57 - 9/12/09 - Tieton "Full Pull"

Lee running the dam

This weekend there was road construction at the takeout. Luckily I left home 45 minutes early because when I got past the takeout, I had to wait 20 minutes. A group of us IKers decided to run from the uppermost put-in and run down to Tim's Ponds. This is about 19-20 miles on the river. On the shuttle, we ended up having to wait about 10 minutes on the way down and 10 minutes on the way back.

The uppermost put-in requires driving up past our camp and then driving on a rutted road by the river up to a high bank. You can see the dam from the river when you get in at this put-in. Starting at this point you get several extra class II+ and III rapids that are a lot of fun. Little did we know that the flow had been kicked up to around 1850 cfs, making things extra fun.

We met up with a raft at our camp and headed down. I mostly took conservative routes because a couple of people were nervous and wanted me to lead them. I got a 3-minute lead and took photos at the dam. After that, we pulled out at the usual lunch spot to regroup and then headed on to High Noon, which turned out to be very interesting.

One of my friends had challenged me to go over Tombstone, which is the rock in the middle of High Noon. I normally don't do this, but I decided that I would rather risk a swim than get ribbed by her. Well, I blew it. I was a foot too far left and when I came down I got spun sideways. A few seconds later, I went over, banging my head on the rock as I flipped. Luckily, I have a good helmet and I didn't suffer any damage (that you can prove), but I did let go of my paddle. I realized this and was able to hook it with my foot and get it back to me. At this point, it's worth mentioning that I have flipped here before and knew that I could stand up in the hole below Tombstone. I grabbed my boat and started to flip it over when another IK came over the top. This helped flip my boat over, but it put the other IKer in a precarious position. I grabbed the front of her boat and pulled her away from the pourover. A moment later, her husband came over the rock in his IK. A few seconds later, both of them were out of the rapid, just in time for another IK to come over the rock. Finally, I was able to push my boat downstream and hop in. Overall, my mistake only cost us about 30 seconds, so I was pretty happy with the outcome.

We continued down the run, and we planned to stop for lunch at Windy Point. Somehow, there was some confusion, and the raft stopped above this. When we tried to get over to them, one of the IKers flipped. I chased her down and tried to help her reflip her boat, but I couldn't do much and I had to deal with a rafter who was trying to help. The problem was that we were in fast current, and there was a strong possibility that the IKer or I would end up going under the raft. I told the rafter that we couldn't use his help. I guess he was annoyed by my words and my tone because he said "Well, enjoy your swim" and rowed away. I didn't mean to insult him (I apologized later), but he just wasn't in a good position to help us. A few seconds later, the IKer got her boat reflipped and she got back in. I had her paddle, and I got it back to her before there were any obstacles for her to worry about. We stopped for lunch and soon regrouped with the raft.

The rest of the run was easy and we had a great time.