Thursday, August 30, 2007

Eagle Creek-Columbia Gorge-(Swimming)

Last Wednsday Alex and I went to Eagle Creek in the Columbia Gorge to do some swimming and our new hobbie, tubing. Now I used to look down upon tubers as I am sure most kayakers do, but we have learned that when the water level drops that and you have worn out the lower Wind and the Truss is not cutting it, that tubing drops that are too low to get a kayak down can be a good substitute for the real thing. On this day our destination was Punchbowl falls, a very famous hike. We did not have time to continue upstream but plan on returning next year. We hiked up from the main falls two slides and started on a nice ten foot slide. This was difficult to land as in order to hold onto the tube we would have scraped our hands pretty bad. Then we headed downstream and spent some time on the slide above Punchbowl. After we each went three times it was time for the big one. We both got the impression that the hit would be very hard in a tube, so I swam off and Alex jumped off. This is all the time we had as I had just enough time to get back to football. The falls and slides above them would be doable in a kayak at this level, but the hike would only be worth it if you ran punchbowl and I think that might be a real hard hit. Here is the video. -Jacob

1 comment:

Anthony Skrivanek said...

That video was fun to watch - the soundtrack is crucial!!