Skiing is fun: haven't skied in 15 years and I still got it

Thursday Dec. 9th
Chrystal Mountain
Weather: Snowing, 24 degrees F.

For the past 15 years I have been a snowboarder, rode a board for the first time in 3rd grade, got my own board when I was 12, and have been "knuckle dragging" ever since.  But last year I went snowboarding with friends who are skiers and for the first time saw the benefits of two planks: Traversing.  At Chrystal Mountain there is lots of great terrain that is not immediately lift accessible, a significant amount requires traversing in order to get some fresh tracks.  And traversing on a snowboard sucks, it sucks bad.  No poles, no way to side step, and if you lose your speed your looking at a post holeing experience through the snow.  So this year I vowed to try Skiing.

Lucky for me a good friend is head of rental at a ski shop and is able to hook me up with ski and board rentals.  So last Thursday I got my hands on some skis (and a board in case I was sucking at the skiing), and drove towards the mountain.  We got dressed and awkwardly walked outside; wearing size 13 ski boots makes the prospect of walking much more difficult. I stepped into the bindings with apprehension, and made my first skate stroke on skis in 15 years.  "Well that works just like I remember" I thought to myself.  I had been banking on the fact that I had played Hockey through high school, and hoped that those skills would transfer well to the skis.  We rode the lift and Whitey gave me some tips on the basics.  As the top of the lift approached, that feeling of apprehension boiled in my gut; "must not fall getting off the lift" I thought. This is the ultimate Gaper move, casing the landing off the lift, and the last thing I wanted was to look like a gaper.

Can you say "pow-pow"?

I kept my tips up, and slid down the ramp, and linked a turn into a hockey stop, "yeah buddy" Whitey replied, "your going to do fine today".  With that challenge out of the way, we made our way downhill.  Initially I had no idea what to do with the poles, I kept using them like a kayak paddle and using a low-brace against the mountain instead of planting and turning, I was leaning back too much, and I nearly lost control, but managed to get to the second lift to get higher up the mountain. No crashes yet.

Whitey had been very supportive, and I think surprised that I hadn't had a major wipeout yet. By the end of my second run I was starting to get it back in my head I was always thinking, "plant, turn. plant, turn. plant turn", and so on. After I had gotten in three runs, Whitey and Mason took off to ski some of the goods, and ditched me to run the greens and blues solo.  They way I looked at it was; I'm sure I've ditched others in the past, so how can I get mad", plus the snow conditions were primo, snow had fallen all night, and it was continuing to fall.

The rest of the day I made friends on the lift, and skied the runs that didn't push my comfort level too much. By the time lunch rolled around I was straight-lining the greens and firing off some hand dragging carves, even getting air off of a few hips, and going into the trees for some pow.  This skiing thing is way fun.

Around lunch I met back up with the gang and we skied together for a few runs before eating, and then a few runs after lunch before they ditched me again to run the goods.  The weather was great, never too cold, about 30-23 F. all day long, with minimal wind and decent visibility.

Having too much fun

I did manage to crash once, but it was slow motion in some deep powder, I popped out of my binding and went over the handle bars. All-in-all the day was a major success except for getting stuck in the snow when we tried to pull over to take a piss on our way home.

When I got home my legs were in major discomfort, whenever I sat or laid down, I felt like I had Restless Leg Syndrome, the muscles felt like they were crawling, and felt like they had bugs on them.  I still managed to sleep 13 hours that night.  The next day I caught myself looking at the price of ski boots, not a good sign.

Another Flood Stage Start to the Winter Season

Sunday, October 24th 2010
Hamma Hamma River, Bankfull/Flood Stage
Class III-IV
5 Miles

All week I had been tracking a large low pressure system that was coming out of the mid pacific, and it had promises of heavy rains.  NOAA forcasted it to hit Friday night or Saturday morning, I had been hoping that it would hit hard Friday so we could go kayaking on Saturday, but even though it came in time the river levels didn't budge, mostly due to the dry land soaking up all the water.  So on Saturday I did school work and prayed for hard rain so we could have an adventure on Sunday.  Sunday came and a lot of rivers still hadn't budged, but the East side of the Olympic Peninsula got pummeled.  So Chris, Jared and I followed the rain.

We had planned to  run Jefferson Creek, but there was a monstrous volume of water pumping down the river valley so we opted for something a little more manageable, a five mile section of river on the Hamma Hamma. Chris said that he had paddled this stretch of river at similar flows so he was confident that it would be fine.  The only concern was the Class IV rapid that he called "U-turn", a short class IV canyon that has a large blind  right hand bend in it.  He initially had concerns that we wouldn't be able to scout it which made me nervous, but once we got there we discovered that there was plenty of opportunity to catch an eddy and get out of our boats.

At the put in the river was cranking, it was easily bankfull and bordering on a food stage.  We all saddled up and peeled out into the swift and serious current.  I caught the first eddy that I saw, and Chris slammed in right behind me and made a comment on how fast the current was moving.  He tried to surf a fast wave that was right next to our eddy, but instead of dropping into the wave, the current grabbed his boat and ushered him down stream with intent.  After witnessing Chris' violent downstream movement I opted to stay away from the wave, too early in the trip to be upside down.

The rapids were all pretty benign, little waves and holes, the occasional large boulder, and a few Class III+ rapids, it definitely had the feel of a flood stage river, no eddies, and some floating wood.  The whole trip I was living in apprehension of the gorge, the prospect of wood jammed up between two cliff walls was giving me a Whitewater Laxative.  Chris had expounded about it's unscoutable nature, and that all the other times he'd run this stretch he had been washed into it unknowingly, and none of this was making me feel any better about the situation.  It wasn't until after the trip that I found out that in all his previous experiences he was a novice and failed to recognize the gorge coming, would have been nice to know before we put on the river, but either way.

We came to a large left hand bend that pointed right towards the gorge, we eddied out and proceeded to have a very pleasant scout of the gorge.  The gorge is tight but there are plenty of ways to get close to the rivers edge, with several ledges and precipices that make it possible to plan out all your moves.  The gorge rapid is actually pretty easy, point right and charge right, stay away from the walls and big crashing diagonals, big pool at the bottom.  While scouting we were clambering over pretty cool terrain, blankets of moss, big bedrock ledges, and what appeared to be some sort of animal path.

After scouting, all the apprehension that Chris had been scaring into me was gone, the line was easy, and there was no wood to tangle with.  The only bummer was that from top to bottom it would only take about 20-30 seconds to complete.  The gorge was a quarter the width of the rest of the river and must have been moving 25 miles an hour.

I made sure to arrive back at my boat first so I could be the first in the water and the first moving downstream, it's fun to be paddling downstream with nothing but the gorge walls and the moving water in front of you. Also if Chris or Jared got tangled up in a hole or eddy I wanted to be sure that I wasn't behind them, for fear of slamming into one of their faces with the conical nose of my boat.

I peeled out of the eddy and cruised past the first hole, over the rooster tail, and leaned hard against the large diagonal wave that pushed me right and towards the exit of the canyon.  Once I had made the move against the diagonal, I was home free all I needed to do was boogie right down the middle.  There was a 10 foot wide pinch right at the exit of the canyon and the water accelerated and shot me out of the canyon.  I looked up stream and didn't see anyone, either I was going way faster than I thought I was, or something goofy happened up stream, luckily it was the former because not a few seconds later Jared comes flying around the corner in a tail stand.  We all collected in the larger undulating eddy and had a good hoot about our experience, too bad it would be such a pain to walk back up and have another go at it.

Before the take out there was one final rapid, a large hole with a small tongue on the left corner of it, the three of us had varied levels of success with it, I ended up tangling with a large reactionary wave coming off the left wall, Jared had another nice tail stand, and Chris nearly did the same thing as I.

We reached the takeout and decided to take a hike down stream a bit and marvel at the unrunnable water fall that marks the beginning of the other unrunnable section of the Hamma Hamma.  At flood it was an impressive geological and hydrological feature.  It was a two tiered falls, a 25 into a pool and then into a 20 into an extremely aerated pool, at lower water apparently there is no pool between the two falls only a crack in the bedrock where the water flows, but at flood stage it was a high volume beast.  Also the water flowed underneath a large undercut section of the wall, and on top of all that there was a massive log chocked between the two walls in the middle of the two drops, and with all the water slamming into it, the tree was flexing and bucking with some violence.

It was another Floodstage start to the winter kayaking season, and there will be many more to come I'm sure. Until next time.

An Intimate Interaction With An Immense Whitewater Obsticle

Sunday, October 3rd 2010

Wenatchee River, Tumwater Canyon 1,080 cfs.

Class IV+ (V)

7.5 Miles

With my trip home to MA coming up fast, I felt the need to get on the river, otherwise it would be too long until I was able to paddle again. So I made all the necessary phone calls and eventually landed on Jon Shelby. The only river that had any water left in it was the Tumwater Canyon section of the Wenatchee river. Saturday night I drove up to Jon's place up in West Seattle in an effort to cut down on the drive time on Sunday morning/night. That evening we had a nice dinner at a tai-food restaurant, and listened to an awful band at a local bar. The band sounded like they recorded every soundtrack to every John Hughes movie ever made, all I could think of was Molly Ringwald the entire evening.

After a caffeine fueled morning we picked up Chipper and made the drive down rt. 2 towards Leavenworth and the Wenatchee River.  At the Put-in we ran into... well... everyone in the Washington boating community, that's an exaggeration but it felt that way, it was going to be a crowded day on the river.  After lot's of handshaking and socializing we all geared up and took the very short walk down to the river.

The first rapid of the day is right in the beginning of the trip, a long class IV+ rapid called "The Wall", named for the large highway retaining wall on river left.  The Wall is a fun rapid, a boulder garden with lots of possibilities for clean lines and a few ugly looking lines.  I spent much of the trip trying to stay in the back of the pack, for a couple of reasons, 1) I'd never been down the run before and I wanted to have time to pick the line that I liked the best and 2) there were a ton of people all bounding down the rapids at the same time, and I don't like to be crowded when I want to make a move.

After The Wall there are several other smaller rapids before reaching Chaos Cascade and Perfection Of Whitewater.  Chaos cascade starts off with a big boof - that I missed - and followed by more boulder gardens and ledges.

After more fun smaller rapids we reached POW, a class V that I wanted to scout.  Jon, Chip, and I eddied out on river right and exited our boats, but not before Jon was broached on a rock and nearly flushed down into POW by himself.  After scouting the line I saddled up and began charging to the spot I was keying off of. On my approach to the first horizon line I got hung-up on a sub surface rock which slowed me down considerably, I paddled up to the first ledge and took a boof stroke, and was immediately flipped over.  Crap, class V, must roll.  I rolled up right as I was pushing up against a rock, the current flipped me over and I went over a significant ledge upside-down, a second roll resulted in being flipped over by either an opposing current or a wave or a rock, it's really hard to say.  When I rolled a third time I found my self side surfing in a significantly large and funny shaped hole at the bottom of the rapid.  I spent the next 30-60 seconds wrangling around trying to find a way out of the hole, several of these attempts resulted in being flipped again and again, a few other resulted in a front surf, and few others resulted in more side surfing.  The last time I flipped over the green water grabbed me and flushed me out, I rolled up and heard everyone and their grandmother yelling and hollering, I raised my arms in triumph, and then moments later realized that I was not quite done with the rapid, there was still a sizable ledge to navigate, which I did.

It's funny how even when you manage to completely botch a run in the biggest rapid of the day, there is still an element of joy that you're able to get out of it.  Plus, you never tell stories about the time you have a clean line, you tell stories about the time you spent nearly the entirety of POW upside-down in your kayak, and then had a Rodeo session at the bottom.  Now that's fun stuff.

Always an Adventure 2010

This summer was filled with Thrills, Spills, a little drama, and of course; lots of rafting. There is a lot to say so I will attempt to stick to the big events and be short and sweet.

I moved down to BZ Corners on June 12th and set up camp at Russ and Joetta's property, I had myself a nice camp that had some morning sun but shade the rest of the day which was key in the middle of June. The R&J camp had many residents this summer, at the hight of the season there was an influx of guides from the River Riders, but for the most part it was myself, Derek and Raquel, Steve, Woody, Matt and Monica, and Russ Jr and Angie.

The rafting season as a whole was pretty slow, the spring was cold and wet so that kept the people away, and during the summer even when it was hot and beautiful in BZ, Portland was cold and wet; continuing to keep the people away. We had a good snow year on Mt. Adams so we had plenty of water in the river throughout the summer which was great, but too bad the public doesn't know that.

During high water we at All Adventures did fine with no major incidents or carnage, and as soon as the water came down to 2.75 ft, then life got interesting. At 2.75 it was time to start running the mighty Husum falls, and we at AA were all excited/nervous to get our first runs over the falls behind us. On the same day Jonny and MJ ran the falls in the morning, and Armstrong and I ran it in the afternoon. We all had mixed results but all ran "clean", ie we didn't flip or swim all of the people in our boats. I have some great shots of the summer activities here, I love that rapid "because it's like NASCAR baby, those people didn't come to see you have a good line, they came to see you crash".

Jp and I managed to fit in a few extra-curricular kayaking trips to the Orletta section of the White Salmon, as well as some trips down the commercial stretch. On the last full moon of the summer about 25 of us managed to do a full moon float down the river. THAT was a night to remember, we put-on the river at about 10:30/11:00pm and August 24th, the moon was nice and high, the sky clear, and spirits high. By the time we reached Husum falls it was about 12:40 am on August 25th (my birthday). I had been hemming and hawing all night whether I intended to run the falls, and by the time I was running the rapid above it I had decided that there was no time like tonight to run it. So Jp and I ran it Blue Angel style with me out on point. The moon was shining right on the drop, but the water leading up to the falls was black with no aeration and I wasn't able to key off of all the typical points. As I came down the line I was very disoriented, until the very lip where the water became aerated and reflected the light. At this point I knew where I was took my last two strokes, planted a big boof stroke at the lip, landed nice and flat in the pool, but I had no forward momentum and was sucked back into the falls, and took a brutal beating in the falls, I swam and was flushed into the right eddy next to the falls just in time to watch JP come rocketing to the surface like Red October. After pushing my boat down stream, swimming after it, recovering it from JP, and getting all my pieces togeather, the whole gang paddled down to The Lahar to camp for the night. We spent the rest of the night sitting around the campfire, drinking beer and laughing about the night.

After the season ended for me I took off to the Tieton river to kayak and socialize for the next week and a half. The Tieton may not be world class whitewater, but I had the most fun while on this river. the biggest reason for fun was the fact that I had no responsibilities, and Jonny and I were able to just have fun and not have the specter of commercial rafting looming over our heads. All we did was paddle, party, and imbibe. I was able to meet a lot of new people, and spend quality time with old ones. The weather wasn't the best but it could have been much worse, the biggest bummer was the lack of quality water volume, the river peaked at 2,000 CFS which is about a 1,000 lower than usual.

So summer is coming to an end, I'm getting ready to purchase books for school and get geared up for the winter. I'll be heading home to MA in October for Nathan and KC's wedding which is going to be a hooooot! By the time I come back to the NW the rain will be here and I will be in boating mode again, I'm getting my wish list together, and soon enough me and my buddies will be back at it again, exploring rivers and having adventures (hopefully not too much adventure).

Here are some highlights from the summer, enjoy.

A Memorable Memorial Day

Memorial Day Weekend 2010

For this Memorial day, some friends and I did a tour of the central and eastern slope of the cascade range to find some whitewater. I met Jon Shelby and Texas Dave at the eastgate park and ride to car pool up to Fall In The Wall where we planned to meet Chipper and jP to run some laps on a Northwestern classic. When we checked the gauge the water was definitely high, we scouted all the drops and they looked good to go, until I saw the Fearsome Foursome. Boy were they fearsome looking, four successive ten foot drops with short fast moving pools between each drop. It would have been mine and the majority of the groups first time down, and the first timers decided that we didn't want to scare ourselves on our first run. So we made a consensus and decided to go run the Middle Fork Snoqualmie river, a straightforward class III-IV run.

Before we went to the river though we felt that a stop at the local BBQ place was in order, a consolation prize if you will. We found our way to the put-in and discovered that the river was coffee and cream brown and moving downhill fast. Since we were all in creek boats this run wasn't going to be the best because of our inability to surf, but because of the high water it ended up being a fun run.

The run is wide open and every rapid has multiple lines, so we all did our best to turn the run into a good work-out and work on some fundamental skills.

As we approached "house rocks" rapid - a long series of large boulders that create large holes and waves - jP said to me "down here in the middle there is a big hole that gets pretty serious, go around it or go through it, you'll be fine". Famous last words. As I boogied down I saw the large hole, and as I passed it I saw jP dropping into it backwards. Intentionally or by accident? I won't know until I ask, but either way jP started a long side surfing session. Chip, Jon and I eddied out just down stream of the hole and watched jP try and find his way out. All I could see of him was his paddle bracing on top of the foam pile, bobbing up and down and occasionally shooting off to one side of the hole only to be tractor beamed back to the middle of the hole. This went on for what felt like the better part of a minute, finally he was able to get off a corner and flip over which grabbed at some water flushing down stream. He rolled up red faced with a look of "wow didn't expect that to happen". We all hooted and hollered and banged our paddles on our boats in celebration.

Down stream Jon decided that he didn't want to be out done by jP, so he either intetionally or unintentionally dropped into a big hole on river left to catch a surf. As I floated by thinking "again?" I watched Jon try and bury the bow in the green water to pop out. Today was definitely turning into a rodeo day.

We played our way do to the take out and our cars. This section of whitewater was fun, but I probably won't be back in the near future.

We saddled back up in the cars and headed back to the park and ride. From there Jon and I drove to his house where I would crash for the night. At the house Jon, Katie and I bought some burgers, braughts, beers and barbecued. We spent the night making conversation and making fun of the dog, and oh yeah, talked about kayaking.

In the morning I geared up and headed out to pick up jP at his place to go run the China Gorge of the Cle Elum river. Unfortunately Jon couldn't join us because he had prior engagements, but there is always next time. I picked up jP at 9 am and by 9:15 we were on the road heading to meet James, Oliver, Kris, and Brian. I was really excited because this was a section of river I had wanted to run and also the group was some of my favorite people to paddle and spend time with, the weekend promised to be a winner.

We met James at his campsite along the Cle Elum river and started getting excited about the prospect of the days activities. The weather wasn't great - over cast and cool - but it wasn't raining so I couldn't really complain. Once Brian and Kris caught up with the group we all made way to the take out to change and load up in cars to go to the put-in. We discovered the river to be on the low side, but still runnable and would be fun.

At the put-in we discovered that Scott and Keenan were there scouting the first class V triple drop, with their friend Jeff. Most of us opted out of running the first falls because it was literally the first rapid, if we had been given the opportunity to warm up a bit it might have been a different story, but none of us liked the prospect of swimming in the first rapid so we put in below the first two drops and ran the third instead.

Keenan and James on the other hand were ready to run it, james wanted to because he is badass, and Keenan because he is 17 and doesn't know any better, I think the term is young, dumb and full of ... something. Anyway, they both had clean lines in the first two drops, but in the third I thought Keenan was going to drop into the nasty terminal eddy on river right, but he ended up running clean.

Half way down the run I was floating downstream and as I came through a pool I see our friend Jared standing on the shore. Apparently he had tried to meet us at the put-in but missed so he went down stream in an attempt to catch us on our way down. I told him to get changed quick and that we would wait for a bit. Some folks got out of their boats to stretch their legs, but that boy got dressed so fast that not everyone even got a chance to relax. James asked him if there was a phone booth up there and we all laughed. It was scary how fast he changed, a feat that would have been on display at the traveling freakshow during the 1800's.

Once we had all ran the third drop we eddied out and decided that our group and Scott and Keenans group should run separately from each other because the eddies would get really crowded with such a large group careening down the rive together. So our flotilla peeled out and started down stream, the run was basically read and run class IV for the first several miles, with only a few drops that one person needed to scout so they could point the way for the rest of the group. The one drop we were concerned about was S-turn, for a couple of reasons, mainly because it's the only drop that requires a scout, secondly because it's walled in and there was the potential for wood, and thirdly because it sneaks up on you and there are very small eddies leading up to it and with a large group it could be dangerous.

We scouted for a long time because we noticed some wood downstream that was obscured by a boulder in the middle of the river, so Jared put on his monkey mask and scrambled up the extremely steep river right bank in an attempt to get visual conformation of the wood. Several minutes later he scrambled down with mixed news; the wood was obscuring the whole river but there was a big eddy that could be caught to avoid the wood. Another issue was that the main line had wood in it that could have easily gone unnoticed, but given it's location very dangerous if one were to become entangled in it. So we put in on river right in a small pool and made the move from there

While we were scouting a red object floated down S-turn with a perfect line down the middle. That red object turned out to be Keenan's paddle, upstream he had either dropped it or had it ripped out of his hands. Because we were all out of our boats scouting all we could do was watch the paddle run the rapid. It ran the main move, but then got stuck in a nasty looking eddy pocket against the river left wall, it spent about ten minutes swirling around in it before flushing out of it. Scott and Keenan's group didn't have a spare paddle so poor Keenan had to hike out to the road, because of the loss of one of their paddlers Scott and Jeff joined our group.

After James, jP, and Chip ran I dropped in, the move was easy but forced you to get close to a big scary curling wave that came off of a rock in the middle of the river. Driving hard from right to left I turned on the afterburners and made the move past the rock and caught the eddy in the pool. I stayed in the pool between the two drops in order to catch any potential swimmers or lost gear, adding an additional element of safety.

Everyone ran the drop, some with cleaner lines than others but no swimmer in the first part of the drop. Jared swam above the log because he missed a few rolls and didn't want to drift into the wood upside down in his kayak.

After we all portaged the wood we made our way down stream again, running class IV boogie. After running a class IV set of waves and holes I came down into a small hall way that had a log obscuring the river left side of the slot, but had a line on the right. But as I came into sight of the wood I also saw Oliver pinned on the log, he was facing upstream and upright, but his stern was stuffed under the wood. I quickly caught an eddy next to him and began to assess the situation. jP was already on the log climbing down to Oliver followed by Kris, and Chip had climbed out onto the shore opposite Oliver and jP. This is where things got hairy. JP was able to get right down to river level and talk to Oliver and figure out what was going to work best, then suddenly Chip starts Yelling at jP to tie a rope to the boat to unpin him. This was extremely unhelpful, jP started yelling back for him to shut up and that the situation was handled. As a constant mediator I told jP to keep doing what he was doing, and for Chip to "shut the fuck up". It was eventually decided that Oliver would just climb out of his boat and carry his boat over the log and get back in on river right.

This situation was bad for a few reasons, the main one being the argument between Chip and jP during the extraction, and in this situation Chip was way out of line. For one unpinning the boat was not the primary concern, Oliver was above water and stable, getting him stabilized and out of the boat was the top of the agenda. Chip was ignoring the hierarchy of needs, also he was ignoring the hierarchy of the situation, jP was the first on scene so therefore he was the one in charge, he had already developed a plan and was remaining calm. But when Chip started yelling it added the element of panic to the situation that was unhelpful. I was glad that I was there so I could observe the situation, and calm them both down. Even after they had extracted Oliver they were still going at it and I continually told them to "fucking drop it we'll deal with this off the river", falling back on my experience as a raft guide to de-brief the situation once off the water. I hate having to yell at my friends but somebody had to step in and get Chip to back off and jP to calm down.

Brian Running China Falls

The rest of the trip went smoothly, we got to China falls and all had clean lines, Scott even got some footage of me and the gang running the drop that you can watch at this link, I'm wearing all orange in an orange boat. The sun came out right at that moment and really made it a nice day.

jP planting the boof stroke...

...and boofing.

That night we made camp, and for the first time in quite a while I had to share space with other people, I have become spoiled by camping in secluded and out of the way places. But because of the memorial day weekend, every city kid, family and other mutant was out camping around us. As we pulled into camp there was a scene going on in one of the parking areas, a kid (probably between 18 and 21) was standing on the running board of a suburban and jumping up and down going "whoo... whoo... whoo" with a look on his face of complete idiocy. We dubbed him Whoo-man, because for the rest of the evening Whoo-man would yell into the night "whoo", about every 15 minutes of so. None of us were trying to sleep so it wasn't a big deal, but the whoo became a mantra fro the rest of the weekend.

James below China Falls

The whole night there was drama coming out of their camp, yelling and fights, disagreements in the parking area, and creating a mess. When I crawled into my sleeping bag at 1 am they were still getting at it. During the night James and Kris went over to the camp to observe what was going on. Apparently it was a war zone, tents and campsites in disorder, tents pushed over, trash and all sorts of mayhem. When they pulled into camp there was a fight breaking out over someone sitting in the wrong camp chair, and James stated to the group that "just so everyone knows, I'm OK standing". I wish I could have been there to see that. Also they found several people and whoo-man passed out in the trail and covered in sticks and trash. Those stupid city kids with no sense.

In the morning I took a walk while I was eating breakfast around 7:30 am, I walked out to the bridge that crosses the Cle Elum and looked up stream to see a disaster area. One of the mutants camp sites were completely destroyed and had been pushed into the river. A tent, several camp chairs, and what appeared to be a BBQ were in the water, additionally there were clothes floating in an eddy beneath the bridge. This scene further reminded me that I really enjoy hanging with the type of people that I associate with.

That day we had planned on running the Cooper river, but discovered that the river had not dropped as much as we had anticipated and was still at a high level. JP was stoked and wanted to get on the river but Brian, Oliver, Kris and I weren't too stoked to run the river for the first time at nuclear flows. So James and jP decided that they would do a run and give us a report on the level. while they were on the river we hung out near the last rapid of the trip and threw logs into a nasty looking hole and observed how many times they got recirculated. Also I got to ride James' mountain bike around the trails which was a nice consolation prize.

When the boys got off they said that it went but it was definitely high and "full on". With that information the rest of us opted out of taking a second lap. We formulated a new plan; the plan was to eat and have a beer at the local bar called "The Brick", which turned out to be the states longest continually running bar, the liquor license number is 1. The town of Roslyn turns out to also be where they shot the '90's classic TV show "Northern Exposure". I saw a sign that said Dr. Joel Fleischman and asked "does this town have a Northern Exposure theme or something?" The quick response was "they shot the show here", "Oh I guess that makes sense then" I responded.

For the night we drove over to Snoqualamie pass with intentions to camp near Fall In The Wall and wake up the next morning and run laps on the steep and short FITW. When we got to the gauge the level was lowish but runnable, most of the gang decided to get some laps in that night, but Kris and I weren't highly motivated to get wet and get in a few laps before dark, so we helped shuttle folks and watch them run the last few drops. Every one had clean lines and after about three laps we headed down to camp for the night.

The campsite we were located at is such a funny little oasis, it was huddled down in the valley between the north and southbound lanes of I-90. When your driving by you'd never guess that the space between the highway was anything less than a median strip. While we were down there you could barely even notice that there was a mass of humanity and diesel flowing by overhead.

That night the jokes about Whoo-man continued, we drank more beer, and ate good food, we also made a fire out of some loading pallets that we had procured on our way over the pass. Unfortunately the weather had not been the sunny warm and wonderful experience we had hoped for. While we were in Cle Elum the weather had been cool and overcast the entire time, with a few patches of sun that came through. While we were near FITW it was even worse, a steady mist that built to a light rain that was enough to be uncomfortable but not unbearable. Around midnight I laid down to sleep for the evening.

In the morning we made breakfast at a leisurely pace, and packed up camp before we went kayaking for the day. When we got to the put-in and checked the gauge we discovered that it was going to be a perfect level, a good medium, enough water to cover all the little rocks but not so high that all the drops were running together. On the first run down jP talked me through all the lines and contingency plans in case my line was less than ideal.

The Fearsome Foursome (four large ledges - about 10 feet each - that are separated by short slow moving pools) were definitely intimidating, but the actual move was pretty benign, it was just a matter of getting in the right spot with the right angle. The first two were large sliding ledges, followed quickly by the third which is a sliding ledge that leads into a ski-jump boof, a really run move that makes you feel like a rock star. The fourth is a delayed boof down the middle or a rock scrape down the left. Below is a log limbo drop, as a tall fellow I've never been fond of the log limbos, but this one was high enough that it was manageable but still spooky. The last several drops are much smaller and less scary than the foursome. We quickly boogied down to the take-out and hiked back up for two more laps.

On the second and third laps I had to pull out one of jP's contingency plans above the third drop in the foursome, a back ferry away from the left side of the drop that smashes into the left wall at the bottom. It went just as he described, it was like a tractor beam setting me up perfectly for the drop.

After our third we decided that we were wupped from the weekend and that we wanted to get back to the land of the living and take care of some business. So we packed up and hit the road.

By the time I got back to jP's house in Seattle the sun had come out and a nice afternoon breeze was rolling through. Thanks for the insult mother nature. All-in-all it was a great weekend, I got to paddle with some of my favorite people, and ran three new rivers, not a bad way to spend the memorial day weekend.

Going to the Ball

Friday May 21st-23rd 2010

When I came to the Northwest the resource I used to start meeting kayaker's and to start getting on the water was professorpaddle.com. It is a Washington whitewater community website, imagine if Facebook was a website dedicated to whitewater, and that you actually knew the people you interacted with. For the past 5 years different people have organized what is affectionately called the Professor Paddle Ball, a group of about 100 folks come from around the state to converge on Leavenworth, WA to camp, paddle, party, and make mischief. This year was especially fun because I was not just hanging out with strangers but with the many friends that I have made paddling in the Northwest over the past year and a half.

On Friday morning Jon Shelby and I loaded up into the truck to drive over the pass with intentions of doing some paddling on the way over to the Ball. We had our sights set on a sections of whitewater known as Fall In The Wall (S. Frk. snoqualmie) or the acronym FITW. It is a VERY short (about a quarter mile) and steep section of class IV-V whitewater, traditionally people will show up and hangout all day while running laps on it. Put-in, bomb down, hike up, repeat.

When we arrived at the put-in to check the gauge, we discovered a very low FITW, we sat around and waffled for a bit and eventually decided that we didn't want to abuse our boats any more than we needed too. So we kept driving towards Lev in search of whitewater. As we approached town we passed by jP's unmistakable military brown van parked at the take-out of Ingalls and Peshastin Creek. I applied the breaks, banged a youie, and pulled my car up next to his, we pulled out the camp chairs and walked down to rivers edge to wait for the group to come down. Our plan being that they could give us a ride to the put-in on their way back to the top to retrieve cars, a good scheme if I don't say so myself.

After a bit of waiting some brightly colored objects rounded the corner and we greeted them jovially. After a bit of milling around jP gave us a ride to the top and Jon and I paddled down the steep and fun Ingalls creek, Ingalls is a short one mile stretch with continuous class IV rapids. The water level was low but not ELF (Extremely Low Flow), I managed to keep my boat off the rocks and in the wet spot. Jon and I took turns leading down the river, and had a ton of fun. At the confluence with Peshastin the gradient flattens out and we boogied through continuous class III wave train's and holes.

After a clean run we loaded up and made way to the Ball grounds, where Jon quickly got working on the task of becoming inebriated, he was quite successful at this task, and by night fall was already slurring and playfully insulting friend and foe alike. He was in rare form. The night consisted of a bonfire, keg beer, good eats, and catching up with long lost friends, telling stories about our kayaking exploits and telling a few white lies about kayaking too (what good is a story if you don't fudge some of the details, right?).

The following day there were two events that I was involved in, the first being the creek race that took place on lower icicle creek (class IV+), and judging the freestyle rodeo with Jon. The creek race was super fun because I was able to raft for the first time in a while, Hans Hooman and I R-2'd down the fast, pushy, and continuous creek. We didn't have a big field of competition, but we did have a serious head-to-head competition with some friends of ours, Tom and Kira. After all the kayakers had started, we peeled out after them. Because Hans had never been down this stretch of river before I was pointing directions and leading us down the river. At the crux ledge we weren't quite in the spot we wanted to be but came out with the smiling side up. Down stream we had a unexpected interaction with a log that was sticking out into the river, it was about five feet above the water and obscuring the channel that we had gotten into by accident. As we approached the log Hans got down in the floor of the raft to limbo the log, and because he was unable to leave enough space for me to join him I hurtled the log as we approached it instead. I jumped over and landed in the front compartment of the raft, putting those 6th grade track skills to work.

Tom and Kira Loading up their raft

From here the rest of the run went smoothly, and we finished in first place, we had finished in 7:25 seconds and won a throwbag and drybag, also bragging rights until next year. The worst part of the experience was carrying the rafts up the very steep path to the cars.

That afternoon I paddled with Jon down to "Grannies" - a large wave/hole feature - to judge the rodeo. It was fun to lay down judgement on everyone, "that was average", "that was below average" etc. No one managed to stay on the feature for the full extent of the alloted time, but there was some impressive displays of freestyle kayaking. My friend Nick won the comp by a landslide in his C-1, throwing down tricks with the most grace and the biggest tricks very cool to watch.

Fish tearing it up on Grannies

Why not?

After the conclusion of the rodeo I surfed a beautiful glassy wave just down stream of grannies that was super fast and fun, I was paddling a long boat with good hullspeed so I was the only person able to surf that beauty, probably the only person to surf it all day. After two laps on that I peeled out and headed for the take-out. Having never paddled this section of river I wasn't too sure where this was but figured it would present itself pretty obviously, afterall I was on the most popular stretch of whitewater in WA. This turned out not to be true, the take out is tucked up in a cove on the right side of an island, and because I was following the current on the left side of the island I missed it. I was also in speed mode in an attempt to get a good workout to finish off my day, also I was trying to work on my forward stroke so I was very focused on the task at hand. After about twenty minutes of paddling down stream I realized that I hadn't seen anyone in a while, and that I hadn't caught up to anyone. I began to get nervous, untill I came up to Wenatchee state park. Here I asked a gentleman what park this was and quickly found out that is was not Cashmere park and that it was several miles back upstream. Luckily there was a rafting outfit at the park for one reason or another. They were a youth ministries group that was finishing up a trip (praise the lord), all young kids that were from the midwest who were working for this company for the summer. As a fellow raft guide I expected a group of rowdy raft guides that were going to make fun of me for missing the take-out all the way back to the park, but because they were youth ministers they were the most polite and friendly folks I could have asked for. When I departed with them I said "bless your hearts", I figured it was only appropriate.

Back at the ball a relieved Jon greeted me at my car, he had though I had gotten my own ride back to camp and was pissed that I had ditched the group, but when he arrived back at the ball and I wasn't around he became worried. Luckily I had the lord on my side to get me back on track.

That night was another night of bonfires, drinking and general jollity. The event organizers had gotten lots of raffle prizes, and had a raffle where they gave away tons of stuff. They also auctioned off a brand new kayak, the proceeds of the auction went to a fund for a kayaker who was a big part of the paddling community but had broken his neck while mountain biking after going over the handlebars. they raised over 2000 dollars for his fund, so it was all for a good cause.

The following day a group of us slowly - very slowly - had breakfast, and geared up for a play trip on the Wenatchee. We had a good group of folks, Jon Shelby, Nick Hinds, Fish, Brian, Sam, and four ladies in Brian's raft. Fish and I paddled our longboats so we could surf the big fast and fun glassy waves that modern play boats are too slow to catch. We had a BLAST! The water level was too low for many of the surf waves to be any good, but fish and I we were surfing everything that we could find. Fish caught the surf of the century on an enormous glassie called "trinity", he must have surfed that thing for a minute and a half, carving all over the face hitting the curling shoulder and coming back to the face, it was a beautiful thing to watch.

The raft ladies, myself, and Jon Shelby ruining a perfectly good photo opportunity.

Brian and I also got to surf his raft in "turkey shoot", we even managed a couple of back surfs and spins. We also surfed a really small raft called a mini-me, a 9 foot raft that is more like an inner tube than a raft.

At the conclusion of the day we drove back to camp and hurriedly packed up before a downpour rolled overhead and soaked everything not stuffed into the car.

All-in-all the weekend was super fun, I got to see all my friends in the same place, at the same time, I got to meet some folks that I only knew by reputation, and made some new connections. the Ball is a good time had by all and I am already looking forward to next years festivities.

Warm days on Yellowjacket Creek

Saturday, May 15th 2010

Yellowjacket Creek 1660 cfs.

Class IV-V

8 miles?

After many weeks of waiting, Yellowjacket creek came into an ideal level to run for the first time, only one issue; all of the regulars "had other plans". So Friday night I was making the frantic phone calls to everyone in the phone chain, and before I got a chance to call Jared, he called me. What a relief! Jared and his friend Jerry, who is from Seattle were going to meet me in Morton and were excited to run a cool section of whitewater.

We were going to run a uncommonly run section of Yellowjacket creek by putting on upstream of the typical put-in. The upper section includes more class III and IV rapids, and a class V waterfall, adding an additional 3+ miles to an already quality section of whitewater.

We park our car at the bridge that crosses Yellowjacket on FR 28 rd and loaded up to head to the goods. Once ready we drove 7+ miles before we reached an obvious triple fork in the road and decided that we had likely found the alternate put-in. We were able to park just seconds from the river, which is much better than the traditional put-in which utilizes a class V hike down a steep hill over loose gravel that takes the better part of an hour, but all we had to do was jaunt down to the river.

The put-in had a monster old growth tree laying in the river and the remnants of a bridge that had washed out years ago. I took a long time stretching because I had spent the better part of Friday weed-wacking and was more sore than I cared to be. And thankfully I did. The description I had read stated that there was only class III rapids above the waterfall, but the rapid directly below the put-in was definitely a class IV. The put-in rapid was a boulder garden with a line that zig-zagged down the middle.

Below the put-in drop was read-and-run class III shoals and ledges, and woody rapids. From the put-in to the traditional put-in there was a fair amount of annoying wood. None of it was very dangerous, and much of it we could paddle through or around, but there was also a bit that needed to be portaged at river level. All easy portages, but were obscuring the exit of several class III drops with no eddy mid rapid to catch so we would be forced to portage the whole drop.

After a bit of this we came to our next big rapid, which had some wood in it. But this rapid was also above a significant horizon line, with a narrow line in it. If this rapid didn't have wood in it it would still be a serious rapid because it was in very close proximity to an unrunnable drop. We portaged around the entrance drop and the log-choked-falls. The falls required downclimbing to a small eddy, and lowering the boats down the cliff. The rapid below was cool because there was wood spiderwebbing overhead that we paddled under before making a move to the right to boof a ledge at the bottom, really fun.

Entrance rapid to unrunnable Log Choked falls

Spider webbing logs in run-out

Pondering the improbable Photo by Jerry Palushock

After this we encountered a class IV+ maybe V rapid that had a ugly looking entrance drop that had a slide into confused water that eventually pushed you far left against the wall before you had to paddle hard to the right through a boulder garden to the bottom of the drop. When I looked at the drop it made me uneasy, but when I saw Jared run clean I figured it must be good to go. I ran second followed by Jerry, all of us had clean lines.

After a few more wood dodges we came to the waterfall that we all came down here for, which for now I will call Upper Yellowjacket falls. Initially Jared scouted from the left because that was the side we eddied out on and it ended up being a nuisance. Jared tried giving me verbal beta, but it wasn't matching up with a picture of the falls I had seen, so I walked back to my boat and paddled across the river to scout from the river right side. This ended up working out for the best for us because I was able to take some shots of Jerry and Jared running the falls, and then Jerry was able to take some shots of me from below. Which I was excited about because I rarely have any pictures of me. Jared ran first and had a clean line and so did Jerry.

Jared in entrance rapid to falls

This drop wasn't even the hardest rapid we had ran yet today, but it was definitely the most consequential, and the tallest I have likely ever run, from pool to pool I would guess 20 feet. The entrance rapid was pretty significant, and the current coming out of the entrance rapid was all pushing to the right side of the drop which is a 15 foot fall onto bedrock. I gave them the signal that I was going to run, and then it started. My heart began to pound, and I got butterflies in my throat, and I needed to take deep breaths every so often. It's weird running big drops, I always feel like a spring in a watch that someone keeps winding and winding, and then you get in your boat and put your skirt is on, and everything changes. I splash some water in my face and make the decision that the time is now and the heart stops pounding, my breath becomes normal and you start paddling. Make the first move into the eddy, start paddling out the back of the eddy with a right angle, one, two, three strokes, boof stroke, and BOOF, landing flat in the water, and that spring that was formerly wound so tight just broke and now you yell. It always amazes me how the body reacts to stress like that, the anticipation is the worst, and then when it's time to face the challenge something in the reptilian brain kicks in and there is only focus, no thought, just reaction to your paddling instincts.

The fun big waterfall. Photo by JerryPalushock

BOOF!

Flyin'

All of us were ecstatic, I spent a few minutes paddling around below the falls just checking it out, so fun, and in reality not the hardest thing I've done, funny how the brain plays tricks on you.

Below the falls was our next portage, this time due to a 30 foot waterfall that landed on a bedrock shelf that protruded from the left shore. Again we scouted even though we knew we were not running it, it just feels cool to stand on the edge of something that big. We opted not to jump into the pool, but if I run this again, I definitely would jump rather than walk around the drop. The portage wasn't difficult, just hot and steep, I must have sweat an ounce of water during the whole thing. We decided that we would carry our boats to a bluff then I would climb down and the others would lower them to me. Easier said than done. The boats would get stuck half way down, and then with some slack out would come loose and come rocketing out of the woods like some sort of plastic missile, heading straight for me before catching the end of the rope and slamming against the wall. Each boat had it's own particular way that it came flying out of the woods, only announced by the breaking of branches on it's way down.

By the time everyone got back to river level I had scouted the next drop and was ready to go, all the sweat was cooling me down and I didn't want to get cold. So I paddled around in the pool while Jared and Jerry cooled off from their hike, and then I ran the slide while Jerry took photos. It was a fun slide very fast and straightforward. I caught the eddy and took pictures of the other two coming through and gave directions for the next part of the rapid.

Standing on the edge

Below the big one

Fun slide below big unrunnable drop. Photo Jerry Palushock

Now that we were below this rapid we had started on what is the traditional put-in. The first rapid was covered in wood and Jerry and I portaged down the right, and Jared portaged down river center on the log, he had to get a bit creative but he made it work. The rest of the river was class III and IV read-and-run. Really fun drops, and nothing scary. Lots of continuous boulder gardens and ledges and other fun features. We were able to make good time on this part because all of the wood had gotten hung up in the first drop. We meandered through several vertical walled gorges, and took in the scenery in the afternoon light. Eventually the river opened up as it came close to the confluence with the Cispus river.

By the time we reached the take out I was exhausted and reminded to bring a snack on the river with me. This section of whitewater was the super fun and I would definitely run it again. This was also the first day I had paddled in sunny warm weather on the west side of the cascades, a nice change from the regular season. All in all it was a super fun day, it took be all of Sunday to recover, but it was still super fun.

Bushwacking on the Duckabush

Saturday May 8th 2010.

Taryn and I spent this Saturday hiking to, along, above, and in the Duckabush river. The Duck is located about an hour north of Olympia, and flows from the Olympic National Park into Hood canal. The river itself is relatively small in volume and had a blue/green tint to it.

Ranger Hole Trail

The weather was beautiful, it was the first real nice weekend of the spring, and because of this everyone was out and about. The fishermen had their boats buzzing up and down the canal, divers were donning their gear in pullouts along the road, and every family with 2.67 kids was dotting highway 101 from Skokomish to Hoodsport. It was the first day that I felt compelled to take off my sweatshirt, I even broke a significant sweat.

We left Oly around 9:30 am and made it to the trailhead around 10:30-11:00. I was concerned that the trail would be crowded because it is short in length and easily accessible. But to my relief most people only went as far as Hoodsport, easily distracted by the roadside attractions.

My main motivation for going to the Duck was because there is a gorge that is described in the guide book, but the only information is that it exists and that access to it is difficult because it is waaaaay down in a steep gorge. So I was compelled to take a weekend away from boating and scamper around in the woods and see what sort of river ran through the heart of the gorge.

Taryn and I hiked down the easy and short trail to where it meets the river. The trail ends on a bluff that looks over a ledge called "ranger hole" (because of the ranger cabin at the trailhead), and a pool that was the best color of blue/green. Here we sat on the bluff in the sun for a bit and enjoyed the sound of the river. Soon the sun began to overheat me so I began scrambling over the shore and other bluffs so I could get a good look at the rapid above "ranger hole".

Pool below "ranger hole"

The upper rapid was a fun looking class IV rapid that lead into "ranger hole", a boulder garden with two ledges that ran down the river left side, with a bit more water they looked like they would be fun. After seeing this I got excited and wanted to see what was further up stream, so Taryn and I bushwacked around and over a bluff that could not be climbed at river level. Above the fun rapid was a disappointment, flat water stretched for about 150 yards before a bend in the river obscured my view.

Rapid above "ranger hole"

So we took a few minutes to soak our feet in the freeezing water before 'shwacking back to our bags at the trail. Once back at the trail we started back up in search of several small trails that led to the river. The use of the term trail is misleading, because they were more like animal paths, but enough to notice and follow until they branched off in multiple directions. The first trail led us up onto a flat ridge and then down a steep hillside to the canyon rim.

We came down on top of a canyon wall that was 60 to 80 feet above the river. It was too sketchy to look over the edge but I could see up-stream well and a boulder garden that was fairly long and continuous, about 100 yards long before it went out of sight. What I was able to see looked quality and it motivated me to find more spots to access the river.

View through the trees from high on canyon rim

We hiked back to the trail and Taryn noticed a second trail just slightly further up the trail from where we exited the woods. This second one was littered with remnants from the logging that had gone on in these parts years ago. But this trail was a jack-pot. We were able to get right down to river level above where I had lost sight of the river from the bluff. By now rain had come and we weren't ready for it, so I was trying to be efficient with my time. I scrambled down a loose bank and was able to climb onto some boulders on river left and look up and downstream.

River level looking downstream. The second ledge had a serious hole.

river level looking upstream

The water level was a little low, but a lot more water would make this gorge a class V stretch. Everything I saw looked runnable at this level and class IV, with eddies and ledges, anything that couldn't be scouted from shore looked like would be boat scoutable. I tried to get upstream further but was blocked by another bluff, and the rain was on its way down so we headed back to the car. There was one bluff I climbed up on on the way out and was able to see what I believed to be the entrance to the gorge. According to beta on the American Whitewater page there is a boulder that blocks this entrance and make it an unrunnable drop. There was defiantly a significant loss of elevation in this spot but I was not able to visually confirm the boulder blocking the river. A bluff stuck out into my line of sight so all I could see was the shore and what I think is the lead-in to the canyon.

What I believe is the entrance to the canyon and where the boulder obstruction is

I'd like to go back in and scout the lead-in and the spot downstream of where I initially was able to see the gorge. The canyon is short but it looks quality. If I paddled it I'd run it at lower flows to determine what the drops were like. the guage said on this day that the river was at 1.65 ft. and recommended flows for the rapids above and below the gorge is 2.00 ft. That much water in the gorge would be big so it's hard to say what it would look like.

There is also a trail that I believe is the "portage trail", it is the most obvious of all the trails and has a sign that says "no hunting no trespassing" and a log and sticks placed there to block the path. This is likely the best way to see the boulder obstruction.

We ran out of time and weren't able to go down this last trail but instead went back to the car and ate our sandwiches. On the drive home we stopped at a park and Taryns car battery died and I asked a nice trio of three who were barbecuing in the sun and increasing wind. They were nice and helped us no problems. Were didn't want to ask the young mom in the car next to us who was yelling at her kids, and talking about her "baby daddy" (her words not mine) loudly with her friend.

The mission got me excited about going back and taking a look at what is down in all the places I wasn't able to see. But that will have to wait until next time.

Map

A Weekend in a Bavarian Wonderland: Whitewater on Icicle Creek

After the usual Friday afternoon phone chain, Jon and I had decided to go to Leavenworth for the weekend. Icicle creek was coming in for the spring snow melt and it was time to capitalize on what little snowpack we have.

I woke on Saturday morning to a car already packed and gassed, all that was required was gentle pressure on the gas pedal. About halfway there the plans changed and instead of just the two of us it would be a party of four. Jon, Jon's girlfriend Katie, and their Dog. We packed the Japanese station wagon as efficiently as possible, squeezed in, and made made way for the promised land of Leavenworth.

JS: "Where is the next town on the map"?

JH: "like 25-30 miles, why"?

JS: "The gas light turned on awhile ago".

JH: "Well, I watched a news special once where I learned that American cars get 30-40 miles after the light turns on, so we should be good"

Jon didn't look convinced, but I was confident. I had also seen it on Mythbusters and when I told him this he agreed that they were a reliable source and we hoped that we would all make it to the next town of Blewette. Which is in the middle of the Wentachee National Forest, and doesn't have a gas station unbeknownst to us. Luckily Blewette is at the top of the pass and we got good gas mileage down into the Wenatchee valley, "just drop it in neutral and let it run" I suggested. As we passed through the next town of Cashmere we were disappointed to find that the gas station that we had see in the distance was a former gas station. It had the pumps, no gas. One thing it did have was no shortage of mid nineties motorcycles for sale, a gentleman was looking at a tiny honda for his 10 year old son. We were definitely in the country.

At this point I was having feelings of deep foreboding, we had pushed our luck getting to the summit of the pass, and now I was developing images of us breaking down a quarter mile from the gas station and having to roll that small blue Honda down the breakdown lane to refill.

40 miles, 2 "towns", and 1 mountain pass later; we were at a gas station in Leavenworth. We had a good laugh over making it all the way to Leavenworth with the gas light on, mostly because the silly chucklehead from the city forgets to gas up before we left civilization. I bought some sushi from the Safeway for lunch, and then we drove on up Icicle creek valley in search of whitewater. We paddled the Lower section of Icicle creek, a class IV+ stretch of river located southwest of Leavenworth. At the put-in were we greeted by a gaggle of tourists posing for pictures in the parking lot, with the mountains in the background and asking us "are you gonna do that?"

We put on and immediately drop into a large class IV rapid that I will call "Bridge Rapid" for the most obvious of reasons. From there we picked our way down boulder gardens until we reached A steep ledge that we attempted to scout from the middle of the river with little luck in viewing what lay at the base of the ledge. So we tried sneaking around it and ended up becoming separated by an island. After a moment or two of scouting from shore for each other we made visual contact again and met up at the bottom of the rapid.

The gradient quickly leveled out after this and we floated down to the take out. Well, what we thought was the take-out, we accidently took out early at a retreat center and were eventually pointed in the right direction by a nice lady. Once at the real take out we became lost again, ending up on the wrong side of a fence and having to do some scrambling to get down to where we were going to meet Katie. Due to miscommunication Katie didn't know where to meet us and we ended up spending 2 hours waiting for her. It wasn't so bad, the air was warm the grass was soft, and our gear dried within the first hour. This day was turning into one mishap after the other.

Waiting for a ride

Once we were picked up we drove to the campground that we had planned to stay at and found that it was packed with climbers. We managed to bag the very last campsite. For the rest of the night we referred to the loop our site was adjacent to as the "loop of shame" because potential campers drove around in vain for a camp spot. For dinner we wrapped sweet potatoes, onions, asparagus, and bratwurst in foil and cooked those over the fire pit. A nice end to the day. We sat around the fire and drank beer and were eventually joined by Dan, Dave, and Adrian. It's so dry over on that side of the cascades that we didn't even need to pitch a tent, Dan, Adrian and I all crashed out in the open, a beautiful night.

I woke early the next morning (6:00 am), and was unable to fall back to sleep, so I managed to read until about 8:00 when everyone else roused for breakfast. I cooked bacon and eggs and then at 10 we rallied for a warm up on Lower Icicle. There was a scary swim by one individual on the trip, he swam in front of a undercut rock/sieve/logjam but was able to stop himself from flowing into it, and three of us were able to get into a position that if something bad did happen it would have been handled.

Take out for upper icicle, very steep.

After spending a considerable amount of time at the take out we drove up to the upper section of Icicle Creek to run the classic class IV-V boulder gardens. The run is a true classic, like riding your bike in the Pyrenees, from the first rapid to the last it doesn't let up. The run would have taken forever if I wasn't able to follow people down, otherwise scouting would have been necessary every 100 yards or so. The whole run went clean other than a little trouble in a rapid called "roadside attraction" where I spent some time surfing in a hole, but I worked it out and ran the rest of the drops clean.

At the horseshoe rock Jon, Adrian, and I took out where we met Katie and the rest of the gang floated down more whitewater to their cars. The three of us exchanged high fives and drank a beer after we changed into dry clothes. We sat at the base of "log limbo" and took in the scenery and talked about the day. The weather was beautiful and I knew spring was in full effect because my nose was full of snot due to allergies. I also managed to keep Katie's dog from jumping into the river and swimming a class V rapid. Not a bad day.

Take out and log limbo in the distance

On the way home we stopped in the Bavarian themed town of Leavenworth. The town has a town zoning ordinance that requires all buildings within the downtown area to have a Bavarian theme. It's the hokiest thing you've ever seen. Everyone thinks it adorable, but if you were from Germany you'd laugh at the sillyness of it. We stopped at the Bavarian themed Cold Stone ice cream parlor. Katie, Jon, and I gorged ourselves on decadent ice cream treats for the drive home. Upon finishing my mountain of ice cream I sunk into a food coma that wouldn't subside until I arrived back in Olympia.

All-in-all the weekend was a success. Fun times with fun people on fun rivers.