6 - 2/4/2012 - EF Humptulips Overnighter (Day 1)

This photo is from 2009, but our 2012 campsite is just downstream on the right

We had been trying to get in an EF Humptulips overnighter for a few weeks, and this week cooperated beautifully. The ideal situation with this run is to have a big rainstorm followed by sunny weather, and that's exactly what happened. The plan had been to drop camping gear at the put-in for the Falls run, and then go up to run the Narrows. My right elbow was bothering me, so I decided that I would just wait for the others to run the Narrows, but everyone else decided to just get an early start on the Falls.

We carried our gear down to the river and got our gear loaded. I decided for this trip to use a larger drybag in the front of my boat, and that worked out fine. I had my biggest bag in the back, with a chair strapped to the top. In the front I had a load of firewood and my other drybag.

We got on the river just after noon. The temperature was around 50 and it was sunny - a perfect day in the lush river valley. The waterfalls were flowing nicely, and the river flow was just a little higher than I had run it before (which was fine - I've always run it pretty low). We didn't have any problems with trees, which we had been concerned about.

We passed up a couple of cramped river-side camp sites before coming to an area that looked promising. There was a large flat bench about 15 feet above the river on the right. I commented to someone that I wondered what it would be like up there, and a few minutes later we stopped. One person went up to the bench and beckoned for us to come up. There was a lot of devil's club (a thorny weed), but behind that were many clearings. The ground was a little boggy, but because of the recent dry weather, it was perfect for tents. I had a spot with a nice view of the river and lots of sunshine for drying out my gear.

We hung out and had dinner in the moonlight. Oddly, I was the last person to go to bed, though I went to bed at around 8PM. We still had a lot of firewood left over.