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.