Sunday, June 2, 2013

Another Adventure Down The Almighty Little White Salmon!

  So today was a late start lazy paddle day. I woke up around 12 and got picked up by Ryan Young to head out to the L-Dub. On the way there I hit up my boy Hans since he hadn't ran the Dub yet and has been trying to get on it since he moved down here around a month ago from New Mexico. It was a beautiful day and the flow was suppose to be around 3'2" so I was super stoked about this mission. 

  I walked down to put in and checked the gauge and it read 3'4" which was a little higher than i felt comfortable since I just started boating again but I was super fired up and ready to go so I put on anyway. Getting busy was a ride and and so was Boulder Sluice but as i flew off the launch pad of Boulder Sluice i saw Hans upside down just to my left. I landed and my bow shot up and landed on his boat. He ended up pulling his skirt and swimming and swam the next sketchy ledge. I got his boat in an eddy right below the ledge and he self rescued right where I got his boat. 

  We kept on downstream through some more boogie water and made it to Island. Hans got out to scout and Rush Sturges and one of his friends were smashing down and stomped it. Ryan's friend ran it first out of the four of us then Ryan followed. They had a little close moment together in the bottom hole that was a little funny. Hans went next then me. He had a good line but i flipped in the bottom hole and ran the next little pour over upside down and rolled up laughing. 

  Smashing down some more fun named and un named drops we made our way to Wish Bone. Everyone had a good line other than Hans. He tried for the far left boof but got rejected by the diagonals and went right down the middle with the "oregon tuck" technique which is a sick falls to try to go super deep on. After missing a couple rolls he pulled his skirt and had his second swim. He got to the side drained his boat and prepared for the Gorge. 

  Ryan and his buddy Ran it first to set safety at the bottom of Horseshoe. Hans followed me through the Gorge and all went well until I caught a boil above Horseshoe which sent me left and I charged to catch the last eddy above the drop on the left. Hans was left to run it himself and had a good line. Me on the other hand had to climb out of my boat and use it to stand on to climb up the wall to hike back up. I slid back in and ran the drop then eddied out below with the rest of the crew.

  The whole run I was pretty nervous and didn't think I was going to fire up spirit but as I was making the bend before it my adrenaline kicked in and i decided to give'er. Ryan ran it first and disappeared off the lip which looked to me like he was way to far right and when i looked at his friend and Hans they both dropped their boats and ran to the edge so I thought it was bad. After a few seconds they gave me the thumbs up. I blanked my mind except for what i needed to be thinking about which was the falls. As I approached I realized i was way to far left but had no time to do anything about it. I kept charging forward and took a huge boof stroke! I Ran it last weekend but this time i felt like I was falling forever! I landed, smacked my nose with my paddle, flipped, and rolled up as quick as i could cause for some reason I thought i was going into the right side of the falls. When i came up my contacts were blurred but I paddled forward as hard as I could and when they cleared I was paddling through the curtain on the left and struggled but made it out. 


  This video is from last weekend and is of me running Spirit Falls but I didn't post it so here it is now!




  Me and Ryan were at the bottom of  Chaos waiting for the other two to finish their portage and continue down river. They got in and we peeled out of the eddy. I told Hans about to Little White tradition of running a drop backwards and he looked super skeptical. We all lined up and hit it faced the wrong way and he saw it was all good and did it too. It's always funny seeing someone do it for their first time. We bombed through Master Blaster and the next couple dams and ledges leading tom the lake paddle out. The wind picked up as soon as we hit the lake but it felt good cause my stinky dry suite was a hot mess. No one had a beer for Hans so he could drink a booty beer so he will have to make up for it another time. In the end the run was amazing and I got to share my favorite river with an L-Dub virgin! 

Sincerely, The Wonder Midget!

Friday, May 31, 2013

Canyon Creek Surprise

So Monday morning I got picked up by my boy Hans and we went out to Canyon Creek for his first time down it. We met Robby and Paul on the way there. Robby said the level was about 600cfs when he checked the gauge the previous day. When we get there and put on I new it was way higher than that. In fact it was actually around 1,100cfs which made for the highest any of the four of us had ever been down it at. Swizzle Sticks cleaned up a lot and there was a tongue on the right around the hole. Terminator was the same airplane move on the left with a flare boof and was super fluffy.  Prelude was super easy at this flow cause you don't get hung dry on the right side boof. Thrasher on the other hand got a little beefy though no one got held up in it. The new boulder garden above Big Kahuna was way sick and feels like a roller coaster now. The last time I ran this section of water was before the log jam so the new boulder garden through me off for a second but I like this new drop more. Big Kahuna through everyone hard into the left wall and after watching this happen to everyone when I dropped it I took the hardest left boof stroke I could and cleaned the drop. Champagne was a super savage flare boof and Hammering Spot had the clean left hump to launch off of. Hammering Spot definitely lives up to its name by engulfing Robby and demonstrating some pretty brutal window shades. It ripped his elbow pad off as well as his paddle from his hand and claimed it for about 10 minutes before finally it surfaced. I was hanging out just above Toby's Drop with my helmet off drinking a beer waiting for Robby to walk down to the pool we were in and I hear "PADDLE!!!" So I set the beer down and with no helmet charged into the current, grabbed his paddle and made it into the last eddy literally 2feet above Toby's where I clipped the paddle to my tow line and pulled it back up to Robby. Definitely a little scary eddy hopping back in forth across the river without a helmet to get back up to the eddy Robby was in. All was well though. We hit up the last drop and paddled out the lake. The level made for a fun and great experience with good friends. Till next time. 

Sincerely, The Wonder Midget!

Tuesday, May 28, 2013

Back in the kayak game!

It's been a while since I've posted on this so I'm just gonna start with it feels great to be back in the kayak game! I've boated a whole of four times in the past four years until last weekend. I felt like seeing if I still had what it takes and hit up the Little White Salmon after the race and ate a lot of crap. Nothing that wasn't expected with the lack of paddling though. Over all the run was amazing! I ran Spirit Falls for the first time which made for my first no portage run down the L-Dub! Super stoked about that. Afterwards I saw a lot of people I haven't seen in years and it was really cool. Most didn't recognize me at first since the last time I saw them was when I was 14. I'm back boating almost everyday and next week ill have a job so ill only be boating weekends and off days but I'm definitely stoked to be back doing the thing I love more than anything else in the world! Stick around for more posts! 

Sincerely, The Wonder Midget!