Obviously this blog is about my son and this post is no different with one main exception. It's a goal that I've not tossed around till the past weekend to run the Lower section of the Little White River, what most just call the L-Dub. Yeah, Devin's been running the stretch now 5 times this Summer and by chance one of the youngest to have ever ran it. Once again Dane Jackson's name pops up. Austin Rathman took both down for their first times. He likes small boys I'm told. Sorry Austin!!
Last weekend Devin, myself headed out to the LW to meet up with a good friend of ours Michael Williams to take me down for my first time. Levels had dropped down to 2.8'. Most consider 3.1' to be the magic number but under 3.0' the run loses come of it's punch and becomes more technical and I liked the idea of it being more like the Egua that me and Michael had ran in Italy recently. Low, technical and holes that didn't want to eat you alive. Sounds good to me!
I bailed at the put-in! Why? The LW has such a history in folk lore in the PDX paddling community of people losing gear, throwing up or hiking out at the first rapid, "Getting Busy". A 1/2 mile long boulder garden in the 300fpm range. Plus, you can't see any of the run except Spirit Falls if you've hiked in but it fails to give a image of the rapids around this beautiful falls placed in a huge punchbowl. Instead we ran the Upper Little White, also rated class V though tons of paddlers especially outside of the PDX or HR area know or have done this run. It's a shorter version of Getting Busy and provided a really good glimpse of what would lie below in what a lot of people consider the hardest rapid on the run. I had a blast on the stretch below Schroomtrooper and feeling like I could tackle Getting Busy.
Fast forward back to today and once again I find myself with my son and good friend Michael Williams at the put-in for the L-Dub. Levels had dropped a little but still holding at 2.6'. I was in high spirits and this time it wasn't even a question of putting on. What lied downstream of course made me nervous but I'd told myself to not even worry of the lines on the big drops below Getting Busy and take one task at a time. You can't be concerned with making a omelet if you don't have any eggs. So lets get down to them and look at each one. It worked and quickly found myself sitting at a lip of a drop, getting verbal commands mostly and firing off several large drops like S-turn and Wishbone. Both in the 18-20 range I'd guess blindly and nailing my delayed boofs Gene17 had drilled in my head so hard in Italy. Thanks Simon Westgarth, Dave Carrol, Matt Tidy and Ed Cornfield for the instruction like no other.
One of the highlights for me was to see how proud Devin was of my accomplishment to tackle the mental game known as the L-Dub. I realized how special kayaking has become as a bond between us. Thanks Devin for believing in me when I doubted myself.
