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.