2011 Roundup

2011 turned out to be the second most prolific boating year yet. I got in a total of 86 boating days, of which 63 were IK runs. I boated in 4 states (WA, OR, ID, and MT) and one other country (Costa Rica). I got in 12 personal first descents, but only flipped 8 times.

As the year ends, I have a total of 827 river days since 1989, with an average of 37 days per year. My 5 year average is 79 days per year. To make 1000 days by June 2014, I need to average 72 days per year for the next 17 months.

My goals for 2011 are:

• Boat at least 75 days.
• Learn to reflip my cataraft.
• Run Boulder Drop at least 5 times.
• Run Fall in the Wall on the SF Snoqualmie

86 - 12/31/2011 - Middle Middle

Some friends and I had spent the week at the beach in Oregon, and when we returned there was plenty of water in the river. For my birthday, we decided to do a quick run on the Middle Middle. The run itself was the usual fun, with pretty nice weather. We were surprised to see that the tree that had fallen just after Thanksgiving was still there.

85 - 12/18/2011 - Lower Skagit

With no rain, it was looking like their might not be any boating in December. A friend decided to do an "eagle float" on the Lower Skagit. This section of river only has a few rapids, all class I or I+, but in the winter it has a lot of eagles. The only other time I ran this section was back in August 2000, and there aren't many birds out in August.

We had a group of 4 boats: a raft, a cataraft (mine), an inflatable kayak, and a hardshell kayak. I finally mounted my GoPro helmet camera and took it. I got almost the entire trip on video (all but the last 5 minutes).