McCloud River: 3 waterfalls

We scouted three waterfalls on the McCloud River, east of Mt. Shasta City. Only the lower falls were runnable, and it caused quite a spectacle for all the looky-loos and swimmers at this spot.

Lower Tuolumne: a classic run

Me firing up a rapid typical of the Lower T:



Clavey Falls is the worst of this run, and the only drop that required out-of-boat scouting from our team of two:

Hospital Rock: a taste of Cali carnage

Ah, my first Class V swim...full story to come, but check out the following media for a teaser:




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the Cali trip has begun!

Wednesday morning was a flurry of errands and excitement as we did last-minute errands and shopping before getting on the road. One of the last-minute shopping items was a new Riot Magnum 80 for me to paddle on this trip. Sweet! As I type this, it hasn't come off the roof rack, and still needs to be outfitted, but I am stoked to get it out. With luck, we'll get some Class III+ to IV+ in today, so I can test my road-outfitting ability and get more used to the boat before we fire up the gnarr.

We made it out of town before noon yesterday, and after a stopover in Medford for shopping and errands, we made Redding as night fell. Wandering up the Pit River drainage, past the population-30 town of Montgomery Creek, we found a nice campsite partway down into the canyon of Hatchet Creek. We stoked a tiny and crackle-free fire (no sap in the sticks we used) and enjoyed a couple of nice cold Sierra Nevada Summerfests under a full moon and clear skies. Air temperature was 50 degrees overnight, and we broke camp shortly after dawn to explore the area and find some breakfast soon thereafter.

After hiking around Hatchet Creek to try to find a fabled (and once-photographed) triple drop, our hunger got the best of us, and we rallied back to Redding on Hwy 299 (enduring a couple of 10 minute full-stops for construction) and broke south on I-5 for a breakfast joint. After figuring out we passed the Black Bear Diner in Redding, we kept rolling, aiming for Chico. Here I sit, at the breakfast place in Chico, well-fed and ready to find the paddle shop and get back on the road for more southernly climes. Weather here is 95 degrees and clear.

Lochsa trip coming up

The Northwest River Forecast Center's map looks like a condiment fight gone wrong. Nobody wins when you get ketchup and mustard all over your map...except whitewater enthusiasts.

The Lochsa will likely be somewhere between 6 and 9 feet on the visual gauge. Here is a brief video of a raft running two rapids at 9.5 feet on the gauge, muhuhahaha:



Big water fun is sure to be had!

Update. Well, maybe the big water fun will be had by some, but it's looking like much of the PDX community will not be heading out this year, due to high flows. Listen to Johnny Ott, the voice of experience and reason:

Lochsa River

I saw a post by Will[ie] mentioning the Lochsa. I am very familar with this area and I have gone to the big weekend four years steady. This year however I am going in June. Will[ie] is right the river is going off in a not so fun way. IT is very high and thing are washed out with wood floating down. Not a safe time for rafters or kayakers who might be swimming. The weather is not great for the weekend and Idaho is still at 100% snow pack. I would highly recomend going there in the middle of june. The creeking will be great righ around then as well.

Johnny Ott

Second update. Very few people from the PDXkayaker community went out to the Lochsa this Memorial weekend, but those who went said it was pretty epic. Turns out that the water came down to a more manageable "very high" level, and the wood was mostly washed through by the weekend.

Olympic Peninsula: short roadtrip

Headed up to the Olympic Peninsula after work today with Luke to grab some boats for Next Adventure. We'll stay with Kris W. at a cabin on a lake, and find some fun creeking tomorrow before heading back down. It'll be nice to test out Das Frankenboot (my stitched-together MAC-1) and see how The Plastic Mechanic's recent repair holds up. I should get an updated picture of the hull and post it here...it's more "Frankeny" than ever.

Update. We didn't plan far enough in advance to secure local paddling partners, so Luke and I ended up scouting some things, and taking in a couple of mellower classic intermediate runs in central Washington.

Sunday. Ah, Mother's Day. Originally started as a war protest. After a lovely brunch with Luke's family, we got to the business of picking a run for the day. Our eventual plan was to run the middle section of the Middle Fork Snoqualmie. Luke's brother Nate accompanied us to help with shuttle and get help for his own shuttle. Nate would mountain bike to the takeout, and we would kayak -- it would be a low-key race, of sorts.

We wandered about, looking for a suitable put-in, and eventually settled on a spot on the side of the road. We came to find out that we put in too high, as a couple of miles of Class II riffles and flatwater lulled us into complacency. There were some entertaining Class III+ boulder gardens and chutes to be had on the remainder of this intermediate run. We definitely charged this run, never stopping paddling and finishing in about an hour. At the takeout A nice woman named Renee, whom I had met on the Toutle (January 27th), recognized me and let Luke and I make some tasty turkey wraps. She was on the way back from the Wenatchee and had tons of extra grub. At this point, we saw a sheriff rig pull up, and Nate hopped out, grinning sheepishly...no bike, though. He had blown a tire a short way into his ride, and the deputy was kind enough to run him down to us. Renee and I talked river safety while Luke and Nate ran up to get the other truck and retrieved Nate's bike from where it was stashed in the bushes. Renee's two friends, whom we'd passed about 1/3 of the way through the run, were just coming off the river when we completed our shuttle back to the takeout. We definitely booked it down this sucker!

Saturday. We headed out for the North Fork Sauk, only to find that the road was blocked 0.1 mile from North Fork Sauk Falls, due to a washout. After extensively scouting the waterfall (an unrunnable 45-footer with Class VI and Class V+ lead-in drops that we plotted lines down anyway), we headed up the road on foot to see what we could see. This is the falls we scouted:


As we headed up the closed road on foot, we noticed six piles of bear scat. After about 1.5 miles with just one spot of river access, we decided to head back. On the way back, we saw a bear off in the brush and seven piles of scat. We were clearly in bear country, and decided against heading back in with our boats. We resolved to get a run in on the standard Sauk section. We put in near some campers who helped us set shuttle, and charged down this classic Central Washington intermediate run. Everything was boat scoutable, and we charged. Near the end, we wondered if we'd already passed the takeout, which resulted in some unnecessary bushwhacking and a possible first descent of a wood-choked tributary creek to get back to the river. Overall, it was a fun, if exhausting time.