First Post

This is my first post on my blog, so it might be a few posts before I figure out my style.

Last weekend Chris, Aaron, Scott, Keenan, Alex, Paul and I paddled on the E. Fork of the Humptulips. What is a Humptulip you might ask? I have no idea, try wikipedia. As we drove to the put-in the rain was coming down with some serious angst and we were all pretty stoked to get on the river with good water. Before we reached the Humptulip put-in we stopped at Donkey creek falls for a little park-and-huck action. Donkey creek falls is a 15-18 ft. waterfall with no rapids above or below it, just a clean fall with a big pool below it. Keenan and I were the only one who wanted to run it, so we suited up and put-in. On the first run I went first, coming in with a little speed I approached the lip and took my stroke and left the rest up to gravity. I ended up landing a bit on my edge but clean. On the second run Keenan went for a wave wheel (a trick where the kayak goes over the lip on the falls and cartwheels on it's way down, see this link for an example) over the lip and ended up landing really flat on the landing, pretty sweet.

After some fun on Donkey creek we loaded back up and drove towards the Humptulips take out, we dropped a car and headed to the top. Par for course on the Olympic Peninsula we had a wet, slippery, and steep walk to the rivers edge, after a few falls, slips and bumps later we were floating in the water and heading downstream.

The run starts out as a slow moving wide river with a few waves and class two boogie water. It's surrounded by huge hemlock and doug fir trees easily over 100 ft. tall. There are some old growth trunks that must have fallen in the river a hundred years ago that have been smoothed by the years and appear more rock like than tree like. As we move downstream the river narrows more and more and eventually we approach our first rapid of consequence, the "Fish Ladder". This rapid has two chutes; the right is a burly looking 8-10 ft sloping ledge that comes to a notch were the water bottle necks and empties into a narrow canyon, the left side is a man made fish ladder that consist of 4 steps that you paddle down. the canyon at the bottom is pretty cool, about 10 feet wide with walls twice as tall. From here the river stays narrow and twists it's way through the canyon interspersed with class III rapids and waves.

After about a mile of this sort of trip we come to an island, the left side has a ledge hole with a narrow tongue on the left shore, and the right side has a tree blocking the channel. We stop a the ledge hole and play for a bit, attempting cartwheels and enders with limited success. We spent some time standing on the island enjoy our private playground in the OP.

After returning to our boats and paddling downstream we rounded a corner to see a beautiful 25-30 ft. water fall that spilled from the river right side of the river. It would be a sweet waterfall to run if it didn't land right onto a bunch of rocks.

We continued downstream, playing on the holes and waves that created the rapids in the mini-gorge. Our first blind III+ type drop was created by a significant landslide that had cascaded off of the river left side. I always get an eerie feeling when I am scrambling over the landfall areas to scout rapids, I get the feeling that the whole thing is going to slide out from under me at any minute, even though the obstruction had been there for a while and had plenty of time to settle. The rapid was ugly and confused looking but the line was easy enough. Everyone ran the rapid ahead of me while I waited for Paul to finish scouting and get back into his boat. We all had clean lines and kept the smiling side up.

Several more class II and III rapids were left until we arrived at the takeout. The bank where the car was located was extremely overgrown and steep but only about 10 feet from the car. Overall it was a really great trip, the rapids on this stretch are pretty easy but the scenery in the Humptulip gorge is spectacular. My favorite part was seeing some of the monster old-growth logs that were deposited in the river along the banks and the steep canyon walls that surrounded us during our trip. The OP is a very special place, it's as beautiful as it is formidable and uninviting. The rain is not driving but constant, a rain that penetrates and prevents any potential for drying out.

On the drive home the car was heavily fogged as we barreled down one of the hundreds of Forest Service roads that weave their way through NFS and DNR land. We stop the previa at several bridges to inspect the rapids that flowed underneath them before we arrived back in civilization. We took the back road home in order to avoid Aberdeen AKA "the most depressing has-been town you've ever had the pleasure of leaving".

I didn't get any pictures this trip but for future posts I'll try and take a couple for posterity. Well friends and family I hope this proved to be an insight to my life out here, and I hope that this proves to be a useful tool for keeping tabs on what I'm doing while we are separate by thousands of miles. Love you all and Until next time...