Quartzville

Matt, Nate, Bobby and I ran Quartzville on Friday. ~1400 on the gauge led to a great spring flow. Last time we had over 2000 on the gauge but at 1400 we had more water in the creek. So the Oregonkayaking description holds true again in regards to spring requiring less water than winter or fall. No snow at all and a super nice day. scouted the first time down and took some video. Bobby threw an interesting version of a freewheel off Grocker that involved a piton/bow stall, but it was pretty sweet looking! Actually Bobby had a lot of super cool moments including an upside down low brace that should not have worked and is much too difficult to explain, plus a bigtime beatdown in Movie Star that he held on for and made it out without swimming! 

             Scariest part of the day was Matt got pinned under a log in the middle of a slide near the put-in and had his skirt implode, leading to his first time out of a boat in almost a year as he floated downstream with a boat full of water, I don't think this counts as a true swim? To avoid repeating this go far right at the long class 3 slide with an obvious log at the bottom, do not try to go under on the left! Nate also had an impressive safe in Movie star with an iron fingers move holding onto the wall as the hole tried to suck him back in, Matt came to the rescue there. The take out ender hole looks super cool, Matt and Nate both went for some old school tricks and Matt came completely out of the water while Nate went for the loop. Second lap we just bombed and that is always so cool on this creek. Did the run in 40 minutes, could have been 30.

We then loaded up and raced the failing light to get to Mcdowell for a park and huck of a clean 8 footer. It was squeeky clean and I threw two freewheels off it. We thought we saw a horizon line a ways downstream, so we ran the next slide, which falls onto a shelf but is actually a smooth transition, just watch out for the wood on the left. Then dropped a small ledge slide, followed by a class two shelf. Below here was a small slide into some wood that looked pretty sketchy so we looked for a way to portage, none. Then a way to get out of the mini gorge, none. So we put some effort into attaining/ wading our way back upstream, then groveling up the brushy bank. We took different ways up, some of ours more efficient than others...

I then made the long drive back to Gresham, and slept well after a great day of kayaking.

video coming soon.

-Jacob