North Umpqua Solo Canoe Class
A short look at some of the fun the solo canoe class had as we headed downriver after the last day of drills.
Canoeing the Wilson Narrows (June 2010)
Okay, we’re going back in time here a little. This is a final run of the Narrows in June.
Clackamas, Three Lynx July 2010
This is the classic early summer run on the Clackamas and a strong tribe of 11 paddlers ran it recently. This is the video. This is their story.
Canoeing the Owyhee
While this wasn’t exactly a club trip, five out of our seven paddlers were club members and the other two are former members (Brent and Tyrae Mahan). It was Leland Scantlebury’s first trip on the Owyhee. Ditto for Bob and Karen Williams. Weather was cloudy, but not too much of that liquid sunshine stuff.
Old and New on the Little North Santiam
Last weekend we had Bob Bryant in an old Whitesell and Murray Johnson in a new Esquif Raven. Check out the footage of people running Troll’s Teeth. There was also some good surfing that day and a little bit of carnage and excitement on the last major rapid. Someone was asleep at the camera though when Alan Douglass was giving his demonstration on how to surf a kayak. Sorry, Alan, I just caught the pedestrian stuff.
Nehalem Spruce Run
A few of us headed to the Nehalem River on the Brownsmead weekend to get some Class 2 action before the festiviities. I had never done this section before and there is a cool falls near the beginning of the run that you can choose to sneak or not. There are also some other cool features toward the end of the run that unfortunately I was too busy playing on to video. Once the Salmonberry bridge is repaired (rumored to be done this summer), there are more rapids apparently downriver that will make this run even more worthwhile.
Sandy River, Zigzag to Marmot
This is a continuous run like the Salmon River and has a little more gradient (70 fpm). Plenty of action and surf waves if you can catch them. There were 14 of us, but the river is so fast and constant that after the first rapid, I didn’t see many of the others until lunch and then it was the same thing. I’d get out of the boat to shoot some pictures and video and be left far behind. So the video ends up being the Chad Price and Doug Chisholm Show for the most part and both those guys were pulling out some of their best moves.
Salmon River, Oregon
Twelve of us started this run and ten of us finished it. What this tells you is that it’s harder than advertised. In Soggy Sneakers they call it a 2+(3) continuous run of about 7 miles. Paddling Oregon is closer to the mark calling it Class 3 (3+) continuous. The gradient is considerable: 64 fpm. That’s similar to the Ollalie to Paradise run on the McKenzie or Dee to Tucker on the Hood.
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Surfing the Molalla (Glen Avon to Freyer Park)
On Saturday April 17th eight of us took a Carl Poston-led tour of the mystery Class 2+ section he described in a recent post “as one of the finest surfing runs” and claimed “it has come back into shape” recovering from the 1996 floods. The verdict: a surf fest indeed. It was spoiled just a little by high water, but the waves were there, just a little harder to get. I really wasn’t intending to shoot any video, but ended up pulling out my camera and shooting some, handing my camera to Meg who took an excellent clip of me (thanks, Meg!). Audz also was experimenting with my old waterproof camera in prep for a trip to Baja. Net result is we had enough video for a short film. My one regret is that no video was shot of a personal acccomplishment for me, my first successful, fully in control surf of Godzilla, the wave towards the end of the run near the bridge. Of course I don’t know what camera jockey would have stuck around for the six attempts it took me. Fortunately, there were witnesses. By the way, the new paddler in the orange Outrage is Aaron from Hood River.
Paddler’s Guide to the Three Bears
Last weekend (April 10) a group of us paddled the Three Bears and I shot video of all the named rapids. I’ve added subtitles to identify them in the video. The one rapid I didn’t get on video was the crux move on Baby Bear. It was ugly, so only Chad and I ran it and we both snuck it far left. Not too exciting. To get the crux part of Baby Bear in the sequence, I took a video from March that I have of Denny running it. Paul Norman and I both ran it clean that day as well, but no video. Another time.
