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.