32 - 6/6/09 - Peshastin Creek/Wenatchee

(In my cataraft in Snowblind on the Wenatchee)

The first weekend in June, WRRR holds the annual Bob Johnson Memorial Wenatchee Rendezvous (Bob was one of the founders of WRRR). The first few times I went, I just ran the Wenatchee River both days. As I would drive to the Wenatchee, I would look at Peshastin Creek, the small creek that parallels highway 97. In 2007, the Wenatchee was running high and Peshastin Creek had enough water for a first run. So, on the Sunday rather than running the Wenatchee again, I ran Peshastin Creek, and it quickly became one of my favorite runs. In 2008, I ran it again. So, when people started talking about 2009, Peshastin Creek had to figure in our plans.

We had 10 IKers on the trip. 5 put in up above the Ingal's Creek Bridge to get all of the hard whitewater. 1 put in just below the class IV rapid, Fresh Squeezed. 4 of us put in another mile below that, where the whitewater was merely continuous class II+ with frequent class III rapids.

Some people have called Peshastin Creek "the Tieton on steroids". The character of the run is similar, and there's even a runnable dam on the run. A better analogy is Joe Sauve's "the Tieton on crack" because Peshastin Creek is much more jittery and narrow. Whatever the case, it's a blast.

When we got to the Wenatchee, we had lunch and ran shuttle to continue down the Wenatchee. I switched to my purple cataraft and we launched just below the Dryden dam. At over 13,000 cfs, the Wenatchee is the polar opposite to Peshastin Creek. The waves and holes are huge, and you tend to have to run them hard because they are hard to avoid. I was very nervous and I was relived every time I made it through a rapid without trouble. At Rodeo Hole, we avoided the hole and then watched as a group of people in a raft lazily went in and flipped. The aforementioned Joe Sauve got to play hero by jumping on their overturned raft and reflipping it.

After the run, we all went back to the campground for food and festivities.