33 - 5/19/2011 - Middle Middle

Once again, this was just a quick 2-boat float. There were other groups on the river, but we started out ahead of them and never saw them on the river.

I decided that I needed to start doing flip practice in my IK. I am going to try to do a practice flip on every run. This time, I started out in the flat water near the put-in, and got back into my boat pretty quickly. From now on, I will be flipping in rapids, since flips don't usually happen in flat water.

32 - 5/16/2011 - Cle Elum/Yakima

This is a great run to do on a sunny August afternoon when it's 90 degrees and the Cle Elum dam is releasing 3000 or more and the Yakima is adding in a little more. It's not quite as entertaining when it's cold, drizzling, and the Cle Elum dam is releasing 1000 and the Yakima is high and muddy. Still, it was the cleanest I have ever seen the river - usually there is more trouble with logjams in a few places.

There are a couple of places where the Cle Elum is being "engineered". The first "rapid" used to be a simple weir driving water into a channel on the right. It wasn't a lot of water before, but recently someone has engineered a curve in the river using log and dirt mounds. This causes a lot more water to go to the right. Most of this water comes back into the river a couple of miles downstream. Another engineered area is a river bank not far from where the river runs under I-90. There is a very nice house on river left that has a bank that is subject to heavy erosion. They have laid huge logs sloping up the river bank to reduce the erosion. I think they've done a reasonable job, and that it isn't going to cause more problems than it solves, but we'll know that in a few years.

The plan for the rest of the week was to go over to the Methow River. Despite the promise of sunny weather, I decided to back out of the trip at this point. I can run the Methow in June or July on a weekend and not use up any vacation time. It would be more interesting for me to use that vacation time on something that I can't do on a weekend.

31 - 5/14/2011 - Lower Cispus

To paraphrase Hannibal from the A-Team: I hate it when a plan falls apart.

Every spring, I do a big trip with a great group of people. This year, we had planned to run either the Owyhee in Oregon or the Smith in Montana. We were leaning towards the Owyhee, but the flow came up too high, and then the flow came up too high on the Smith. We tried to salvage the trip by planning to run day trips, though I wasn't quite up on the plan, so I still prepared for multi-day trips.

We drove down to the Lower Cispus as a jumping off point. This is a very easy run, but it's good to take advantage of it when it's flowing well and when the gate is unlocked. We had one little bit of adventure on the run above the rapid called Lion's Jaw. In the past when I've done this run, there was a huge hole on the right that always had a tree stuck in it. This time, I was in my big cataraft and the hole was clear, so I decided to run it. It was big, but I went right through. The cataraft behind me went to the right and avoided the hole. The IK behind him decided to try my line... and flipped... and then ended up swimming the left side of Lion's Jaw holding onto a rescue boat. I ran the right side of Lion's Jaw, which is the biggest rapid on the run, and had a fun ride.

As we finished the run, the rain started, and it really came down on us. We got the boats loaded and headed to camp. It took a couple of hours to get camp set up in the pouring rain, and we had dinner after dark. In the morning, it was still raining hard. For that and other reasons, we changed our plans. We headed back to our home area and planned to regroup on Monday...

30 - 5/12/2011 - Middle Middle

One of my friends likes to run the Middle Middle on Thursdays, but the 5:30 meet time is too early for him because of where he works. Now that the evenings are long enough, he and I can meet at 6 and still get in a quick run.

We had a good flow of around 1700, and we went fast. It was a nice evening, and a great time.

29 - 5/8/2011 - Green River Gorge

Because it was Mother's Day, a couple of my friends had to be home early, but still wanted to boat. The Gorge was running around 1700 (plus rain), which is a perfect IK flow. So, we planned to meet early with boats rigged and hit the put-in ready to go. We used a fishing access put-in that is close to the river and we used my trailer to haul the boats already rigged.

We got going, and with only one short break for a flip, we made great time. We were off the river by noon and heading home.

Sadly, a couple of our friends didn't get to boat that day. They showed up at the upper put-in, but nobody else came to boat that day. They knew we were boating, but we hadn't contacted them because of our schedule. I really don't like these "exclusive" trips, but they are part of boating.

28 - 5/7/2011 - NF Snoqualmie

I bought a key to the NF Snoqualmie gate, and I had been wanting to make use of it. I had expected to get a chance earlier, but spring took a long time arriving. Three of us went out for the day. I drove down to the takeout and walked to 1.2 miles back to the gate. We then drove up to the other gate, rigged, and walked the .3 miles to the put-in.

The flow was very good - around 1100 cfs - and the rapids were fast and busy. After about a half mile, we were running the right side of an island when we saw a tree blocking the entire river. We got into an eddy just above the tree, and planned our portage. The problem was that there was current coming in from the left, around the island, and the current pushed into the tree, making it hard to get to the eddy. The plan was to have the strongest boater paddle over and then help the other two of us with ropes.

The first boat went over, made it almost to the eddy, and flipped, going under the log. He was able to get to shore and come back up. He cleared branches away and threw the rope. The second boat was tied off and the boat and boater pulled to safety. Then it was my turn. I was not careful with the rope, and when I took off, the rope came off and I didn't make the eddy. I realized I wasn't going to make it, and I tried to dive out of the boat. I did everything wrong, and I ended up with the boat on the log and I went under it. I caught my drysuit leg on a branch and had to pull it off. I immediately knew it was ripped. I was swimming with my suit filling with water and my paddle going downstream. I yelled for the second boater to go get my paddle, and she did. When I got to shore, I got out the duct tape to patch my suit, and then the two of us remaining pulled my boat off the log.

The rest of the trip was uneventful and lots of fun, despite my torn suit. I wear a lightweight wetsuit under my drysuit when it's cold, so I wasn't uncomfortable. The one rapid I was a little worried about turned out to not be a problem.

I let another group know about the log so they would be prepared for it the next day. They had no trouble because they knew to take the left channel around the island.

27 - 5/5/2011 - Middle Middle

This ended up being just a small group of IKs. It was a nice, easy day at a medium-low flow.