84 - 11/27/2011 - Middle Middle

The flow in the Middle Fork Snoqualmie came down to a good level, so a few of us decided to do a quick run on the Middle Middle to end a nice Thanksgiving vacation. It was a cool, windy day, and we had a great time. Near the end of the trip, I told one of my fellow boaters that I hoped that the wind didn't knock over any trees near in the last section. There were no trees on the river, but when I began to walk up the trail to the takeout, the trail disappeared. A vine-covered tree had fallen over and covered the trail. I shoved my boat over the mess, climbed over, and nearly fell flat on my face. I pulled out my knife and began cutting the vines out of the way. It took 5 of us (including a couple of other people who showed up after us) cutting and ripping vines to clear the way.

83 - 11/25/2011 - Green River Gorge

At Thanksgiving the night before, several of us decided to run the Green the following day. I took my little cataraft. We had a good medium flow. Everything was great, though I had an "interesting" run at Pipeline. Normally, I try to run the rapid on the left, but my tennis elbow was giving me trouble. I found myself sideways above the main drop, unable to get left and unable to turn the boat to hit the drop squarely. I went over the drop sideways, and braced for a flip... that never came. I went down smoothly and had no trouble at all.

Sadly, this would be my only Green run in the second half of 2011. I usually get in a lot more runs in the winter, but the lack of rain prevented that.

82 - 11/24/2011 - SF Snoqualmie

We had lots of rain the week of Thanksgiving, which made the Middle Middle a bit too high, so a couple of friends and I decided to do a quick SF Snoqualmie trip before Thanksgiving dinner. We did the short run down to my house rather than an extended run. I flipped while surfing near the end, but was able to get back into my boat quickly.

Leading the flow

Some friends ran the Green today and they put on as the flow was being dropped from 935 to the mid 600s. This reminded me of a couple of days back in 1991 when I was running the South Fork American in California. I had a couple of friends who wanted to IK the run, but one wanted to go on Saturday and the other on Sunday. So, I was able to rent one boat for them to use. On the SF, the dam release typically started at 9AM and went for 3 hours. Each day, we got on the river just after 9 and my friends both wanted to get home fairly quickly, so we paddled to stay at the front of the release. We didn't really notice it at first, but we were paddling hard enough that we kept getting in front of the release. The first time I noticed was the first day at lunch. We had gone halfway through the gorge when we decided to stop for lunch. As we ate, the river slowly began to rise. My boat had been sitting on the beach and I noticed that it had begun to float.  After lunch, we got back on the higher flow and finished the run. The following day, I convinced my friend that hurrying wouldn't really get us to the takeout faster, so we rode the main flow the whole way. I've never been in this situation since that weekend.

81 - 11/13/2011 - Middle Middle

There was lots of talk about various rivers during the week. On Saturday, it looked like we were going to run the NF Snoqualmie on Sunday, but late Saturday night that was called off because it didn't look like there would be enough water. So, I put together a last minute Middle Middle trip. It turned out that the NF Snoqualmie would have been runnable, though low, but one of the people on the Middle Middle trip would be in a cataraft, which would not have been appropriate.

So, we had a small group - 3 IKs and 1 cataraft. It was a little rainy, but not a bad day overall. Interestingly enough, we ran at the lowest flow of the day. The rain was bringing up the flow behind us.

This makes 81 days, which makes this year a tie for second best.

80 - 11/6/2011 - Skykomish

It looked like it was going to be a dry day. Nobody seemed interested in doing a run until a catboater friend got in touch. The flow was down a bit from the previous day - we ended up having just under 2000 cfs - and it was a little colder, but that's OK when I run my cataraft.It was still a beautiful sunny day.

I find that as I approach Boulder Drop, my heart begins to pound a little. I have to take a few deep breaths, visualize past runs, and visualize my plan for this run. My plan was to run right at the entrance and then do the usual Airplane Turn route. So much for that plan - I went left at the entrance, and then got too far left above Airplane Turn. I ended up having to push harder to the right and ended up on the right side of the rapid. No problem - I just went back to the center and took the big drop at the bottom.

80 days ties my 3rd best year ever. 81 will tie 2nd, but I'd have to get up to 90 to tie my best year.

79 - 11/5/2011 - Skykomish

The week began with lots of interest in boating, but the lack of rain allowed that to dwindle to just a couple of people. The Sky was running around 2200, so a friend and I went up to IK it. We hooked up with a couple of other friends in a cataraft and hardshell and ran from the confluence down to Big Eddy.

My run at Boulder Drop was textbook. For the first time ever, I ran the kayak slot at the entrance (I usually just risk the raft slots). I then went over to Airplane Turn and ran down the usual left side. The weather was sunny and relatively warm, and it was just a nice fun day.