69 - 11/29 - Middle Middle

I hadn't planned to boat on Sunday, but the flow on the Middle Middle was 1800 and the temperature was in the low 50s, so it was just too nice to ignore. I decided to take my IK. 1800 is at the low end of the fun spectrum for the cataraft, but it's a very fun level in the IK. I took a lot of alternate lines to make things more interesting.

68 - 11/27 - Green River Gorge

I took off another couple of weeks to let my foot heal. It was mostly fine, and we had a great flow on the Green, so it was hard to pass up. We put in at Kanasket-Palmer - two IKs, a raft, and me in my cat. I felt a little guilty for not IKing, since the level was within my range, but I've pretty much decided that when a run is in my range for a fun catboat run, I will opt for the cat over the IK. I did need some help getting the boat to the put-in because my left hand doesn't grip very well these days. I'm trying to come up with a design for a "suspender" to help me carry the cataraft.

67 - 11/10 - SF Snoqualmie

A few of us wanted to make a quick run, and for me there is no quicker run. I hadn't run the SF Snoqualmie since early June, but there weren't many significant changes. There was one good change, though. After the 2006 floods damaged a couple of houses, the owners stuck some trees into the riverbank. These were supposed to prevent further erosion by creating logjams. These logjams would have been deadly until they filled in with sediment and changed the course of the river. However, in the 2009 floods, the riverbank eroded and the trees moved, making everything worse. Since then, they cut the most dangerous logs out.

I had an interesting run at the weir. I normally run left of center, but this time I ran right of center. The drop turned out to be very rocky, but I was able to catch a slot just big enough for the boat.

66 - 11/1 - Green River Gorge

With the flow at 2200, I decided to run my cataraft. At lower flows, I'd run my IK, but I like getting in some time on the cat, and the Green is especially fun. We ended up with a group of 2 rafts, an IK, and my cat. The run was a lot of fun - fast, but not pushy. I ran down the center at Pipeline and had a clean run through Mercury and The Nozzle. My only bad line of the day was above Franklin Bridge, where I hit the big hole a little farther left than I wanted and had to back away from the wall there. The weather was sunny and reasonably warm.

I did overdo it a little. My left foot had gotten a lot better, but helping carry the rafts and the put-in and takeout made it worse again. I probably need to stick to IK trips for a few weeks.

On a side note, if I get to 71 river days, I will tie my 4th best year. If I'm lucky, I can do better than that.

65 - 10/31 - Green River Headworks

We had a lot of rain in the past week and it brought all of the rivers up. Most were too high to boat comfortably, and there was a boater who wanted me to take him on a class III run, so we decided to run the Headworks. I hadn't run the Headworks since February, so it was a nice change of pace.

We put in with the flow at around 1500 cfs, but not long after we got on the flow was increased to 2200 cfs. We probably got a little bit of a kick from the extra release. The run was fun and there were no trees to bother us. The other guy had one minor swim that was made slightly worse when he dropped his paddle, but it floated right to us after a bit, so it was no problem. I regretted not packing the spare paddle - just because it's only the Headworks is no excuse.

We had a great tun through the last section with Ledge Drop 1 and the other class III rapids.