9 - 2/27/2010 - Lower Snoqualmie

This week started out very promising. There was rain in the forecast, and some rivers were still flowing well enough for there to be lots of possibilities. As the week progressed, it even looked like the Green would be in the 750 range, which would have been great for a Headworks run. The EF Humptulips and Clackamas were both in, but that would mean 8-10 hours of driving, and I didn't want to do that. So, when it came down to it, it was another low water weekend and a couple of us decided to do a run on the Lower Snoqualmie from the Powerhouse down to Fall City. This run is 20 minutes from home, so it's not hard to justify.

The run starts with a short section of 5 rapids. At the usual low flows (400-800cfs), the rapids are technical and offer lots of surfing. We had over 1800 cfs, which makes the rapids fast and easy. The main whitewater section barely takes 10 minutes. Below this there are occasional class I-II rapids all the way to the takeout. At higher flows, the river moves along quickly, so it's a nice float with some good scenery.

8 - 2/20/2010 - Lower Sky

IKs on the Skykomish

Plans come and go. Originally, we talked about running one of the class II rivers on the coast, and then we switched to the Green. Then, on Friday afternoon the flow on the Green dropped below a comfortable level, so we switched to the Skykomish. We decided to make it interesting by doing an extended Lower Sky run, starting just below Boulder Drop and ending at the Sultan River confluence. We had 2 catarafts, 4 IKs, and a hardshell kayak, and the flow was around 2200 cfs (low flow for rafts).

The put-in below Boulder Drop isn't easy for large boats. It also wasn't easy for me. I had hurt my foot (again) on a hike a couple of days earlier, and it was not easy for me to get down to the river. We had a first-time whitewater IKer with us, and he flipped right off the bat, but he dealt with it and didn't have any more flips.

The first couple of miles had several class III rapids, which were a lot of fun. We pulled over for lunch at a nice beach, and one of the guys on the trip had a drawing for some promotional prizes for his new business selling plastic dryboxes. I was lucky enough to win one.

After lunch, there were a couple more big rapids before we hit the takeout for the normal run, but we didn't stop. We continued onto the easier section of the river, where the hardest rapids are class II+. The weather was sunny, but we had to endure a little bit of cold and the sun directly in our eyes. After a while, I just got into my paddling rhythm and pushed to the end. The last boats in the group came in just before it got dark.

This was the first time I had run the section from Big Eddy to the Wallace River confluence. I have now run all of the Skykomish from Index to Monroe. I have run the Wallace River from below Wallace Falls to the Sky, the NF Sky below Galena, the SF Sky from Sunset Falls to the main Sky, the upper SF Sky from its beginning down to the takeout above Eagle Falls, and the Beckler River from the Rapid to the SF Sky. I still want to run some of the tributaries of the SF Sky someday.

7 - 2/13/2010 - Middle Middle

One of my friends had just gotten her new drysuit and wanted to try it out. Very little was running, but the Middle Middle was running 800 cfs, so we decided to do a quick run. We put in at First Island Drop and had a fun trip.

I run the Middle Middle so often that I have started playing a game on the run. Every time I run it, I try to come up with new lines through the rapids that I've never run before. In some cases, this means weaving back and forth across the river. In other cases, it means taking a route that is just barely wide enough to get through (and sometimes not quite wide enough).

6 - 2/6/2010 - Clackamas River Three Lynx

 

Heading into Hole in the Wall

With very little recent rain, there wasn't much running in Washington, so it was time for a trip to Oregon. For some reason, Portland boaters prefer to run the Clackamas on Sundays, so there were very few people on Saturday. We ended up with a group of 4 catboats, and this was my first catboat run on this river, having IKed it just a little over a year earlier.

The flow was a little higher than the year before (2000cfs, as opposed to around 1700), but that made most of the rapids easier. One thing we didn't realize, and it would hurt us later, was that we had ordered ourselves wrong. I typically boat with IKers, so I row forward a lot and go kind of fast. As a result, I often caught up with the other boats, and I really should have led the group.

When we got to Hole in the Wall, this had a bad consequence. The boat I was following slowed down in the main drop and in order to avoid hitting the boat, I had to pull back. This slid me into the place I didn't want to go. Within a few seconds, I was stuck in an eddy on the wrong side of a powerful headwall. This is a well-known trap for boats, and there is even a chain ladder attached to the rocks to allow a stuck swimmer to climb out rather than drown.

The first thing that happened was that I went up onto the pillow wave which tried to flip me and pulled my left oar out of the oarlock. The oar tether held and I was able to get the oar back in place, but it had stretched the oarlock open, making it easier to come out again. For the next 10 minutes, I was bounced around as I tried several times to row myself across the current. I looked to see if help was coming, but I couldn't see very well and the other people in the group were still formulating a plan. I checked out the chain ladder and other options for climbing out, and examined the shape of the eddy. A huge log sticking down into the upper part of the eddy made it tough to get any upstream momentum, so my only good option was to try to get positioned so I could get 2 solid strokes into the current. The fourth time I tried to row out, I was able to get enough pull to go up on the pillow just past the mid-point, and the river dropped me into the main current. I was free!

Not long after this, we had lunch and then enjoyed the rest of the run without any trouble. It was an exciting day on the river.