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.
