Klickitat: Parrott Crossing to Fish Hatchery

I had never run the Klickitat, so when Kory suggested we do a leisurely trip at a time of year when there wasn't much in the way of new stuff to check out it was an easy sell.

His wife Jo rafted with Priscilla and their dog Jackpot, my dad and I IK'ed and Kory took an RPM Max.  This assortment of craft fit right in on the Klickitat.

We had about 1200 cfs from snowmelt on August 13, 2017.  

We had concerns the low water would render the run a pain, but it was plenty of water for seeing the canyon.  The raft only stalled out once when they took the wrong route.  In a kayak, the depth was of no concern.  The whitewater was continuous and engaging class II-III without any real flat water, yet no distinct rapids.



There were some nice cliffs to look at, apparently at high water avoiding them and the hydraulics they create are the stand-out challenge of the run.  There was an outdated sign at the put in about a dangerous log jam, it must have washed free this last Winter.  We took all the main channels and while there was wood in play here and there, nothing was sketchy and nothing required a portage or shore scout.  I'd imagine this river only gets more fun as the level rises.

The shuttle directions on American Whitewater were spot on.

    -jacob

Little Klickitat

-By Nate Merrill

Hanging out with friends on Friday night, I expressed my feeling that the following day was going to turn into a circus. I had to laugh when my buddy Skip replied "When was the last time you went Kayaking and the trip didn't turn into a show?" It was true! After spending Tuesday driving up to the Olympic Peninsula only to get skunked and leave the area without putting boat to water, I too was having a hard time remembering my last trip that went off without any unforeseen problems. That being said, we had hatched a semi-cunning plan to ensure we were able to take advantage of the recent rainfall. With levels sky high around Portand and the Western Cascades, the group set our sites on the Little Klickitat drainage just outside of Goldendale, WA. Despite the LK being known as a run that only comes in with immense rainfall, the gauge for the rairly run creek was actually around 300-400 cfs higher than recommended flows. Given this fact, we decided that are backup plan would be to run Canyon Creek (LK trib) if indeed the LK was too high.
The next morning rolled around and as the group assembled and began loading boats, the rain continued to come down in sheets around Portland. Dan Rubado, Emile Elliot, Ryan Cole, Jacob, and myself all piled into Dan's new VW Sportwagon (45 mpg!) and headed east. After meeting up with Joe Stumpfel, John Edwards, and Matt Horton in Hood River, we beat feet up past the normal LK takeout to inspect Canyon Creek. With no eddies in sight and thick brush lining the banks, we decided that Canyon Creek was far too high to run with any regard for safety. It was the Little Klickitat today and it was juicy. (1300cfs? - The gauge was doing funky things when we put-on the creek NOTE: This was the old gauge, on the new gauge that would be a more medium flow) We quickly rallied back to the takeout, met up with some other paddlers from Hood River, and set shuttle.
The group, which had now ballooned out to nearly 20 people, opted to break up into smaller platoons to better handle the high water and the potential scarcity of large eddies. Sticking with the crew from Portland, we geared up and were just about to put-on the creek when another boater came into view walking up river. The conversation was brief but it I did catch the words "Swim", "Lost Gear", "No Eddies", and "Unscoutable". He was gone in a flash and everyone was left just a little less confident than they had been a moment earlier. This is where Ryan Cole stepped up in a big way. Having run the creek several times before, he offered to lead the run and delivered excellent beta throughout the day.
As soon as the boats hit the water, the true nature of the creek reveled itself. The creek, which was in the bushes, was colored a murky brown (probably had a lot to do with the copious amounts of cow dung in the surrounding area. yum) After floating for only a few minutes, we found ourselves rounding a bend and floating into the first big rapid of the day. Ryan had warned us to stay as far right as possible to avoid being swept into a nasty crack in the middle of the river. At this flow, there was no viable eddy above this drop and it snuck up quick! We all made the move to the right without difficulties and were able to catch a small eddy downstream and regroup. (I believe that the group we encountered hiking off the creek ran into trouble when they attempted to run the far left side of this drop.)From this point on, the creek never really let up. Big rapids were separated by fast moving boogie water. There were times when we would travel over a mile without seeing an available eddy to slow down.
A short distance below the initial drop, we came to the single most technical drop on the creek. This long boulder garden was scoutable on the left and had several pushy lines to chose from. After discussing the different options, Dan and I decided we had seen enough and returned to our boats to probe the center line. We pealed out and ran the lead-in without any problems. The next part is a little fuzzy in my memory: it all happened in the span of 3-5 seconds. After boofing over a rock near the top of the drop, I attempted to take a left stroke when agonizing pain shot through my shoulder and I realized that I couldn't move my left arm. I had somehow dislocated my left shoulder (not really sure how, but I didn't throw any brace) and was fast approaching the crux of the drop. After nearly rolling over in shock, I was able to reset my shoulder using a paddling motion and finish the drop upright, but in considerable pain. I consider myself very lucky to have gotten the shoulder back in so easily.
After catching an eddy and watching the rest of the crew come though, we took a break and discussed to option of me hiking off the creek. Several folks volunteered to help me with the hike out, but at this point, Skip's words from the night before were resounding in my head: "When was the last time you went boating and things didn't turn into a show?" After resting for a good twenty minutes, I decided that I was going to keep paddling. The shoulder hurt, but my range of motion wasn't being hindered and I felt I could continue on without putting the group (or myself for that matter) at risk.

John Edwards and Jacob board the freight train.

Ryan Cole is In Like Flynn

We got back on the creek and started bombing downriver. The next two drops came up in quick secession. The first we scouted from the right. It featured a nasty boulder pile in the middle but was fairly clean down the right bank, with only minor hole punching required.

Extra Frothy.

The second drop (we refereed to this one as the slide) was scoutable on the left but required committing to the rapid and catching a last chance eddy. It looks scary, but I promise, there is a large eddy on the left! You just can't see it from above. Faith! The drop itself featured a giant slide that feeds into a horrible looking hydraulic. This thing was massive! Fortunately, there was a narrow brown tongue that just missed the worst of the hole. We all attempted to ride this tongue with varying results. Matt Horton even got some rodeo action in on this beast. I could only watch from afar as he whipped off cart-wheels and loops at warp speed before calmly surfing out of the hole towards to center of the river. Well done!

Dan Rubado: "Hey diddle diddle, right down the middle"

It wasn't far down stream from the slide that we came upon the largest vertical drop on the LK. The falls is very wide and features a plethora of possible lines. Be careful when approaching this drop, it would be very easy to get swept into the falls when boat scouting. Ryan was able to recognize the drop 50 yards upstream and we still had some trouble stopping to scout. The drop is marked by a heavily wooded island that splits to river right down the middle. The easier scout is on the left and requires that you run down the left channel. If you run right of the island (like we did) expect to have some trouble stopping above the horizon line). Everyone had clean lines off the falls, which wasn't a gimmie on this day. If you failed to get your bow up, the uniform hole at the bottom promised to smack you around for awhile.

John fights gravity. And wins!

After the falls, the creek kept boogieing, but everything from this point on was easy to scout from within your boat. There were a few ledges towards the end of the run that could hand out a whipping if you weren't on your toes, but for the most part, the creek just rushes down stream. Right down the middle. Somewhere between the falls and the takeout, the sun actually made an appearance and I think we all took a minute to sit back and appreciate the unique area. Being local to the Willamette Valley, it is certainly a stark change to venture over in the central region of the state. Wide open rolling hills as far as the eye can see! As we arrived at the takeout, we met back up with the group that had put-on before us and there was a general feeling of success. Having knocked off such a rarely run creek at such an abnormally high level left everyone feeling pretty stoked on the day. I'll certainly be back the next time levels spike! Despite my shoulder injury, I still classify the LK mission under "Not at a complete circus", which is an upgrade over recent weeks. Thanks again to Ryan for sitting shotgun on this roller coaster. And Jacob for offering to hikeout with me when I injured my shoulder. Until next time. Nate

video from Emile from that trip

Little Klickitat from Difficult E on Vimeo.

Skate Park round 2

Dan and Ben went back to Skate Park Creek last Saturday to make an attempt at a cleaner descent.  They had a great line, cleaning up on the drop Dan and I had flipped on a week or two earlier.

Levels for Skate Park Creek.

Attempt 1

      -3000+ in Klickitat

      -500+ in Little Klickitat

Attempt 2

      ~2000 in Klickitat

      ~300 in Little Klickitat

Attempt two was the minimum I believe as the rafters carried their boat through the runnout below the Skate Park.  It was too low to float.  I don't know what a max would be, but the wood dodging could get interesting at too high of flows.  I would not be worried even with the Klick at 5000 though.

My current thoughts on flows are:

 -a minimum of 2000 in Klickatat at Pitt and 300 in Little Klickitat at Wahkiacus.-

  Of course you could get down the run in kayaks lower, but I think this is a good thing to look for.

  Check out Paul Thomson's website to see shots of the Duo running this drop, as well as a lot more of their recent adventures including Bridal veil and Spirit.   http://www.flickr.com/photos/paul_ts_pics/

  
  -Jacob

Skate Park Creek

After a year of collecting information; water levels, access, legality, ect everything lined up and MLK day 2010 looked like the day to fire up the diabetic duo's "top of the list" rafting run.  Unfortunately Ben was stuck in Bend, but Dan was insistent on getting this done.  After not being able to land an R2 partner, he set to work trying to get me into the raft with him, and eventually succeeded.  I agreed that this was an intriguing enough goal and felt comfortable enough to give it a go.  He recruited Sam Drevo to help out with safety and Shane was in as shuttle driver/ground support so we were on our way.

The first goal was to get there at a reasonable hour, so we woke early and were driving through the Columbia River Gorge as the sun was coming up.  We went through BZ and made our way East towards our goal.  We scouted Outlet on the way over (which was running), then with one short detour, made our way to the takeout.  We got to the put-in road and it was blocked.  I don't know if this was new, but it made for a quarter mile hike or so.  Not too bad with the dolly and three people pushing.  We headed into the woods as soon as we felt we were close enough to the creek to justify it.  We took about 45 minutes blowing up the raft and outfitting it. 

Sam took the lead in his kayak and we followed in the raft.  He would eddy out and signal the wood situation to us and would make sure we got into the "eddies" we needed to catch.  We had a couple portages and a lot of dealing but we got through.  Eventually we reached some class four slides and we were quickly at the lead in to the Quarterpipe.  We went for a long scout hoping to find Shane, no dice.  After an hour or more of scrambling around, scouting, sitting, and looking for Shane, we decided to run the lead in.  At this point I had opted out because of the close proximity of "The Well" to the Quarterpipe drop.  They are back to back and there is one eddy to catch that is about the size of a raft.  This meant we had to stick the line.  So I didn't think I would be willing to risk it

  We lined the raft to the lip of the lead in slide and made sure we ran this fun drop with right angle so we didn't get blown over the big one.  This went smooth and soon we were at the lip scouting this monster.  We spent some time here and I changed my mind and decided I was in.  It looked like we would be fine over the drop and I thought it would go.  

Looking itty-bitty at the top

(photo by Sam Drevo---sam@enrgkayaking.com)

We took our time practicing our grab while Sam set up media about a hundred feet above the water.  I wanted to take a direct approach from the pool above, but Dan convinced me we should come out of the eddy on the right at the lip.  We didn't get far enough out into the current and got stalled out by some shallow rock.  We stroked a couple more times, then came to almost a complete stop for a fraction of a second.  Dan (weighing 50-75 lbs more than me) was on the shallow side keeping us glued on his side.  While I (weighing 50-75 lbs less than Dan) entered the deeper water.  This lead my side to start its decent, while Dan's side did not.  We each gave one more feeble attempt at a correction stroke and held on for the inevitable disaster.  As we went over the lip, I took a look at Dan, then turned my attention to the rock slab waiting 40-50 feet below me.  I stared at it the whole way down, tightening my grip as we neared impact. 

Staring down at the transition. Dan on 

the right, myself on the left side of the raft.

(photo by Sam Drevo of ENRG kayaking and www.northwestpaddling.com )

Miraculously the transition was buttery smooth, saving us from a trip to the hospital.  I felt the second impact as 

we hit water and turned to see Dan spread-eagle flying towards me.  I ditched my paddle as not 

to impale him as he collided with me and the boat rolled over on top of us in a downstream flip.  I pushed myself from under the raft and B-lined it to the left shore.  I gave Sam the all good signal and assessed the situation.

.................

       -The raft was stuck between Skate Park and "The Well".

       -We were on the river-left, but wanted to be on river-right

       -My paddle was gone

       -Sam's gear was still above the drop

..................

         After hearing the transition was smooth, Sam decided he would run it in his kayak as well.  He thought he might overrotate in the center, so decided to hit a flake on the left to get his nose up.  He achieved this goal, but this meant he missed the transition.  He bounced off a rock, then bounced off the bottom shelf.  To protect his back he flipped himself going off the final transition to lighten the impact.  This worked to a degree and he rolled up with a bit of damage to his gear, along with his back.  Two big wipeouts in a row, not our finest showing.

Next up was "The Well", a drop often portaged because it appears almost too narrow for a kayak.  I was not about to take what appeared to be another inevitable crash despite Dan insisting on running it, so I decided I would hop onto the upside down raft as it came by below the slot in the fast water above the next slide.  

Dan drops "The Well"

(photo by Sam Drevo of www.northwestpaddling.com)

In a bout of luck and skill, Dan came through the slot without slowing down and didn't even come close to flipping... How does he do it?  I was happy to be jumping into an upright raft and did so as we slid down the next drop whooping it up.

Myself jumping in.

(photo by Sam Drevo of www.northwestpaddling.com)

As we eddied out we got an unexpected suprise... Shane! He was on a small perch to the right and had been there for 3 hours! Also, my paddle was stuck on the left side of the river, perfect. I retrieved that as Sam came and cleaned this drop along with the next one, which we all ran through without scouting.  In the next drop Sam's paddle broke, so it was time for him to hike out, luckily Shane was right there so he was able to show him the path of least resistance after making the decent 3 1/2 hours earlier.  We stuck his boat on the back of our raft and started the battle with the trees down to the take-out.  After some miscalculations and correct calculations, we arrived at an out of place peice of blue tape on the right. I saw an old road coming down to the river, so I ventured a guess this was our take out.  A quick scramble up the road confirmed this and we had a sigh of relief that our adventure was coming to a close.  We drug the raft up the road and headed downstream to locate Sam and Shane at the truck.  Someone had been kind enough to place some refreshments under a sign.  For this we were greatful after such a long day!   We shared stories and began the long drive back to Portland.  Despite some real rough lines, it was a special adventure for us, hopefully we all learned something or another.

Dan would like me to point out that in the video, it looks like he is taking a drag stroke right at the lip that turns us sideways.  When in fact he was pushing off the rock, trying to turn us the right way.

Enjoy...

First Raft decent of S*mm^t Creek WA from Jacob Cruser on Vimeo.

-Jacob