Injured Reserve

Over the past 20 years, I've rarely gotten injured badly enough that I couldn't go boating. I've gotten used to being able to push myself kayaking and rafting and not even being sore the next day. This year that changed. I spent part of the summer going to acupuncture for sore shoulders and elbows, and I've had to adopt some exercises to keep that at bay. Now, I'm having trouble with my feet. A few weeks ago on the Rogue River, I injured my right foot. As soon as it got better, I was moving some furniture into my house and I sprained my left foot.

The timing couldn't have been worse. With the rain over the past few days, the rivers all came up and the Middle Fork Snoqualmie was running just under 3000 cfs, which is a perfect level for my cataraft. I had been hoping all week to be able to do this run, and I had to sit this one out. I realize I could have asked people to carry my boat for me, but I would still have trouble pushing with my feet when I row.

I'm going to have to be a bit more careful from now on. I still have lots of boating to do, and I can't do it if I'm injured.

South Fork of the Eel River 1994

Ten Mile Creek, courtesy of Bill Tuthill

One of the most difficult and interesting trips I did in my early IK days was the SF Eel in Northern California. 1993 was a big year for me. I ended up running rivers 50 days that year, which is a lot harder when the closest reasonable runs are 3 hours away. I began 1994 with the same intensity, and I had a streak of 12 months where I had over 60 days total.

This run is usually done in the winter when rains bring up the flow, but the run is 16 miles, which makes for a long day. We did the run in February, so we had to get an early start or risk taking out in the dark. Several of us drove up the night before and camped out in a field just off Hwy 101 not far from the place where Ten Mile Creek comes right next to the highway.

There were 4 of us in IKs with one raft for support. I lent Old Bessie, my Sun Runner, to one of the guys and I ran my new Sotar II IK. We put in on Ten Mile Creek and paddled the first 4 miles with occasional class II rapids. After that, things picked up quickly. The last two miles of the creek have a gradient of close to 100 feet per mile, and the rapids are very hard to scout. We chose to read and run the nearly continuous class IV and IV+ rapids. At the bottom of the hardest rapid, I had my first flip - I hit a rock at the bottom of a steep drop and because my boat didn't have thigh straps or a footbrace (nobody we knew was using these yet), I went flying forwards. I hit my nose on my paddle when I put up my hands to help stop me. Luckily, I wasn't hurt and I got back in quickly.

At the confluence with the SF Eel, we had a snack and watched as one of the guys went up and ran the big rapid on the SF Eel upstream. Almost immediately, I flipped in a class III rapid. I waited for the raft to come and get me off a rock in the middle of the river, but he couldn't quite make it to me, so I ended up swimming the rest of the rapid.

During the next 6 miles, we ran several class IV and IV+ rapids. Half of us portaged the class V rapid, and I think only 1 person made it through without swimming. During this section, I swam 5 more times, but none of the swims were hard because they came at the end of hard rapids rather than at the beginning. It was much easier for me to get back into the Sotar II than the Sun Runner. At least I had it better than the guy in my Sun Runner - he ended up swimming 11 times that day.

For the last few miles of the run, there are several class III and IV rapids, but the intensity dropped considerably. At one point, a couple of us noticed some interesting trash in the woods along the river and we stopped to investigate. We discovered a whitewater kayak with gear inside, but no owner information. One of the guys towed the boat the rest of the way down the river. This led to a couple of swims for him, mostly because the kayak would take a different route around rocks and sometimes it would flip over and fill with water.

We made it to the end of the run with plenty of daylight to spare. This was one of the highlights of the year.

64 - 10/18 - Middle Middle and Club Stretch

The Middle Fork Snoqualmie can be very flashy this time of year. All week, we had just enough rain to get the flow up to just below good kayaking levels, and then a night of rain brought it up to a good rafting level just for the day. With the flow peaking at 1900 cfs, a group of us decided to run rafts and catarafts on an extended run of both the Middle Middle and Lower Middle (Club Stretch).

We put in around 1PM and pushed down the river. I would have liked a little more water, but dealing with rocks is good practice. I had solid runs on all of the rapids, and I got a couple of nice surfs.

By the next morning, the flow was down to under 1000cfs and dropping. Another lucky weekend.

63 - 10/17 - Green River Gorge

Wrapped above The Nozzle - photo courtesy Brian Vogt

The recent rains brought many of the local rivers up. The Green only came up to the 800 range, but that was enough to make it worth the trip. While I was on the Rogue, I had my IK thigh straps repaired, so they were nice and tight, making it easier to control the boat (or at least stay in it when things start to go wrong).

The weather for the trip was... variable. It was relatively warm (high 50s) and cloudy most of the day, though we did have patches of sun. There were a number of sections where it was foggy. As we floated through the eddy above Secret Class IV, the rain started to come down hard. At first, we wondered if it wasn't hail because the drops were so big, but it was warm rain.

There were spawning salmon everywhere. Some were still jumping over rocks, but many were just slowly swimming in the shallow eddys, waiting to die.

The only real excitement of the day involved me wrapping just above The Nozzle. About 10 feet before The Nozzle rocks, there is a rock that usually makes a hole. At low water, the best routes are around the rock, but it looked like there was enough water to get over it. I didn't quite make it, and the next thing I knew I was sideways and sinking. I tried leaning the boat up, but that didn't work. I then climbed onto the rock and tried pulling up, but that didn't help. I finally stepped into the hole below the rock, which turned out to be shallow, stowed the paddle in the boat, and then worked the boat off the rock. During this part, my footbrace (a block of foam that is friction-fitted in the boat) came out, and I tossed it to one of the kayakers watching from below. After the boat was free, I was able to hop back in and paddle through The Nozzle and retrieve my footbrace.

The rest of the day was fun, but I did have one more short wrap. For this one, I didn't even get out of the boat. A friend tried to pull me one way, and I slid around the other way. It pays to be calm and get your paddle in the water.

It was great to be back on the Green after a few months. I hope to get a few more runs on this section during the fall and winter.

Compression Bags

When a friend first told me about compression bags, I wasn't really that impressed by the idea. Years ago, I bought a set of compression caps for my sleeping bag, and they were hard to use and didn't really work. Still, I decided to give them another shot in an attempt to save some space in my on-river gear. Since then, I've been a big fan.

There are basically two types of compression bags: vertical and horizontal (or tubular). The vertical bags are basically just stuff sacks with compression caps, one sewn on the bottom of the sack. These result in something that looks like a really hard football. If you are putting these in a standard drybag or backpack, they work well. However, if you have a dry duffel bag, such as a Watershed Colorado, they may not be as easy to pack. This is where a tubular compression bag can come in handy. These have several straps that wrap around the bag, which compresses the contents into a smaller tube.

I am able to put my tent, sleeping bag (in a tubular compression bag), and pillow (in a vertical compression bag) in my Watershed Colorado, and still have room for other items. Before getting compression bags, I would have had to take a separate drybag for either the tent or sleeping bag, and I would use clothes for a pillow.

Recently, some vertical compression bags have come out that are made of eVent material, which is waterproof in one direction and allows air to pass in the other. This means that these compression bags are also drybags. I've heard mixed reports on these. I own a few, but I've never dunked them because I use them with fleece and other clothing.

Compression bags can make a big difference in your river gear packing.

The Curse of October

Back in March, I wrote about the Late Winter Doldrums, when all of the water was locked up in snow and ice and there wasn't enough rain to make things better. October has the opposite problem. The water is long gone, the dam releases are pretty much done, and we have to wait for the rains to come.

Unlike a lot of areas in the US, the Pacific Northwest has an actual "rainy season". Granted, this rainy season is 8-9 months of the year, but it's still technically a season. In a typical year, the rains subside in late June and by mid-July rain is pretty rare. We get a few storms in July, August, and September, but they tend to be short events surrounded by hot, sunny weather. Where I grew up in North Carolina, it can rain any time of year.

This year, the October storms are late in coming. The current 10-day forecast has some rain coming in a week, but it doesn't look like it will be enough to boat locally. Oregon is looking closer every day...