2011 Roundup

2011 turned out to be the second most prolific boating year yet. I got in a total of 86 boating days, of which 63 were IK runs. I boated in 4 states (WA, OR, ID, and MT) and one other country (Costa Rica). I got in 12 personal first descents, but only flipped 8 times.

As the year ends, I have a total of 827 river days since 1989, with an average of 37 days per year. My 5 year average is 79 days per year. To make 1000 days by June 2014, I need to average 72 days per year for the next 17 months.

My goals for 2011 are:

• Boat at least 75 days.
• Learn to reflip my cataraft.
• Run Boulder Drop at least 5 times.
• Run Fall in the Wall on the SF Snoqualmie

86 - 12/31/2011 - Middle Middle

Some friends and I had spent the week at the beach in Oregon, and when we returned there was plenty of water in the river. For my birthday, we decided to do a quick run on the Middle Middle. The run itself was the usual fun, with pretty nice weather. We were surprised to see that the tree that had fallen just after Thanksgiving was still there.

85 - 12/18/2011 - Lower Skagit

With no rain, it was looking like their might not be any boating in December. A friend decided to do an "eagle float" on the Lower Skagit. This section of river only has a few rapids, all class I or I+, but in the winter it has a lot of eagles. The only other time I ran this section was back in August 2000, and there aren't many birds out in August.

We had a group of 4 boats: a raft, a cataraft (mine), an inflatable kayak, and a hardshell kayak. I finally mounted my GoPro helmet camera and took it. I got almost the entire trip on video (all but the last 5 minutes).

84 - 11/27/2011 - Middle Middle

The flow in the Middle Fork Snoqualmie came down to a good level, so a few of us decided to do a quick run on the Middle Middle to end a nice Thanksgiving vacation. It was a cool, windy day, and we had a great time. Near the end of the trip, I told one of my fellow boaters that I hoped that the wind didn't knock over any trees near in the last section. There were no trees on the river, but when I began to walk up the trail to the takeout, the trail disappeared. A vine-covered tree had fallen over and covered the trail. I shoved my boat over the mess, climbed over, and nearly fell flat on my face. I pulled out my knife and began cutting the vines out of the way. It took 5 of us (including a couple of other people who showed up after us) cutting and ripping vines to clear the way.

83 - 11/25/2011 - Green River Gorge

At Thanksgiving the night before, several of us decided to run the Green the following day. I took my little cataraft. We had a good medium flow. Everything was great, though I had an "interesting" run at Pipeline. Normally, I try to run the rapid on the left, but my tennis elbow was giving me trouble. I found myself sideways above the main drop, unable to get left and unable to turn the boat to hit the drop squarely. I went over the drop sideways, and braced for a flip... that never came. I went down smoothly and had no trouble at all.

Sadly, this would be my only Green run in the second half of 2011. I usually get in a lot more runs in the winter, but the lack of rain prevented that.

82 - 11/24/2011 - SF Snoqualmie

We had lots of rain the week of Thanksgiving, which made the Middle Middle a bit too high, so a couple of friends and I decided to do a quick SF Snoqualmie trip before Thanksgiving dinner. We did the short run down to my house rather than an extended run. I flipped while surfing near the end, but was able to get back into my boat quickly.

Leading the flow

Some friends ran the Green today and they put on as the flow was being dropped from 935 to the mid 600s. This reminded me of a couple of days back in 1991 when I was running the South Fork American in California. I had a couple of friends who wanted to IK the run, but one wanted to go on Saturday and the other on Sunday. So, I was able to rent one boat for them to use. On the SF, the dam release typically started at 9AM and went for 3 hours. Each day, we got on the river just after 9 and my friends both wanted to get home fairly quickly, so we paddled to stay at the front of the release. We didn't really notice it at first, but we were paddling hard enough that we kept getting in front of the release. The first time I noticed was the first day at lunch. We had gone halfway through the gorge when we decided to stop for lunch. As we ate, the river slowly began to rise. My boat had been sitting on the beach and I noticed that it had begun to float.  After lunch, we got back on the higher flow and finished the run. The following day, I convinced my friend that hurrying wouldn't really get us to the takeout faster, so we rode the main flow the whole way. I've never been in this situation since that weekend.

81 - 11/13/2011 - Middle Middle

There was lots of talk about various rivers during the week. On Saturday, it looked like we were going to run the NF Snoqualmie on Sunday, but late Saturday night that was called off because it didn't look like there would be enough water. So, I put together a last minute Middle Middle trip. It turned out that the NF Snoqualmie would have been runnable, though low, but one of the people on the Middle Middle trip would be in a cataraft, which would not have been appropriate.

So, we had a small group - 3 IKs and 1 cataraft. It was a little rainy, but not a bad day overall. Interestingly enough, we ran at the lowest flow of the day. The rain was bringing up the flow behind us.

This makes 81 days, which makes this year a tie for second best.

80 - 11/6/2011 - Skykomish

It looked like it was going to be a dry day. Nobody seemed interested in doing a run until a catboater friend got in touch. The flow was down a bit from the previous day - we ended up having just under 2000 cfs - and it was a little colder, but that's OK when I run my cataraft.It was still a beautiful sunny day.

I find that as I approach Boulder Drop, my heart begins to pound a little. I have to take a few deep breaths, visualize past runs, and visualize my plan for this run. My plan was to run right at the entrance and then do the usual Airplane Turn route. So much for that plan - I went left at the entrance, and then got too far left above Airplane Turn. I ended up having to push harder to the right and ended up on the right side of the rapid. No problem - I just went back to the center and took the big drop at the bottom.

80 days ties my 3rd best year ever. 81 will tie 2nd, but I'd have to get up to 90 to tie my best year.

79 - 11/5/2011 - Skykomish

The week began with lots of interest in boating, but the lack of rain allowed that to dwindle to just a couple of people. The Sky was running around 2200, so a friend and I went up to IK it. We hooked up with a couple of other friends in a cataraft and hardshell and ran from the confluence down to Big Eddy.

My run at Boulder Drop was textbook. For the first time ever, I ran the kayak slot at the entrance (I usually just risk the raft slots). I then went over to Airplane Turn and ran down the usual left side. The weather was sunny and relatively warm, and it was just a nice fun day.

78 - 10/30/2011 - Middle Middle

There was still enough flow for a fun trip on the Middle Middle. It rained on us for most of the run, but as usual that didn't matter. This was a relatively dry October, yet I got in more runs than any year except 2007, and that year included 4 days on the Rogue.

77 - 10/29/2011 - SF Stillaguamish

The first time I ran the SF Stillaguamish, I did the upper and middle runs starting at the ice caves and going to Verlot. The flow was high (above 7 feet), I was injured, and it was a long day. I ended up losing my paddle near the end, and my boating partner bicycled the shuttle in the rain and snow.

The next two runs I did were at much lower water (just over 5 feet) and were shorter runs, starting at Wiley Creek and at Boardman Creek.

This time, the flow was at around 6.4 feet and dropping when we put on at Wiley Creek. There had been a short, intense storm the night before that brought the flow up to 6.8 feet overnight. The water was muddy, but the rapids were clean and we had no problems. This was a pretty easy level. At lower levels you have to deal with lots of rocks, and at higher levels you have to deal with big holes, so this was just right. We ended up taking out at Turlo, which is just below Verlot campground.

76 - 10/23/2011 - SF Snoqualmie

A big rainstorm brought the rivers up high very quickly. We had hoped for moderate flows on Saturday on the Middle Middle, but the flow rocketed to over 5000, so we decided to wait until Sunday. The original plan was to run the SF Stilly, but it was higher than we wanted to do, so Lyles and I did a long run on the SF Snoquamie. The long run is from Twin Falls park down to the railroad trestle in North Bend.

The flow was around 500 on the gauge, but the actual flow was a bit higher because the rain was recent and there are a lot of creeks between the gauge and the put-in. The whole run was clean, and even a place where things had gotten really bad with logs was clean enough to run (though we didn't). We spent a bit of time surfing, so it was a long and fun run for a Sunday afternoon.

75 - 10/15/2011 - Middle Middle

Lyles below Second Island Drop

The rain brought the rivers up on Monday and Tuesday, but by Friday flows were getting pretty skimpy. Lyles and I decided it would be worth it to run the Middle Middle in the mid-700s. The river was foggy and the leaves had just started to change. We had plenty of water, and it made some of the rapids very challenging - not big water, but very technical.

The photo shows the rapid named Second Island Drop, which used to be a good name for the rapid, but it doesn't really fit now. Like First Island Drop, the "island" is gone. Unlike First Island Drop, Second Island Drop has actually gotten more challenging since it lost its island.

Ready For The Rain

I got behind in posting my trips from the summer, but now I'm caught up. It was a very busy summer, and I am on a record pace going into fall. If I can just keep up with last year's October-December pace, I will end up with around 85 river days this year, which would be my second best year ever. I'm now at 815 total river days since 1989, and I still need to average around 6 days a month to make the 1000-day goal in mid 2014.

The rains have started in earnest. Right now, the Middle Middle is running over 4500 cfs, and it will probably peak at over 5000. Hopefully, it will not come down too fast (the prediction is for runnable flows this weekend, and that's based on a lower peak).

74 - 10/2/2011 - N Santiam

Gloomy day on the N Santiam

We expected the rain to subside overnight, but instead it rained harder. I had put my tent under the tarp shelter, but at around midnight I heard a big splash a couple of feet from my head. I looked out the tent door and saw that the tarp had drained, and there was a small puddle there. Luckily, the campsite was mostly gravel, so it drained quickly. Several times that night, the tarp drained next to my tent, but I didn't get wet from it.

For breakfast, we heated up our pizza from the night before, and then we packed up and headed for the put-in. We were meeting someone else from Portland who wasn't able to boat the day before, but was free on Sunday. We ran a quick shuttle and did the run again.

The flow was slightly higher than the day before, but it didn't really change the rapids. I took tougher routes, knowing what was below the rapids, and had a great time.

We left the takeout a bit before noon and I got home at around 5PM.

73 - 10/1/2011 - N Santiam

N Santiam (photo courtesy Ron Belnap)

As well as WRRR, I'm a member of OWA - the Oregon Whitewater Association. I don't get to do a lot of their trips, but I had never run the N Santiam and it was on my list of runs to check out for future trips. I tried to put together a group of local kayakers to go down and do the run, but in the end only two of us were available. We were able to drive down to the Portland area on Friday night and the trip leader graciously let us stay at his house. On Saturday morning, we all headed out and had breakfast with more of the group, and then went down to the N Santiam. All totaled, we had around 34 people on the trip. Most were in rafts and catarafts, but there were a number of inflatable kayaks, as well.

The flow was considered medium-high at around 3000 cfs. Several people said that they preferred it lower because it was more challenging with more rocks. There are around 6 good class III rapids, with a few class III- and lots of class II+ rapids. There's a good gradient, so the river moves fast between the rapids. The most exciting rapid was at Mill City, where a man-made rock dam makes a 5' waterfall drop. We had lunch just below this, at the Mill City access.

After lunch, we headed downstream. Right away there was some trouble. A small raft was wrapped on a rock and one of the people was swimming. My friend and I pulled over to help with the raft. My friend got the raft unwrapped and to shore. I was going upstream with my throwbag to help get the guide to shore, but for some reason he decided to swim downstream rather than getting to his boat. Besides that, there were no incidents, and the rest of the run was pretty easy.

We said our goodbyes to everyone and headed to our campground. After we got set up, we went out for pizza with some other people from the trip. When we got back to camp, it rained on us a bit, so we set up a shelter and built a fire.

72 - 9/25/2011 - Upper Tieton

We only had 3 boats for this last run on the Tieton for the year. In the rapid below the lunch stop, I took the big hole on the left with a little too much left angle and flipped. I tested my theory about jamming the paddle under the seat and it did make flipping the boat over easier. I was back in the boat within about 15 seconds, ready for the next rapid. The catboater following me was more nervous about this than I was.

71 - 9/24/2011 - Upper Tieton

The flow was still very good on the Tieton, so I headed back over for another weekend. I took my IK again, and this time I was able to run the right side of the dam. I prefer this side because it's a steeper drop with a bit more kick. It's considered more dangerous by some people, but I've seen just as many flips on the left. The cable under the bridge was back up where it was supposed to be.

As usual, we got in two runs on Saturday, but there weren't many people on the second run. After the run, I went out to dinner and had the trout that I didn't get to have on Labor Day weekend.

70 - 9/18/2011 - Upper Tieton

We did an early shuttle and had a pretty good-sized group for an early Sunday run. The flow was still nice and high. There was a cable hanging a bit low over the dam. When I went over, I smacked it with my paddle. I found out later that a raft guide friend of mine smacked it with his head, and ended up with a few cuts and he also broke a rib when he fell onto the oar tower.

A friend and I worked hard to hit every hole in our kayaks, and near the end I hit one a little off-kilter. I flipped, and it took me three tries to flip the boat back over, and three attempts to get back into the boat. I finally got a little help from my friend, who held the far tube down so the boat wouldn't flip back over. I realized that my biggest problem was that I was holding onto my paddle and it was stopping me from using both arms. Next time I swim, I'm going to try to put the paddle in the boat under the seat before I flip the boat back over. That will give me a handle to help flip the boat and to help me crawl back in... maybe.

69 - 9/17/2011 - Upper & Lower Tieton

One thing about the Tieton is that I get to go to Wendy's. I know fast food is not great for me, but I don't get to have it very often, and I like Wendy's. I stopped for dinner on the way to the Tieton on Friday night, and got to the camp at around 8PM.

The flow this weekend was 2350, which is fairly high and higher than the weekend before. I got in with a group that wanted to do the long run down to Tim's Pond. I forgot to put my Discovery Pass on my windshield, but luckily I didn't get a ticket. The run itself was fun, but uneventful for me.

That night, we had a potluck for dinner. It got started a little late, and it sprinkled on us. One big difference this year was that we had lots of main dishes and very few desserts. This is the opposite of most of our potlucks.

68 - 9/11/2011 - Upper Tieton

The flow was pretty much the same as the day before, and we were able to do an early shuttle. I ran over the top of High Noon, followed by a commercial raft. I used their momentum to push me out of the eddy behind the rock.

I left after one run, getting on the road by noon and getting home in the mid-afternoon. The traffic was uncommonly light for September. There are usually a lot more people on weekend vacations in Eastern Washington.

67 - 9/10/2011 - Upper Tieton

The Zoo (courtesy of my friend Paula)

Normally, I would have run the Tieton on Labor Day weekend, but I had been going through a kitchen remodel, and I needed some time off from boating to work on house things. This day was the day of the first annual WRRR Tieton Costume Contest. We were to decorate our boats or wear costumes. I strapped an inflatable panda, rhinoceros, and tiger to my cataraft, and I ended up coming in 3rd place, winning a WRRR t-shirt as my prize.

The flow was around 2100, which is fairly high for the Tieton these days. In fact, it's higher than the peak the previous year, and usually the peak doesn't happen until the 15th, so flows would get higher. The first run went quickly, and several of us went for a second run in the afternoon. I had brought BBQ pork from a restaurant for dinner for some friends and me. Yum!

66 - 8/21/2011 - Middle Sauk

Late August on the Middle Sauk is a rare treat. Usually, the river is just too low by this time of year. It wasn't high this time, but it was fine for small boats. I took my inflatable kayak and had a very good run.

As we ran the now-open left channel of the first rapid, we could see that the log that had been blocking the channel had been removed very methodically. The log had been roped off and then cut.

65 - 8/20/2011 - Skykomish

The Sky has always been scary to me - or specifically, Boulder Drop has always been scary to me. The first time I ran it, I flipped near the top and swam most of the rapid. As a result, I need to push myself to do this run at least once a year.

The rapids above Boulder Drop are challenging, but well within my abilities, so they are fun. At least I have been able to get to a point where I am calm enough to enjoy them. When we got to Boulder Drop, I waited while the others scouted. When they were ready to go, I got in my boat and followed. I did fine through the entrance, and then went down to the Airplane Turn eddy to help out in case the raft had trouble. I watched as the other kayaker in the group flipped in the main drop, but he got back into his boat. I got back into mine and finished the rapid with no problems.

After that, the run was easy and fun.

64 - 8/14/2011 - Middle Sauk

After the Poker Run, we usually run the Skagit on Sunday, but someone suggested that we run the Middle Sauk instead. The Middle Sauk is on the way home, so it was convenient and it's a more exciting run. I still had my little cataraft, and had a great run.

When we got to the end of the first rapid, running the right side route, we noticed that the log that had been blocking the left channel was gone.

63 - 8/13/2011 - Skagit

The annual WRRR Poker Run is always a fun trip. I ran my little cataraft on the Skagit for the first time, and had a lot of fun. I also helped out with the last poker station, so I got to see who the likely winners would be.

The potluck dinner was great, as always, and I won a couple of nice prizes.

62 - 8/12/2011 - Middle Sauk

A few years ago, we started a tradition of doing an overnighter on the Sauk before the Skagit Poker Run, but for the past couple of years people haven't been able to make the overnighter, so we just do a day trip on Friday. Usually, the Middle Sauk is a bit low by this time of year, but this time we had plenty of water for small boats. I had my 11' cataraft for this trip.

The first rapid on the Middle Sauk is split by an island. The more fun run is on the left side of the island, but it has been blocked by a tree recently, so we had to run the more shallow right side.

I had a good run the whole way down. I ran the hard lines whenever possible and never had any difficulties.

After the run, we headed over to the Skagit. We would have gotten dinner locally, but the bar and grill we usually go to had closed down.

61 - 7/31/2011 - Middle Middle

We took a new IKer on his first run on the Middle Middle, and first real class III whitewater. He did pretty well until House Rocks. He got off-balance in the Goal Posts and flipped. He was unable to get back into his boat and ended up swimming the entire rapid. He got a little banged up in the process.

It's not easy to get back into an IK, but it is very important to learn how. I still remember the first time I was able to get back into my boat in a rapid. It prevented me from having to swim a half mile of whitewater, potentially losing my boat and missing the takeout.

60 - 7/29/2011 - Middle Middle

A friend wanted to get in an evening run, so we took advantage of the great mid-summer snowmelt.

59 - 7/28/2011 - Middle Middle

It's rare to have a Thursday Middle Middle run late July, but there was still plenty of water.
This was my 800th river day since starting in 1989. The run itself wasn't anything special, but since this is the run I've done the most, it was appropriate.

58 - 7/23/2011 - Upper Middle

A few days earlier, I had met a new inflatable kayaker, and he wanted to do an easy run for practice. We invited another friend, and the three of us ran the Upper Middle Fork Snoqualmie. This is an easy class II+ run nearby. It was a nice day and we had a lot of fun.

57 - 7/20/2011 - Middle Middle

A less gloomy day on the Middle Middle

Lee decided to extend the tour by a day, and get another crack at the Middle Middle. This time, we had a group with 2 small catarafts and 4 IKs. There was lots of surfing and a few flips.

56 - 7/19/2011 - Middle Middle

Foggy evening on the Middle Middle

Technically, this was the last day of the 2011 Whirlwind IK tour, though I went to work. After work, Lee and I headed over to the Middle Fork Snoqualmie for an evening run. It was foggy and cool, but we had a good flow and it was a fun time.

Lee had been anxious about this run, and he did have a flip, but he got back into his boat quickly enough.

55 - 7/18/2011 - Lower Cle Elum & SF Snoqualmie

The bottom of Lee's boat

The final leg of our trip involved going back to my house, but on the way, we still had a couple of runs to do. The first run was the Lower Cle Elum, which runs into Cle Elum reservoir (there is another run below the reservoir). This is a nice run in the high Cascades with lots of class II+ rapids and several fun surfing spots. Lee flipped in one of these spots, even before he got a good surf.

After we finished the Cle Elum, we just left our drysuits on and drove down to my house, dropped a vehicle off, and ran the SF Snoqualmie. After the run, we hung out on my deck and watched as the sky got darker and darker from the gathering storm.

54 - 7/17/2011 - Lower Spokane

The Bowl and Pitcher

We drove from the Moyie River back to Spokane to camp at the Bowl and Pitcher campground again. We repeated the run of the Lower Spokane from the year before, with only a slightly lower flow, which was still high, especially for mid-July.

We started in downtown Spokane just below the big falls. Most of the rapids in the first few miles are class II+, and are a good warmup for the big rapids near the end. We passed the sewage treatment plant and headed into the big rapids. These rapids were very scary last year, and more fun this time, but I was still pretty conservative.

We went out for dinner after the run, and then headed back to camp for the night.

53 - 7/16/2011 - Moyie (Idaho)

Yes, that is a dam, and it's downstream

I had only heard of the Moyie River a week before this trip. The unique thing about this run is that it has a dam in the middle of it. In 1923, Eileen Dam was completed and when it was being filled, the wall on the left side of the canyon began to crumble - the natural rock, not the dam. As a result, the builders dismantled the left side of the dam to allow the water to come through.

We had to drive a long way that morning. We had poor directions to the takeout and I didn't have a GPS location, so it took us a while to find it, but we did find it. We didn't get on the river until after 3PM, and we weren't sure how long the paddle out on the lake would be. Luckily, we found a campsite right next to the river and it made a perfect put-in. Despite the warnings, there was plenty of water in the river for our kayaks.

The first few miles contained many fun class II+ rapids. There were no roads nearby, just trees and cliffs. It was quiet except for the thunderstorm that followed us. At one point, we noticed that it was raining on me, but not on Lee, who was only 20 fee away.

At one point I looked up and I saw it - the dam. It was more intimidating than I had expected. The dam is 50 feet high and it's right smack in the middle of the river. To make it scarier, there is a class III rapid just above it, and a flip there would not be a good thing. After the rapid, the river runs sharply left through a vertical canyon about 15 feet wide. At the end of this, a waterfall from Skin Creek enters the river, and there is a small but swirly rapid around the base of the dam. At higher flows, this would have been difficult.

The run around the dam (the falls is from a side creek)

Below the dam, the rapids ease up for a couple of miles, but then begin to build in intensity. Several class III rapids set the pace for the big drop at the end - Hole In The Wall. This is a solid class IV rapid with a big drop. The water funnels into a tight slot with a rock pile in the middle. I used a hole above the main drop to slow me down, but this put me farther left than I needed to be. I paddled hard right, which put me into the current next to a wall, and spun me wildly. I stayed in my boat, and was able to watch Lee do a much better run than me.

After this, the river still flows for a mile or so before it enters the lake. We were pleasantly surprised that we could see the next dam, right below our takeout, just as the current ended. It was a short 5-minute paddle to where the car was.

We got back to camp and cooked dinner again. All of the other nights on this trip I slept in my SUV, but this night I set up my tent by the river. This was also the only camp where we had cell service, including 3G data, so I could catch up on email in the tent.

52 - 7/15/2011 - St Joe (Idaho)

The Canyon Run

The day before this was our only day off from kayaking. We were waiting for friends to show up, and we decided to scout the river and scout Marble Creek, a tributary downstream of the confluence with the NF St Joe. We had intended to do a run, but in the end we decided to relax.

We started the morning running Skookum Canyon, which is a class II+ run with a class III+ gorge and a few more class III rapids below that. This was a fun warm-up and I had thought we were going to run two laps. Instead, we did another run above that called the Canyon Run. This is a class II+ run with a couple of easy, fun class III rapids, and a high-walled canyon near the end.

After the run, Lee and I decided to "cook" dinner. It really wasn't a big deal, since a lot of the food was pre-prepared, but it was a nice break from sandwiches. After dinner, we made the decision that the next day we would go and run the Moyie River. It had come down to a lower level and we figured we should be able to handle it without a guide. Our friends tried to convince us that it would be way too low, but we decided to take a chance.

51 - 7/13/2011 - SF Coeur D'Alene (Idaho)

Pinball

We convinced the hotel manager to let us check out late so we could run the local river and then use the pool and hot tub before we packed up. We decided that we would start below the town because we didn't know about possible trees in the section above. That section involves going through some long, dark tunnels under the town, and a log in there would be deadly.

Like the St Regis, this run was coincident with I-90. We immediately began running under the highway, and crossed under it several times in 5 miles. The weather was cloudy and it rained on us a little.

This river is officially the SF Coeur D'Alene River, but people call it Shit Creek because it was pretty much the area's sewer and mining runoff for many years. Because of this name, I couldn't resist - at one point I asked Cynthia if she had her camera handy, and when she said she did, I tossed her my paddle. She started to take a picture when suddenly she saw a rapid coming up. This run has several man-made rock ledges, put there to keep the water turbulent so that the old chemicals and minerals keep flowing downstream. I was running these ledges without a paddle! I ran two of them by leaning and using my hands before Cynthia could give me back my paddle.

We finished the run and packed up, and then went back to the hotel. We hung out in the pool and hot tub for an hour, and then Lee took Cynthia back to Coeur D'Alene to pick up her car so she could go on a trip to California. In the meantime, I took advantage of the hotel WiFi to download more podcasts for my iPod. When I left home, I thought I had brought enough for a month, but it turned out that I had mostly video, and that wouldn't work while driving.

In the late afternoon, Lee returned and we headed up over Moon Pass again and down to the St Joe River. We found our camp and set up for the night.

50 - 7/12/2011 - St Regis (Montana)

A Highway Runs Over It

One thing I haven't talked much about on this trip is the food. Every morning, we would seek out a Subway, usually at a gas station, and grab a footlong sandwich for the day. We'd have half for lunch and half for dinner. This wasn't the case every day, but it was what sustained us for many of the days.

The St Regis River is a tributary of the Clark Fork, and I-90 runs along the river for most of its length. The river is small and there are many highway bridges over it. We did a short section (6-7 miles) and went under the freeway at least 10 times.

As with the other rivers, this one was splashy and clear, with lots of class II+ rapids. Near the end of the day, I had to stop surfing because my back started to bother me a little. Luckily, a little rest fixed this and I didn't have any significant back pain on the rest of the trip.

We made the takeout in the afternoon and headed once again to Wallace, Idaho. We took a look at the SF Coeur D'Alene River, also known as "Shit Creek", which runs through the town. We also made the decision to stay at a local hotel for the night rather than trying to find a place to camp.

49 - 7/11/2011 - Blackfoot (Montana)

Confluence of the Clearwater and Blackfoot

We got up and repacked the vehicles and then headed down to Missoula. We stopped off at a rafting outfitter's place to get river info, and then headed to the takeout. We consolidated into one vehicle and headed for the put-in. On the way up, we scouted the hardest rapid from the highway bridge, and thought it looked big, but relatively tame. The put-in we had originally planned to use was closed for maintenance, so we went to another downstream.

Because the new put-in was on a tributary - the Clearwater River - we didn't lose any length of the trip, and we got to run a different river at the beginning. The Clearwater didn't exactly live up to its name. The water was tea-colored rather than clear, but it was not as muddy as the Blackfoot.

When we reached the confluence, we found a much bigger river. The currents were powerful, and we had to work pretty hard to go where we wanted. Most of the rapids were big wavetrains. Then came Roundup - the rapid we had scouted. As we headed down the rapid, we saw that we had missed the biggest waves when we scouted from the river. These waves were under the bridge, and were easily 10 feet high. I got sideways going over the top of the biggest one, and I thought for sure I would flip, but I braced and held on.

As we continued down the river, we were warned by a guide about a recent death, and that made us extra careful. The rapid that caused the death had a huge hole, and I could see it flipping a boat, but there was plenty of room to avoid the hole, which we did. There was one big rapid we were a bit anxious about - Thibideau Rapids, which was featured in the movie "A River Runs Through It". At the high water we had, this rapid also had plenty of room around it.

This was a very long run, and we finished pretty late in the day. Cynthia and I ran shuttle, and it rained on us, but luckily it didn't rain much on Lee at the takeout. After the shuttle, we headed up and camped at Thibideau.

48 - 7/10/2011 - NF St Joe (Idaho)

Lee in a typical rapid

First thing in the morning, we got up and drove down to the takeout. We took the long route so we could scout the biggest rapids. We had to drive through several narrow tunnels, some with deer in them. We put in on a small creek that ran into the NF St Joe after about a hundred yards.

The water was crystal clear and fairly cold, but that's why we wear drysuits even when it's 80 degrees. The river is pretty much continuous easy rapids, with occasional larger rapids. There are plenty of places to surf throughout the run. The road is nearby, but it rarely mars the scenery, which is a tree-lined steep canyon with scattered rock cliffs and some old mining debris.

The toughest section is called No Sweat. We had scouted some of this, but we didn't run it like we had intended. At one point, I got turned around backwards and I thought I was going to flip going over a big drop, but I didn't.

At the end of the day, we headed back to Wallace for dinner, and then on to Missoula, Montana for the night. At one point, we stopped to look at the Clark Fork just below Alberton Gorge. The water was quite high, but the worst thing was the insects in the area. When we got ready to leave, we were attacked by mosquitos. Later, we ran into a swarm of bugs on the freeway that covered our windshields with guts that did not wash off easily. We would spend the next few days cleaning these bugs off the cars. We drove way out into the woods and eventually found a camping spot in an old CCC camp.

47 - 7/9/2011 - Priest River (Idaho)

Lee & Cynthia on the Priest River

The day before this run, I drove to Spokane to stay at the Bow & Pitcher campground next to the Spokane River. I met up with my friends Lee and Cynthia for our second annual Whirlwind IK Tour. This year's tour was called "The Saints Kiss the Ring" because it involved several runs on rivers whose names begin with "Saint". The Priest River, of course, doesn't being with Saint, but it is in the same vein.

We met up with a friend of Lee and Cynthia at the put-in, and the four of us ran two laps. This run is only about 3 miles long, and it has only a couple of class III rapids, but it was a beautiful sunny day and the water was clear and not too cold.

At the end of the day, we had to decide where we were going next. The original plan had been to go up North to the Moyie, but we didn't have a person to guide us and we decided to go to a more familiar river. So, we headed South through the town of Wallace, Idaho and up over Moon Pass. We camped in a pullout on the side of a dusty dirt road, sleeping in our vehicles.

46 - 6/19/2011 - Green River Gorge

Another beautiful day on the Green. Flow was around 1300. I ran my IK to take it easy on my back, but I was a little sore by the end of the day. I need to stop boating until my Idaho trip in a few weeks.

45 - 6/18/2011 - SF Snoqualmie

Ran the SF Snoqualmie with friends. The flow wasn't high, but it was a nice summer day. My back wasn't any worse, but it will require some care.

44 - 6/16/2011 - Middle Middle

We had a couple of IKs and a couple of catboats, one with a new "trainee" boater. They had a setup with two frames so that both people could row, but it really didn't turn out that great.

At the end of the run, I made the mistake of helping carry up both catarafts, and I tweaked my back a little. I will need to start going to acupuncture again and consider taking it easy.

43 - 6/12/2011 - Green River Gorge (Day 2)

We awoke to a beautiful sunny day. We had breakfast, packed up, and got on the river at around 9:30. We floated an hour or so down to the takeout. On the way, we passed several fishermen. We don't usually get to see the Green this early in the day, so it was a different perspective.

After pulling the boats up onto the grass, I changed shoes and started walking to get the car. The walk was about a mile and a half, mostly uphill but in the shade. I got back to the takeout after about 40 minutes and we packed up. We then went back to get the other car and transfer gear.

I hope to get more opportunities to camp on the Green.

42 - 6/11/2011 - Green River Gorge (Day 1)

One of my friends suggested an overnighter on the Green. We spent a lot of time planning it, and it almost looked like it might not happen, but we made it work. The biggest problem to overcome was the parking arrangements. We couldn't park at the usual takeout because there is no overnight parking in the state park. We didn't want to park at either the alternate takeout or the put-in because of the likelihood of vandalism. Luckily, I know people who live near the put-in and takeout, and was able to arrange with them to allow us to park there. We left my car at the house near the takeout and we drove up to the put-in. After dropping boats, my friend took his vehicle to the other friend's house. He had originally planned to bicycle back, but our friend gave him a ride.

We got on the river just after noon. Despite the nice flow of around 1500, only one other group was on the river, and they were way ahead of us. The only difficulty came at Pipeline, where I guided my back-weighted boat too slowly into the center of the drop and I ended up falling off the back of the boat. I swam the next rapid (an easy one) and my friend pushed the boat over to me.

At about 4PM, we got to our camp at a location people call The Grand Canyon of the Green. This is a large rock wall across from a nice beach. We set up camp, built a fire, and cooked dinner. The firewood near the river was a little damp, but I had brought a few pieces of dry firewood from home that helped us dry out more.

1500 flow
flip at Pipeline

41 - 6/9/2011 - Middle Middle

We had been expecting a flow of 3000, in which case I would have taken my cataraft, but the flow came down to 2400, so I took my IK. We had 2 IKs and a cataraft, so we were able to move quickly.

I tried to do my practice flip in the first couple of big rapids, but I couldn't get the boat to flip, and I started developing a leg cramp. I finally found a hole to hit sideways to help me flip over, and I was able to get back in pretty quickly. I need to work on making sure my paddle is under my backrest before I try to get in. Otherwise, the paddle gets in the way.

One of the interesting things about this flow is that it's about the same as my first full run of the Middle Middle, but it feels a lot different. On that first run, I was avoiding everything big, but on this run I was trying to hit the biggest stuff for fun. House Rocks actually seems easy at 2400, but I know that it gets harder again at 3000.

40 - 6/5/2011 - Chiwawa

I first ran the Chiwawa last year on the second day of the Wenatchee Rendezvous. That time, the flow was around 1700. This time, the flow was around 2200, which is supposedly considered high, but it really didn't feel that big, despite being in a smaller boat. We had a group of 5 IKs and 4 catarafts.

It was a fun run, but it's not really a run that I would go out of my way to do. There are some good potential camping spots, so it may be worthwhile to look at it for that purpose someday.

39 - 6/4/2011 - Peshastin Creek and Wenatchee

Oops! Photo courtesy Brian Vogt

Every June, WRRR holds the Bob Johnson Memorial Wenatchee Rendezvous, named for one of the club founders. Peshastin Creek is a small creek that feeds the Wenatchee river, and it's one of my favorite runs. This year, a few of us decided to try it in our little catarafts. We had a group of 3 IKs and 3 catarafts. The flow was about 600 cfs, which is an average flow for my runs here, but just barely enough for my 11' cat.

This was my first run of the class IV rapid, called Fresh Squeezed. As you can see from the photo, I didn't exactly have a clean run. However, I didn't fall off the boat. At the point the picture was taken, I was grabbing the boat with my left hand. My left foot was firmly in the frame stirrup, and my arm ended up caught between the spare oar and the boat, held by the pressure of an elastic strap. A few moments later, I was upright and in my boat.

The rest of the run on Peshastin Creek was easy, but a lot of work. This is a narrow creek with lots of rocks and lots of rapids, so I had to do a lot of maneuvering. There was one pair of logs that slowed us down a little, but we made it through with no problems.

When we reached the Wenatchee, things changed totally. My boat went from feeling huge to feeling tiny. I bobbed up and down over the waves, and the rapids seemed gigantic. We stopped for lunch and met up with other friends.

In Drunkard's Drop, I thought I was going to flip. I was in a line of 3 catarafts. The first one surfed the entry wave, so I started right. The next one looked like it was going to surf, so I stopped moving right, but then it went through and ended up right in front of me. It started surfing the main wave, and I came up right behind it. Luckily, I had enough momentum to just push us through and not get stuck and flip.

After the run, we went back to camp and had more fun activities and good food.

38 - 5/29/2011 - Upper and Middle Sauk

The IKers weren't interested in running the upper part of the run, but they did want to run the Middle Sauk, so the plan was that the two of us running the Upper Sauk would push down and meet them in a couple of hours. We ran the shuttle down to the takeout and we put in about about 10:45. Surprisingly, we made it to Whitechuck by 12:15 and beat the IKers. We had lunch and continued on with them.

The Middle Sauk was a blast in my little cataraft. I hope to get another chance to do this soon.

37 - 5/28/2011 - Upper Sauk

Bedal Campground is on the NF Sauk, and it's the put-in for the Upper Sauk run. This year I reserved a couple of prime sites on the river for Memorial Day weekend. The weather is typically drizzly and cloudy on Memorial Day weekend, and this year was no different.

We had a group of 6 boats: 3 cats, a raft, and 2 IKs. The run was the cleanest I've seen in years. All of the large logjam corners had open channels. The one place that we used to have to portage just about every year was completely clean.

In the afternoon after the run, some of us hiked up to see the NF Sauk Falls, which is a 50' waterfall in a narrow gorge. It was spectacular!

36 - 5/26/2011 - Middle Middle

This was the 3rd week of increasing flows, and 2300 was a fantastic level. There was just two of us at the beginning, but some friends in rafts caught up with us halfway down. I tried to do my practice flip on the first rapid, but I couldn't get the boat to flip there, so I had to do it on the second rapid. My self-rescue wasn't perfect, but it took less than a half minute and it was on my weak side, so I was happy enough with it.

As a side note, this was my 130th IK run on the Middle Middle, and my 777th river day.

35 - 5/21/2011 - Green River Gorge

35 river days before the end of May ties my record - this despite having to cut the spring trip short. If I can boat next week, I'll have a new record.

When we got to the put-in, I was a little worried. The water was brown and muddy, which usually happens when the river is running high. I was concerned that they had raised the flow, but I made a phone call and confirmed that it was steady. A combination of rain and snowmelt had brought a lot of silt into the lake, and the dam operators were working to get the silt out.

We had a group of 2 rafts, 3 catarafts, and a couple of IKs. I was in my 11' cataraft for the first half of the trip. I had a very good run and I practiced a lot of technical maneuvers. A short distance into the gorge, we came upon a group of kayakers, one of whom was having a tough day. He caught a ride in one of the rafts, and I carried his boat on the back of mine. This made a couple of places more interesting, but I did fine. I had a great run at The Nozzle.

After we ran the big rapids, I swapped boats with another catarafter. Her boat is tiny - 9.5'x18" as compared to my 11'x20" boat, which is still a very small cataraft. The tiny boat is a lot of fun and easy to control except when I bang the oars on my knees. The toughest thing to get used to is the Oar Rights. These are devices that keep the oars in a specific orientation, which is great when you want them to always be in the "power" position. The problem is that I've gotten used to being able to freely rotate my oars, so I couldn't take advantage of some of my techniques. I almost came out of the boat once, but I was able to stick to the boat.

34 - 5/20/2011 - SF Snoqualmie

My next door neighbor will be 83 soon, and he likes to go on at least 2 IK trips with me every year. It was a nice day and the river was flowing nicely, so we decided it was a good day to boat. I did my practice flip about halfway through the first rapid and got back in quickly. I hope I can continue this and get to be comfortable with this.

The run was clean and I spent a lot of time weaving through the rapids. It was a great run, and I'm glad I got to take advantage of a nice day. We haven't had very many of those yet this year.

33 - 5/19/2011 - Middle Middle

Once again, this was just a quick 2-boat float. There were other groups on the river, but we started out ahead of them and never saw them on the river.

I decided that I needed to start doing flip practice in my IK. I am going to try to do a practice flip on every run. This time, I started out in the flat water near the put-in, and got back into my boat pretty quickly. From now on, I will be flipping in rapids, since flips don't usually happen in flat water.

32 - 5/16/2011 - Cle Elum/Yakima

This is a great run to do on a sunny August afternoon when it's 90 degrees and the Cle Elum dam is releasing 3000 or more and the Yakima is adding in a little more. It's not quite as entertaining when it's cold, drizzling, and the Cle Elum dam is releasing 1000 and the Yakima is high and muddy. Still, it was the cleanest I have ever seen the river - usually there is more trouble with logjams in a few places.

There are a couple of places where the Cle Elum is being "engineered". The first "rapid" used to be a simple weir driving water into a channel on the right. It wasn't a lot of water before, but recently someone has engineered a curve in the river using log and dirt mounds. This causes a lot more water to go to the right. Most of this water comes back into the river a couple of miles downstream. Another engineered area is a river bank not far from where the river runs under I-90. There is a very nice house on river left that has a bank that is subject to heavy erosion. They have laid huge logs sloping up the river bank to reduce the erosion. I think they've done a reasonable job, and that it isn't going to cause more problems than it solves, but we'll know that in a few years.

The plan for the rest of the week was to go over to the Methow River. Despite the promise of sunny weather, I decided to back out of the trip at this point. I can run the Methow in June or July on a weekend and not use up any vacation time. It would be more interesting for me to use that vacation time on something that I can't do on a weekend.

31 - 5/14/2011 - Lower Cispus

To paraphrase Hannibal from the A-Team: I hate it when a plan falls apart.

Every spring, I do a big trip with a great group of people. This year, we had planned to run either the Owyhee in Oregon or the Smith in Montana. We were leaning towards the Owyhee, but the flow came up too high, and then the flow came up too high on the Smith. We tried to salvage the trip by planning to run day trips, though I wasn't quite up on the plan, so I still prepared for multi-day trips.

We drove down to the Lower Cispus as a jumping off point. This is a very easy run, but it's good to take advantage of it when it's flowing well and when the gate is unlocked. We had one little bit of adventure on the run above the rapid called Lion's Jaw. In the past when I've done this run, there was a huge hole on the right that always had a tree stuck in it. This time, I was in my big cataraft and the hole was clear, so I decided to run it. It was big, but I went right through. The cataraft behind me went to the right and avoided the hole. The IK behind him decided to try my line... and flipped... and then ended up swimming the left side of Lion's Jaw holding onto a rescue boat. I ran the right side of Lion's Jaw, which is the biggest rapid on the run, and had a fun ride.

As we finished the run, the rain started, and it really came down on us. We got the boats loaded and headed to camp. It took a couple of hours to get camp set up in the pouring rain, and we had dinner after dark. In the morning, it was still raining hard. For that and other reasons, we changed our plans. We headed back to our home area and planned to regroup on Monday...

30 - 5/12/2011 - Middle Middle

One of my friends likes to run the Middle Middle on Thursdays, but the 5:30 meet time is too early for him because of where he works. Now that the evenings are long enough, he and I can meet at 6 and still get in a quick run.

We had a good flow of around 1700, and we went fast. It was a nice evening, and a great time.

29 - 5/8/2011 - Green River Gorge

Because it was Mother's Day, a couple of my friends had to be home early, but still wanted to boat. The Gorge was running around 1700 (plus rain), which is a perfect IK flow. So, we planned to meet early with boats rigged and hit the put-in ready to go. We used a fishing access put-in that is close to the river and we used my trailer to haul the boats already rigged.

We got going, and with only one short break for a flip, we made great time. We were off the river by noon and heading home.

Sadly, a couple of our friends didn't get to boat that day. They showed up at the upper put-in, but nobody else came to boat that day. They knew we were boating, but we hadn't contacted them because of our schedule. I really don't like these "exclusive" trips, but they are part of boating.

28 - 5/7/2011 - NF Snoqualmie

I bought a key to the NF Snoqualmie gate, and I had been wanting to make use of it. I had expected to get a chance earlier, but spring took a long time arriving. Three of us went out for the day. I drove down to the takeout and walked to 1.2 miles back to the gate. We then drove up to the other gate, rigged, and walked the .3 miles to the put-in.

The flow was very good - around 1100 cfs - and the rapids were fast and busy. After about a half mile, we were running the right side of an island when we saw a tree blocking the entire river. We got into an eddy just above the tree, and planned our portage. The problem was that there was current coming in from the left, around the island, and the current pushed into the tree, making it hard to get to the eddy. The plan was to have the strongest boater paddle over and then help the other two of us with ropes.

The first boat went over, made it almost to the eddy, and flipped, going under the log. He was able to get to shore and come back up. He cleared branches away and threw the rope. The second boat was tied off and the boat and boater pulled to safety. Then it was my turn. I was not careful with the rope, and when I took off, the rope came off and I didn't make the eddy. I realized I wasn't going to make it, and I tried to dive out of the boat. I did everything wrong, and I ended up with the boat on the log and I went under it. I caught my drysuit leg on a branch and had to pull it off. I immediately knew it was ripped. I was swimming with my suit filling with water and my paddle going downstream. I yelled for the second boater to go get my paddle, and she did. When I got to shore, I got out the duct tape to patch my suit, and then the two of us remaining pulled my boat off the log.

The rest of the trip was uneventful and lots of fun, despite my torn suit. I wear a lightweight wetsuit under my drysuit when it's cold, so I wasn't uncomfortable. The one rapid I was a little worried about turned out to not be a problem.

I let another group know about the log so they would be prepared for it the next day. They had no trouble because they knew to take the left channel around the island.

27 - 5/5/2011 - Middle Middle

This ended up being just a small group of IKs. It was a nice, easy day at a medium-low flow.

26 - 4/30/2011 - Green River Cleanup

In the past, I would wait and go over to the Green River Cleanup on Saturday morning, but the nice accommodations and promise of good food lured me to Shangri La for the weekend. I took my little cataraft and added my new cargo frame to it to help pull out some pieces of the truck we had prepared a couple of weeks earlier. When we got to the beach where the truck was, the loading crew put a big load of metal on my little boat.

That is the area of a pickup truck behind the doors and the seats, and it even included the seatbelts. There are also two fenders and some random pices of metal. You can see part of an old motorboat being loaded onto another cataraft behind me. What you can't see is the pickup truck bed, which went down in a much larger cataraft.

I was boating with someone who needed to get going, so we pushed ourselves fast down the river. It was interesting to boat with my boat so back-heavy. I had some trouble in one of the big rapids, but made it through fine.

One thing that happened that was annoying was that a group of people were blocking the takeout. Now, I'm an older person, so I understand that sometimes it isn't easy for us older folks to move heavy loads, but with age should come wisdom. These people had 3 rafts blocking the entire takeout, and it would have been smart for them to work together to get the rafts unloaded and out of the way one at a time. Instead, these people unloaded all 3 of their boats first, taking out all of the frames and everything, before taking the boats. This meant that the two of us who came in had to pull in above them and we ended up having to unload our heavy loads onto a high, muddy shoreline. I hope these people noticed that they weren't working smart and will try to fix this in the future.

25 - 4/28/2011 - Middle Middle

This was an interesting logistical shuffle. It started out as a possible early run with IKs, and ended with me running it with a couple of catarafters. The flow was easy, but at one point I wasn't paying attention and I flipped on a rock. I ended up with a few bruises and a nasty scrape on my shin. Luckily, it didn't tear my drysuit open.

24 - 4/24/2011 - Green Headworks

April has been a big month this year. I've never had 24 river days at the end of April before, and I should have 25 or 26 if things go as planned.

This was a small group of mostly catboaters (I had my IK), including one person who had never rowed rapids before. The low flow meant they got stuck a few times.

23 - 4/23/2011 - Green Gorge

In order to receive free camping for WRRR members at the Green River Cleanup, we needed to help clean up the camping area. Three of us decided to run the river beforehand. As an interesting coincidence, the three people were the current, previous, and previous to that presidents of WRRR.

The flow was low, so the run was pretty easy and fun. It was a sunny day, and even though it started cold, it ended with a nice, warm afternoon.

The gardening and cleanup work was harder than the boating. I wish we had more help from WRRR members. Maybe next year...

22 - 4/17/2011 - Green Gorge (Day 2)

We took our time getting ready and got on the river at around 10AM. The flow was reasonable, and we had fun running the rest of the Gorge.

21 - 4/16/2011 - Green Gorge (Day 1)

I had never done an overnight run on the Green before, and this was a good opportunity. We arranged shuttle with some friends who live nearby. I took my 14-foot cataraft, since it can carry lots of camping gear easily. I was surprised at how easily it ran, despite the moderately low flow. A large group of boaters went down to the place where the truck bed and other junk was up high on the river bank. Some people cut the truck parts up while others dragged the trash down to the riverside, where it can be picked up at the end of the month.

After most of the group left, three of us ended the day by running Pipeline and a couple more rapids, and then pulled over to camp. The campsite was way up on a ledge above the river. It was not easy dragging camping gear up there, but it was a nice place to camp.

20 - 4/15/2011 - Middle Middle

Another evening run on the Middle Middle with 2 other IKers.

19 - 4/14/2011 - Middle Middle

This was the usual Thursday night run. There was just two of us, so it was quick.

18 - 4/10/2011 - Middle Middle

I wasn't going to boat this day, but some friends twisted my arm ;-).

17 - 4/9/2011 - Green Gorge

The dam release was only 1200, so I decided to run my IK, but because of the rain the flow was a bit higher in the Gorge. I kind of wished I had brought Cubby, but an IK run is always fun. We stopped off in the Gorge at a place where there is an old wrecked truck and boat that we're planning to take out during the Green River Cleanup at the end of the month.

16 - 4/8/2011 - Middle Middle

We didn't do the Thursday run because it was cold and the flow was very low, but Friday after work things were better. There were 4 of us on the run. Two people flipped at the takeout rapid, which was... interesting?

15 - 4/3/2011 - Upper Middle

It had been a while since I had run the Upper Middle. We had a group of new IKers, and a friend and I took out both of my catarafts. I took Cubby, which is always fun. The flow on the gauge was moderately high, but a lot of the flow came from creeks and the Pratt River, so it was shallow for the first few miles.

14 - 4/2/2011 - SF Snoqualmie

A couple of us did a long run on the SF Snoqualmie, from Twin Falls park down into town. We took out at the railroad bridge just west of North Bend.

13 - 3/20/2011 - Green Headworks

I took a new friend to run the Headworks. The weather was cloudy and the flow was fairly low.

12 - 3/19/2011 - Middle Middle

This was a Saturday Middle Middle run at a moderately low flow, with a new person.

11 - 3/17/2011 - Middle Middle

This Thursday Middle Middle trip was the first for the year. I hadn't boated for nearly a month. Between high water, low water, and illness, I just didn't make it out. I did get my thigh strap repaired, as well as getting D-rings installed for future emergencies.

We always schedule the Thursday evening Middle Middle trips to start the middle of March. The first couple of years, this wasn't easy to make happen because it got dark at 6:30PM. After the DST rules changed, it got a lot easier. Still, with sunset coming before 7:15PM, we have to meet before 4:30PM to make it happen. After a couple of weeks, we move the time to 5PM and then 5:30PM.

This week, the trip almost didn't happen, but a couple of cat boaters and a raft joined in and we had a nice trip. The flow was low (just over 1000 cfs), so there was a lot of rock dodging, but I like that kind of thing.

There's a lot of snow in the mountains and unless we get a sudden heat wave, we should have a good spring.

10 - 2/20/2011 - EF Humtulips Overnighter (Day 2)

BRRRR! It was tough to get up in the morning. Everything outside was frozen and the sun was hiding behind the trees. The person in charge of breakfast actually cooked it while still in his tent and sleeping bag. We put a lot of stuff under our overturned boats, which kept the frost on them, but it didn't stop them from freezing. Some of my gear had rocks frozen to them. My drysuit, which was in a plastic bag inside of a drybag, was a big frozen ball. The sun finally shone on our camp at about 9AM, so when we finally launched it was around 11AM.

I was a bit anxious over the run. We hadn't been there for 14 months, and there were no recent wood reports. As we neared the bridge that separates the Falls and Gorge sections, I was happy to see that there was no wood under the bridge. Once in the Gorge, we stopped a lot for photos. Above the biggest rapid, called Surf and Turf, we had stopped, but we got going again too soon - not soon enough for me, though. The last time through, I got stuck in this rapid, and I didn't want that to happen again. Luckily, the "normal" route turned out to be easy.

The rest of the run was easy, except for the times I got stuck in the shallows. One interesting note about this day is that it was my 10th river day of the year. I don't normally get in this many days before March.

9 - 2/19/2011 - EF Humtulips Overnighter (Day 1)

With nice river levels and nice weather (for February), a group of us decided to run the EF Humptulips as an overnighter. We had been planning to do this all winter, and this was the first time it came together. We got an early start and were on the river by noon. We took it slow so the group photographer could get lots of pictures. We arrived at the camp we used in December 2009, and it was not usable this time. The beach was saturated with water, and if we had tried to camp there, we would have sunk into the wet sand and then frozen there in the morning. Luckily, we had more time so it was no problem getting to a lower camp.

There is a rapid that has a big log in it. One person tried to run it and flipped, so the other two of us portaged. On the portage, I broke a thigh strap. Other than that, we had no problems.

We reached our camp in the middle of the afternoon, so we had plenty of time to set up everything and relax. We shared a huge steak and mashed potatoes for dinner, and had a nice campfire. I went to bed early because it was cold and going to get colder.

On a side note, this was my 750th river day since I started. I am hoping to make it to 1000 by the end of June 2014 (my 25th anniversary of whitewater boating).

8 - 2/13/2011 - Middle Middle

Another day on the Middle Middle? Well, we were supposed to run the Lower Tilton, but the rain we were promised didn't really materialize. I wasn't going to boat at all, but a local friend wanted to do a quick run, and the flow was higher than the day before, so we went for it. We ended up going to the upper put-in because she had a small cataraft, and there are a couple of interesting little rapids up there.

A lot of the run was spent playing "follow the leader" with me in the lead. I was taking obscure routes and my friend would follow me as best she could (some of my lines were just too narrow to follow). I ended up with the same weird line through House Rocks that I did the day before, so I'm thinking that there was some rock movement in a recent storm that changed something. At Second Island Drop, there has definitely been some rock movement, and the slot I used to take is now choked with rocks and isn't runnable at the same flows as before. I ended up stuck below this, as well, but I finally made it through.

All in all, it was a fun day.

7 - 2/12/2011 - Middle Middle

I had a couple of weekends off from boating because of injuries and high water, and a friend wanted to do a quick mid-day run on something nearby, so we chose the Middle Middle. The flow was just over 1000 cfs, and we put it at First Island Drop. On the first rapid (a shallow gravel bar), I got stuck on a rock, and rather than just getting out of the boat and moving it, I stupidly tried to push myself around the rock. After I flipped and found myself face down in about 4 inches of water, the boat got off of me and before I could grab it, it was going downstream. My friend grabbed it and pulled it to the side, and I went ahead and swam down the rapid to get back to it. The rest of the run was without incident, though I did have a weird run at House Rocks. Below the main drop in the upper part of the rapid, I found myself pulled quickly to the right, so I missed the main wave train.

6 - 1/29/2011 - Green River Gorge

Taking the alternate line at Paradise (photo stolen from Mark Burns)

Six runs in January is above average, though this year I used up a lot of vacation for just 4 days of boating (normally, I would have gotten in 10 days for that much vacation). Still, given the snow and extra-high water, this isn't bad.

Last weekend, I had planned to run the Middle Middle both days, but Saturday morning I got a really bad twinge in my left shoulder that put me out for the weekend. Luckily, this went away, and the high water on the Green subsided.

We had an uncomfortably large group of people, and it took an extra hour to get going. We need to work on this problem. Anyway, I had set up Cubby (my 12x20 Sotar) with the frame moved forward, and this made a big difference. Before, I found that I had to back-row to really move the boat, and it's better to be able to move the boat forward.

The dam was releasing 2200 cfs, but the flow at Auburn was 3500, so the side creeks were obviously kicking in a lot. As we entered the gorge, it was clear to me that the flow was quite a bit higher than when I ran it at 1900. There were more holes, but also room to get around them. The rapids were smooth, and even Pipeline was an easy run.

Just above Mercury, I noticed that my bowline was in the water. I had to gather it and get it stowed quickly before entering the rapid. Mercury was fast, and when I got to the bottom, I was way too far left for the normal run at the Nozzle. I chose the slot on the left. This was shallow, but it was no problem. The tree branch that had been below the Nozzle for the past few years was gone, which helped. I quickly went through the gorge down to Let's Make a Deal.

My first choice was to run Door Number One (far right). I tried to get in, but ended up on the pillow wave, which then spat me out. I went to move left to Door Number Three, but Door Number Two grabbed me. I went up onto that pillow, then pulled back and was thrown fast into the main current... backwards. I worked to spin the boat around, which was when I noticed that my oar was stuck in the jaws of the oarlock. Luckily, it was stuck at a usable angle. I was able to run the next two rapids and get to the lunch spot, where a couple of people helped get the oar out. I need to squeeze my oarlocks back together to prevent this kind of thing.

When we got to Deja Vu, I ended up too close behind another boat that got stuck for a moment. I had to work my way through an alternate route, which nearly put me into the big top hole without any momentum, but I got through it fine. Below Paradise, several of us got bunched up, and some people couldn't resist the urge to surf, and it made things a bit uncomfortable. After this, I backed off and boated alone for a bit.

I think that this is about as high as I'll run this boat on the Green. I might go a little higher with some more practice, but for now when the flow is over 2200 from now on, I think I'll run my Ocelot.

5 - 1/20/2011 - SF Snoqualmie

While I was in Costa Rica, the rivers in Washington were running very high. It had snowed before I left, but it then warmed up. So, on the Thursday after I got back, the SF Snoqualmie was flowing nicely (the gauge said 575, but with the side creeks it was more like 800-900).

The recent high water events have cleaned up the run. The braided channels below the clay wall are back to a single main channel. Below that, the dangerous log that had been 3/4 of the way across the river is now only blocking the right 1/3 and is less spikey.

We had a nice time, though at one point my paddling partner got stuck trying to surf a ledge and had to work for a couple of minutes to get out. Some people...

4 - 1/15/2011 - Rio Savegre (Costa Rica)

Kayaking in the Jungle

After the Headwaters run, we were supposed to spend 2 days on the Lower Pacuare, staying at the jungle camp. Sadly, the heavy rains put an end to that plan, and we ended up going back to the Pacific Coast for one more day of boating. Three of us decided to kayak, while the rest of the group went zip-lining.

The road to the river had some steep sections, and our driver was concerned he might not make it back, but that turned out not to be the case. We headed down the river, which was basically class II+ with a couple of harder rapids. The most interesting thing was the sound - the cicadas were quite loud.

Just before lunch, I was going to surf a small ledge and I flipped. This time, I was able to flip the boat right back over and hop in. After lunch, we continued downstream and stopped off to hike up to a big waterfall.

Jungle Waterfall

The rest if the trip was easy rapids.

That night, we had even more adventure. We headed back to the airport area to stay at a B&B to catch our early flight the next day. We were about 30 minutes from the B&B when a car accident closed the road. The police told us the road would be closed for 3-5 hours. We waited a couple of hours and then decided to go get some dinner. During dinner, the driver found out that an alternate route - a gravel road through the mountains - was available. We slid through curves and made it to the B&B around midnight.

3 - 1/13/2011 - Rio Pacuare Headwaters (Costa Rica)

On the way to the Headwaters. Can you tell I'm terrified?

The previous day we were supposed to run the Upper Upper Pacuare, but the rain stopped us. Instead, we did some non-river activities and hoped for the best. The Pacuare Headwaters is only reachable by a steep 3 mile horse trail over a mountain. We had originally thought that we would just be using horses to pack in our gear, but it turned out that we would also be riding horses. I was terrified - I had never ridden a horse before. That made for a long night, and it didn't help that it continued to rain hard.

We got up at 6AM and hit the road. It was a 90 minute drive to get to the trailhead. When we got there, we helped load up the horses and got going. My poor horse did a great job slogging through the mud with me riding. I did my best to lean forward and back to help, and I made it the whole way without any problems. There were several places where the trail was very narrow against steep cliffs, and I made sure not to look down.

Our first view of the river

We were a little concerned that we might get to the river and find it too high, but when the river came into view, we saw that it was at a great level. We got down to the river and pumped up the IKs. We had a quick lunch and got going.


The Pacuare Headwaters has tons of rapids - we estimated that there were more than 50 in 5 miles, most class III, with a few easier and a few harder. I portaged the big class IV because I didn't feel good about the big hole near the entrance. Otherwise, we all did great. At one point, we came to a creek with a 10-foot falls at the end, and a couple of guys carried up to run it with no problems.

In the thick of things

As we approached the beginning of the Upper Upper run, we saw a side creek come in that was bright red mud. It entered the river as a red stream until the mud was mixed into the water by a big rapid. At the end of the run, we estimated that we had around 3000 cfs, which was big water for the river, but a perfect level for our trip.

This was the best part of the Costa Rica trip, and I am glad we did it.

2 - 1/11/2011 - Rio Pejibaye (Costa Rica)

The whole crew

After our stay on the Pacific Coast of Costa Rica, we went back to the airport, turned in our cars, and then were driven to Turrialba, which is near the center of the country. On our first day, we ran the Rio Pejibaye. We had a group of 7 IKs and there were 4 guides in hardshell kayaks. We started with the lower run, which was fun class II+. After lunch, those of us who were experience boaters went up to run the class III+ upper section.

While we drove up, rain came in and raised the river a little. We hiked our boats down to the river and got started. The first couple of rapids were steep, blind, boulder gardens. We then had to eddy out because the next rapid had a tree across the main channel. After that, things were fun, but pretty easy. We got back down to where we had originally put in, and one of the other boaters joined us to finish the run.

Running the headwall

Near the end of the run there is a fun headwall rapid that gave us a wild ride. Just as we got near the takeout, I got stuck on a gravel bar. One of the other boaters tried to knock me off the rocks, but we ended up stuck together with his boat under mine as we rushed toward some brush by the river. We luckily extracted ourselves in time.

1 - 1/8/2011 - Rio Guabo (Costa Rica)

Rio Guabo Put-in

Normally, my first run of the year would be the New Year's float on the Cedar River, but for various reasons (mostly due to miscommunication and cold weather), I didn't make that trip. In any case, it's more interesting to start the year with a warm river in the jungle in a warm part of the world.

I went to Costa Rica with a group of friends, and one of the things we decided to do was to run the Guabo River. The Guabo is not far from the town of Dominical, which is a surfing town in the southern part of the country. Coincidentally, some old friends of mine own land on this river, not far below where we put in.

A few of us drove up to the put-in the day before to make sure that the road was passable and that there was enough water. There was a very narrow suspension bridge over the Rio Cana Blanca, but it was fine. There was just barely enough water. Luckily, we got a lot of rain that night and the river came up - not much, but enough to make it a bit better.

At the put-in, there was just enough water to kayak down, but after 100 yards, the Rio Angel (which may also be known as the Rio Tierras Morenas) comes in. The first few miles to rapids are class II+ gravel bars. At one point, we floated by a big lizard on a rock. We had to pull over for some boat adjustments, so one of the guys pulled out his camera to grab some shots of the lizard. After a while, someone pointed out that the lizard was a basilisk, also known as a Jesus Christ Lizard. He splashed it with water and it ran across the surface of the river!

We continued down to the confluence with the Rio Cana Blanca. We saw some local kids floating on inner tubes down a rapid near their house. Not far below this, we came to Guabo Falls, which is a steep class V- rapid. One of the guys ran it, and made it look easy, but the rest of us portaged it. With more water, I think we all would have run it.

Below the falls, the rapids changed to steep boulder gardens. These were hard to run - the leader would pick a route, which would run out, and the next person would pick a new route. We often ended up in a completely different order than we started with.

Typical Boulder Garden Rapid

After a bit, we came to an area where there were lots of diagonal ledge rocks. I got stuck in one ledge wave, extracted myself, and then went over a 4 foot ledge that decided it was time for me to flip. I dropped my paddle trying to reflip my boat, and someone else had to get it for me.

After a few more miles of rapids, we went onto the Rio Baru. A 2-mile paddle on the Baru brought us to our hotel.