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.
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.
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