4 - 1/14/2012 - Green River Overnighter (Day 1)

Earlier in the week it appeared that we'd have a good flow on the Green, but by Saturday the flow was around 750, which is quite low. I decided at the last minute to switch to my cataraft because despite the lower flow I'd be less likely to flip.

We met at the put-in and unloaded. The original plan had been for me to leave my vehicle at a friend's near the takeout and then leave the other vehicle at a friend's near the put-in, after which I would walk back to the river to meet the group. Luckily, the friend near the put-in was home and gave me a ride.

We got going at around 11AM. The weather was cold, and it looked like it might snow. We pushed our way through the shallow rapids. When we got to the Gorge, this was a bit tougher. I got stuck a couple of times and had to spend a few minutes extracting the boat. The real challenge came at The Nozzle. It was tiny! Also, there was a boat stuck on the right rock, so we had to wait. When I went in, I had a good line and dropped my oars to allow me to slide through, but that didn't happen. The current on the right rock grabbed my stern-heavy boat and pulled it to the right before I could get to the oars. Luckily, a pair of boaters were on the left rock and were able to toss me a rope. I was going to tie the rope when one of them yelled to me to clip it in. I thought for a moment and remembered that I carry a carabiner in my PFD pocket, so I pulled it out and clipped on. A few moments later I was out. One other person in the group got stuck sideways in the drop and had to be helped through.

After that, things got much easier. We had a quick lunch stop in the gorge and went on down to camp. About 10 minutes before we reached camp, it began to snow and sleet. When we got to camp, we set up the kitchen tarp and then set up our tents. We hung out for the rest of the evening and had a great dinner. I retired early because it was getting cold.

3 - 1/7/2012 - Green River Gorge

Flows came down during the week and we ended up with just under 1200 for Saturday. We had a group of 5 IKs, putting in at the fishing access near the Palmer hatchery. Things went smoothly until a few rapids below Let's Make a Deal. One person broached on a rock and flipped after getting unstuck. At the bottom of the next rapid, this person got in front of me and got stopped by a wave, which resulted in me getting sideways in that wave and I flipped. In the lower gorge, I flipped on another wave. I got back into my boat quickly each time, but I was glad I didn't have my helmet camera on.

The last hour or so was very cold, and we were happy to get to the takeout and get warmed up.

2 - 1/5/2011 - SF Snoqualmie

I work from home about half the time, and I can do an entire SF Snoqualmie trip and be back to work in under 2 hours. One of the people from the Cedar River trip the previous weekend wanted to get in a kayak run, so we met up and hit the SF. The weather was quite nice, especially considering that it was supposed to be raining hard all day. The run was clean and we had no problems.

1 - 1/1/2012 - Cedar

This is the traditional January 1 trip, where WRRR members and friends get together to start the year off with an easy boating trip. We had around 30 people, probably the biggest New Years trip so far, with all kinds of craft: several inflatable kayaks, a paddle raft, an oar raft, a cataraft, a hardshell kayak, and even a standup paddle board! The flow was excellent and the weather was sunny and fairly warm.

I took my GoPro helmet cam and got video of the entire run.

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).