Gripped on class II

Sunday, January 24th, 2010

E. Frk. Humptulips Narrows 1400 CFS
Class II (IV)
5.0 Miles

On Saturday Kris and I had decided that we wanted to paddle our C-1's (The technical terminology used to refer to canoes in white water, C-1: one person decked canoe, OC-1: single person open deck canoe Etc.) , and Ben and his Girlfriend Shawna who had been in jP's group were going to join us. Kris and I are both novice canoers, but we're good whitewater folks so we weren't too nervous about the potential for swimming in a class II section of river. Ben would be in a kayak and so would Shawna, so they can look out for us if need be, at the very least they can pick up our paddles for us. So we thought.

We were slow going in the morning and didn't leave Kris' until noon, and by the time we had finished shuttle, and geared up it was already 2pm. "No worries" I thought, "still plenty of time to make it down this five mile section before dark". I took plenty of time to stretch my legs and warm up before I squeezed myself into the cramped C-1. We peeled out and I quickly grew accustomed to the single blade and high center of gravity, right up to the point when I flipped over in a slow moving pool. Luckily I was able to orient myself and roll the boat up with limited difficulty. At this point We could still see the put-in beach. My confidence was a little shaken.
The group began to make it's way down stream, and as we moved towards the gorge it became apparent that Shawna was not a competent class II paddler, in reality she was an introductory paddler, still not versed in the world of whitewater. She swam before we arrived at the first gorge. At this point I was feeling confident that I wasn't going to need saving, but was also aware that if I did swim I would need to clean up my own mess. Ben and Shawna were playing a game of "I'll yell where to go and you do your best to go there" and "I'm going to follow you so close that I hit the back of your boat". She was gripped, white-knuckle, tunnel vision, hyperventilating GRIPPED. So Kris and I would paddle ahead and point out the lines, and set safety for the nervous wreck that was barreling down the river behind us yelling "where do I go now" repeatedly, and "is that the last rapid" in the flat pools at the bottom of rapids. And the whole time Ben was so preoccupied with Shawna that it almost felt like we were on separate trips.

Everything went surprisingly well despite the two man circus behind us. We portaged around the unrunnable entrance rapid to the gorge, and then picked out way down to the landslide rapid that designates the end of the gorge and the last half mile of river. The landslide had fallen into the left side of the river at some point last year and had created a jumble of large boulders and aggregate in the river. There is a line down the right side of the rapid, a steep three foot ledge, initially I was going to walk this rapid, but when Kris (a less experienced C-1'er than myself) said he was going to give it a go, I had to run it as a matter of pride. Chris had some trouble in the swift water leading up to the drop, but came out upright. I paddled aggressively up to the lip, gave it my best boof stroke, landed in the confused water, broached and flipped. I flushed down stream into the pool, set up for my roll, and nailed it first time. WHOOOHOOO!
I had been telling Shawna that the landslide was the end of the big rapids, but my memory had deceived me had two of the most technical rapids of the day that guarded the take out. In the longest rapid, I took my first swim in a while. The entrance was a tricky reactionary wave with lots of confused water below it. I boofed the first ledge and then hit a strong eddy line, flipped and began to attempt my roll. After some monkeying around under the water I conceded to the fact that there was stuff down stream that I needed to be right side up as I passed by it, so I pulled my skirt, undid my thigh straps and swam out of my boat. I popped up and grabbed the stern loop and paddle and attempted to swim away from Woody Harrelson hanging out in the river. I was approaching the innocuous piece of wood and not making a distance with the paddle and boat in my hands. So at the last moment I ditched them both and swam around Woody. Once below I cleaned up my yard sale and swam into an eddy on river right. The $500.00 I spent on the dry suit were well worth it. I climbed out of the water with a bruised, but dry ego. Unfortunately my swim had prompted Shawna to walk to the drop, so this took a bit more time out of our already waining light.
Once we were all back in our boats we paddled the three hundred yards or so down to the bridge. By now Shawna was exhausted because her adrenaline gland had been pumping at 200 percent capacity for the past three hours. I've never seen someone so stoked to be done with a river trip. It was a gripped day on class II, Shawna was gripped for lack of knowledge and skill, Kris and I were gripped because of a lack of skill, and Ben was gripped because he knew that if this trip went badly he might not have a girlfriend on Monday morning. You can't buy that kind of fun.

First Post

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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