieves and not too scary, just very class V. Had our favorite probe unit not just moved to Eastern Oregon I'm sure it would have been run. It can be scouted from the right very easily, but hardly at all from the left where we were.

Andrew Bradley and I returned and ran this drop in 2012. Its totally good to go.

Butte Creek Falls & Warnicke Creek from Andrew Bradley on Vimeo.

We liked what we were seeing geology and water level wise as we floated into the class II drop below the falls. There was a creek coming in on the left immediately below the drop that can be used as an indicator as to where this rapid is I will mark on the map.

Just around the next corner started a mile of fantastic boating. Class IV-IV+ boulder gardens with hardly any wood and really fun. Steep and continuous. There were lots of 3-4 foot boofs and fun moves. Every horizon we were waiting for another waterfall, but every drop turned out really clean and fun. We probably only scouted twice in this section as Stephen brought his extraordinary slalom skill set to the run and made it so we hardly had to get out at all. However, if Stephen had not been on the trip, I would have been scouting a lot more.

After the end of this mile was a log portage. The next mile was III-IV with another log portage, and the last mile was III+ with another portage. All portages were very easy. Stephen did have one interesting portage by seal launching five feet off a log midstream that went well.

Stephen did almost have to drop into a rapid blind when he ran out of eddies, but was able to catch some slack water along the left wall and saw that the drop went, it turned out not be a big issue, but was exciting for a moment. This is the drop he runs the bottom part of in the video (He eddied out part way down to let me get a shot as I had already jumped out of my boat when I saw things weren't going to plan).

Speaking of video, this was the only shot I got because we were just bombing down so much of the run. Never really felt an urge to film, we were having plenty of fun just running the creek.

The creek was fun all the way to the confluence with Valley of the Giants fork. The final drop was an island and as Stephen said about his run "I just ran an unrunnable drop, got stopped by that hole, then ducked a log". If someone else does this, don't worry, its not as bad as it sounds ;)

From here we had a mile and a half of high quality class III down to the confluence with Boulder Creek, where we took out. We then "jogged the shuttle", and headed home happy about our accomplishments.

--------------------------------------------
NOTES

-Stephen mentioned how un-epic this trip was. If there was vehicle access to the top, there would be no reason not to run this thing when the chance arose.

-I imagine the only way this will be repeated is if someone gets fired up about that drop at the top, which is very worthy of the two mile hike if someone is so inclined. In fact I would do it again to watch someone run it.

-I know there are not very many motivated paddlers out there, but there are some, and if you want to see a new run that is pretty fun without much work involved, check this run out when the Siletz gauge is 7 ft and falling like we did. This is an ideal level for the big drop I think. The run could easily be done higher for a more class five experience (I bet its solid class five at 9 ft and I know there are people who would really enjoy that.)

-Bring a rainjacket for the hike in, this area is the rainiest place in the lower 48 that has a gauge (google Laurel Mtn.). Also the water on the branches hiking in will get you very wet as you are constantly brushing against them which can be annoying to a degree. I guess you could just zip up your drysuit, but who likes to be in full gear during a hike in?

-You also drive through Valsetz if coming from Portland, which was once the rainiest city in the lower 48. (it is no longer a town)

View Warnicke in a larger map

-Jacob

Fun on the East Fork

2011-03-29T18:32:00.000-07:00

Here are some clips Jeff Hartley took of our recent trip to the East Fork Lewis. Dan and Robby hopped in a couple IK's for their first attempt at that sect of whitewater. They were vigilant about technique as you can see in the video of Dan, but it took them awhile to get timing worked out. By the end of the day they had both got their boofs off of Sunset and they both attempted the left line at Horseshoe, with Robby having a great line and Dan almost pulling off a pirouette.

All videos by Jeff Hartley.

-Jacob

New hazard in Hagen Gorge

2011-03-12T14:13:00.000-08:00

I just saw this post on PDXkayaker so thought I would throw in my idea for an alternative approach.

New Significant Hazard on Hagen Gorge

Message List

The man-made log dam on Hagen Gorge has changed. It seems the bottom of the dam blew out. There is no longer a pool from which you can start the portage. The river now drains into a very large mess of strainers and there aren't any sizable eddies directly upstream. Proceed carefully and hop out earlier than you might have done before.

The portage is trickier as well but still doable.

~Dave Hoffman

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Euphoria Falls

photo: Matt King

To avoid the logdeck and make for an easier hike use this map...

View Hagen gorge in a larger map

and follow the directions at the end of this report.

-Jacob

Big rock Creek

2011-03-06T14:04:00.000-08:00

I have been hoping to get on this one for a couple years now. On the maps is a really intimidating pinch with huge gradient. The levels lined up and while I needed a late start due to wanting to watch my buddy Alex throw javelin in Salem, I figured 3 1/2 hours was enough time to deal with a mile of gradient.

Jay Kirkwood and Anna Herring both agreed to go along on this trip. We met in Summit at 1:30 and were at the takeout by 2. The access was great for an exploratory with a bridge at take out and put in. We got within a half mile of the put in before finding a gate that had not been there when I scouted last year. After making sure it was a real gate and not a toy, we parked and hiked in. We were at the river quickly and put in, noting the woody character of the creek. There was a nice class III under the putin bridge, followed by a fair amount of wood and make. The creek then became class I-II with a couple log portages before we reached the place I originally planned to put in when I thought we could drive all the way. We paddled some more class I as I assured them that the gradient was coming. Soon we could see the hill creating the pinch and not long after the creek hit it, turned, and some easy sliding bedrock was encountered in the class II range.

The creek started making its bend to the left where it would drop through the hill and we got out to scout our first rapid. A fun III-IV double slide with an ominous horizon downstream. The view scouting this drop was the most promising view I believe I have had on an exploratory trip. We saw gorge wall and bedrock. We were pumped! That is until we scouted the that horizon. It was an ugly V+ mess with wood and boulders at the bottom. Luckily there was a river level portage that wasn't too bad. A lot of wood had collected in this drop and the boulder garden below it, so we set off on a relatively easy, but still taxing portage down to the next runnable rapid. This was a sweet, but manky boulder garden that went a lot smoother than it looked and reminded me of what I have heard the boulder gardens on the little Sandy is like, just with more water. Jay pointed out a promising line that we all took. At the crux move at the end, Anna went for the 180 and showed us up by greasing the crux stern first! Below here was a III-IV runout before the next short log portage. Below here was a drop that was very challenging to scout and involved some leaping to get onto an island where the first part of the rapid was visible. It looked really fun, but there was a lower five foot ledge that we could not see the landing from above (The ledge Jay runs in the video). Not wanting to risk it having a pin spot with no safety, we decided to portage in the name of time as scouting it would have taken as long as the portage, then if it wasn't runnable we would have to portage anyway...

After completing the portage, we were able to scout the drop and were bummed we were not able to run the whole thing as it was a sweet drop! Jay and I were still able to run the lower ledge and runout though, then fought right to get away from some wood(seen in video clip). Below here the gradient cooled off and had a couple more really fun class III-IV sections. I think we scouted one more time before the buggy to the end.

I was still in boat scouting/watch out for wood mode, when Anna passed by me in an eddy giving me a "hey Jacob, its class II now" look and took the lead as we cruised down the runout and one more small slide before getting to the takeout bridge with about 15 minutes of light to spare! In all the trip went well and I had a blast exploring this place I had my eye on for awhile now. It was a good team and I liked the approach we took. We moved efficiently and safely the whole time. Everyone stayed in a good mood and we even got to run a few fun rapids. I won't ever be back, but it was a great adventure and thats what its all about for me.

-Jacob

Stream Guide

2011-03-01T01:33:00.000-08:00

This is a guide to all the streams I have run in alphabetical order. The colored names have links that will take you to a report of the trip.

Photo by Matt King

Abiqua

-----------------------

Beaver

Big Rock

blister

breitenbush

Bull Run

butte
------------------------
Cache
Camas (ID)
canyon (the classic)
canyon (washougal trib)
canyon(milk trib)
Canyon Creek (s. santiam trib)

Canal(Quartzville trib)
Catherine

Christy

Clackamas
clear
collowash
copper

Cow Ditch

-------------------------

D river

Deep

deschutes

devils lake fork

dog

dougan

drowned out

-------------------------

eagle (clack trib)

Eagle Creek (columbia trib)

ef hood

ef lewis

Elk
---------------------
fish
---------------------

gold

Gordon Creek

grand ronde

Grays

----------------------

hagen

Henline
Hills

Hood

Hot Springs fork

hunter

----------------------

illinois

----------------------

john day

johnson

jordan

----------------------

Kalama

king

---------------------

Lewis

little abiqua

Little Luckiamute

Little Nestucca
little north santiam
Little North Fork Wilson
Little Rock (near corvallis)

l***** s****

little white salmon
Loon (ID)

luckiamute

-------------------------

milk creek

molalla
mill
MF Salmon

------------------------

north santiam

nf cispus

NF Clack

nf deep

NF Kalama
NF Siletz

NF MF Willamette
nf washougal
Nohorn

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ohanepecosh

Oswego

Owyhee

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panther

Pine

------------------------

quartz

Quartzville

------------------------

rickreall

Roaring

rock (clack trib)

rock(columbia trib)

rock (ef lewis trib)

rogue

------------------------

salmon (id)

Salmon (Oakridge)

Salmon (Sandy, OR)

Sandy

Sf coquille

SF Rickreall
SF Yamhill

Siletz

silver

Sixth Water

slick rock

snake

South Santiam

Stebbins

Still

summit

sunshine

sweet

-------------------------

Table rock fork Molalla

Thomas

Thompson

tieton

trout

trout lake

twin falls

-------------------------
Warnicke

washougal

WF hood

white

white salmon

wildboy

Wildhorse

Willamette

Willamina

wilson

wind

------------------------

yacolt

yaquina

yellowjacket

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Zigzag
------------------------
Wiki creek #1
Wiki creek #2
Wiki creek #3 10.6 dose
------------------------
County Creek #1
County Creek #2
County Creek #3

132

More beta can be found on the sites run by Pete and Nate, as well as the godfather of run descriptions concerning Oregon's rivers, Oregonkayaking.

Photo: Nate Pfeifer

-Jacob

Sixth Water

2011-02-25T18:57:00.000-08:00

On a recent trip to Utah to visit Nick at Westminster. We couldn't pass up the opportunity to take a day to head up to Sixth Water with a tube and borro wed playboat(Thanks Quin). I have heard this called the best creek in Utah, and while I can't verify that, I would say its the best creek that I have done it Utah;)

It was really fun and Nick killed it in the K-mart raft. This was my third time in a playboat (which I thought would be less forgiving), and it was waaaay too small. But I forced myself into it and had an absolute blast!

-Jacob

My first swim in 15

2011-02-18T18:02:00.000-08:00

This is a long one with no picture. Be forewarned.

Stephen Cameron recently posted his story about going thirty years between swims. I thought I'd post my own little story about my first swim in 15.... minutes.

I had been anxiously awaiting my new boat from Dagger for over a month. I had putting off going kayaking due to only possessing broken boats that forced me to hike out on 4 out of my last 5 trips. I finally picked up my boat from Next Adventure and got ready for a fun warm up/get used to the boat trip on the Farmlands the coming Saturday.

I missed my alarm and was late, which I like to think is a rarity for me. The White Salmon was the only thing running that day so the entire Pdxkayaking community was milling about BZ corner by the time I got there.

We finally got going and headed up to Steve's parents house, one of my favorite put-ins of all time. I paddled around the eddy at the put in a couple times and was absolutely fired up about my new Nomad. Dagger lifted the backband and I felt waaay snug. Perfect actually. People started drifting downstream and I followed, getting used to my new boat. The first few drops were pushy class four. I was really excited about how my boat was handling, Iv'e never had a new boat before and it was a different feel than the oilcanned, cracked/bituthene repaired pieces of plastic I am used to.

We regrouped above Little Lava, I boofed it landing in the eddy on the left feeling pretty good. That is about as long as my enjoyment would last. Steve and I decided to break ahead to get away from the congestion a bit. We were in an eddy when Chris rolled in and told us his favorite move of the river was just downstream. I watched him, then Steve make the move. Then I followed pretty unaggresively. I peeled out of the eddy that created the move ready to plop over a fun boof.

-----------------------------------------
This is the interesting part
-----------------------------------------
There wasn't much of a flake but I wasn't worried, just took a stroke and popped up ready to keep paddling. I felt the sucking feeling below me and thought "whoo, that one almost got me". Then the sucking increased and I realized I was going back in. The hole was maneagable but was flipping me over. Each time I would stick my paddle deep hoping to grab outflow, only to roll up still in the hole. I was hoping to work my way to river left into the outflow and saw my chance after my third roll. I took a big stroke upriver and threw my weight into the current flipping intentionally(probably would have happened anyway) to get as much purchase with my paddle and body in the outflow as possible. I had my paddle deep and felt the current pulling, I pulled up for a roll and just as my head started out of the water felt a searing pain and my arm twisted behind my back to a place it had never ventured before.

Fearing a dislocation, I let go of the paddle with my right hand and went for my skirt. In hindsight I should have tried rolling on my left just using one hand(would have saved the ensuing adventure), but at that point I had been in the hole for what I was told later was a minute and was thinking more about air and my shoulder than what the consequences of my actions might be.

I came up and grabbed my floating paddle along with my boat. Chris was right there pushing my boat to shore. I let go and moved over to the canyon wall before the next rapid. I could already feel the pain in my arm and was ready to be done, but there was more to do. Another paddle came floating down which I grabbed, then another which someone else grabbed(lots of swimming on this trip). The next bit was the normal scramble after a swim, but once I figured out my boat had travelled downstream out of sight, the situation began to change...

Being in the Farmlands my choices were to swim downstream through some class III-IV for an unknown distance until I found the boat trying not to get swept over Lava, or climb out. I decided to climb.
------------------------
This is where it gets more interesting
------------------------

I made it about ten feet up before I realized this would be much harder than it had looked. I still had my paddle with me and this was a cliff face. The walls were crumbly in places, there were pine needles inches thick on the rocks, and good handholds were very limited. I made it another five feet before making my first move that was not reverseable (by me). I had to stay in each spot for about a minute collecting myself and plotting the next move.
Not one step after the 15' mark was easy. Two moves stood out. The first being one where I had to throw my body wieght through the air and grab a pathetic looking sapling, hoping it wouldn't give. The second was the final move I made. I thought I had gotten stuck, when I saw a "what if" sort of move. I thought if I did this one thing I would be home free, but it was sketchy as all get out and I am no rock climber. I had to take off my life jacket to make the move as even the extra inch of paddling would rub the wall, throwing me off the cliff. I crouched down and made two seperate moves under an overhanging rock ledge onto a 5" shelf covered in pine needles and sloping the wrong way. I stood up and immediately a feeling of acceptance came over me. I had made a move I could not repeat going the other way, and I had committed myself to a place I could not get any farther. I was stuck on a ledge with a vertical 25 foot drop behind me, and a face level shelf in front of me with no hand/foot holds.

It was at this point I gave up relying on myself for the first time on a river and truly put my destiny in someone else's hand's. Eric Arlington, Anna Herring, and Eric Harvey had all been waiting to make sure I got out safe. I cannot properly thank them enough for this. I gave the hand across the neck signal and Eric shouted he would be back with a rope. They took off downstream and I was alone with my thoughts (most of which dealt with overcoming my irrational fears of how the rock would choose this moment to crumble beneath me, or the slightly more rational fear of my foot slipping/pineneedles giving out). I watched another group of boaters pass. I didn't call to them as I thought that would only make the situation more hectic. I enjoyed watching them eddy out, peer down the next rapid, then run it together, totally unknowing of my presence only forty feet above them.

There was a dead deer in the eddy below me. I felt there was a good chance he had died falling from the very cliff I was perched on now. After about 15 minutes I was pretty comfortable. Its not often I let go mentally, but I did hear. Stuck in the same position all this time didn't leave me much choice. After what I am guessing was 45 minutes, I heard a whistle and Eric Arlington, Jesse Combs, Chris Arnold, and Shawn Haggin showed up with a rope. From there it was a quick process getting up and out.

I ended the day and hiked back to Stephen's parent's house and did a bit of reading with Mt Adams in the background.

My shoulder is getting better, but odd things like skipping a rock still cause me significant pain almost two weeks later. Keep this in mind next time you are thinking about getting lazy with your roll. Its not always an option, but good technique will get you a long way.

It was a good experience, with some lesson's I needed to learn thrown in. The most important was the extra incentive to stay in my boat next time.

And boy do I like this new boat!

Chris, Eric, Eric, Anna, Jesse, Shawn. I know the others would have been there had they needed to be, and they have been before. But you guys were there this time. Thank you.

-Jacob

Down in the Ditch

2011-02-13T20:34:00.000-08:00

It’s been 3 months since I last took any strokes in my kayak. After a fun fall boating season and after my Oregon Ducks finished up their season of home games in Eugene, I loaded the car and made the long move out to Colorado for the winter. Don’t get me wrong. The skiing in CO is second to none and I have taken full advantage of the amazing snow we’ve been getting in summit county, but it is not without sacrifice. I desperately miss the creeks and rivers of the PNW.

Since I can’t actually paddle just yet and can’t seem to get my mind off of boating, I decided I’d throw up a short post on the Grand Canyon trip I took a few months back. Despite the lengthy nature of the float, I’ll keep this post short. Besides, I couldn’t begin to describe all the nuances and experiences that make a trip on the Colorado River such a special experience.

This particular trip came together in pretty short order, when compared to all the preparation time that is usually associated with trips on the Grand. I won the cancellation lottery approx. two months before my launch date (Aug 28) The permit was for 8 people and allowed 16 days to float from Lee’s Ferry to Diamond Creek. Both my parents and my sister joined up along with Jesse, a long time friend and fellow rafting guide. Skip, Jeff, and Stephanie (good friends from college) rounded out the group. We had three 18 foot gear rafts (all provided by PRO Outfitters in Flagstaff) and two kayaks.

In a nut shell.

Granite, horn creek, and Lava were huge. Crystal was easy. The camping was amazing. The fire ants hurt. The side hikes are spectacular. The clear flowing side creeks are heaven on earth. And I guess I’ll let the photos do the talking from here on.

Author in House Rock Rapid

The Crew @ The Silver Grotto

Night Life

Go Ducks

Jesse making the move @ Horn Creek

Miranda and Steph @ Deer Creek

Havasu Blue

Pardon the commentary on this last video, my mother still has some soccer mom baked into her. Raft #1 is me, #2 is my Skip (this was his first rafting trip and first time rowing a raft), and raft #3 is my father. #3 got to to know the cheese grater very well.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f55wyeXZ4Eo

Until next time.

Nate

Bonnie Falls in a Tube

2011-02-07T13:10:00.000-08:00

Can't have a non-adventure related post at the top of the blog for long. Here is Nick tubing Bonnie Falls on the North Fork Scappoose last summer.

-Jacob

Portland mini series

2011-02-04T10:10:00.000-08:00

I'm sure most people have seen this by now. Supposedly there is to be a 9 part mini series about Portland. Pretty accurate I would say.

-Jacob