Trouble at the Alter

The Little White Salmon River, with it's legendary status and easy logistics holds a special form of respect in the PNW.  Many paddlers aspire to one day travel this special waterway.  The crown jewell of this run, Spirit Falls may hold even more allure than the run itself.   Some paddlers run the Little White many times before finally finding themselves in the pool below this falls.  With a number of pro paddlers moving to Hood River specifically to run this river (for which most probably don't even have the word portage cross there minds on this river at normal flows) and the saturation of media from the canyon there has been a loss of mystique regarding this stream for kayakers.

With the recent resurgence of the rafting community however, this river and waterfall have become a true proving ground for the best in the business.  Only a few years ago I witnessed more than once, and heard many more accounts from kayakers telling Dan it was a terrible idea to take a raft down this river.  He took no heed and today has logged over 50 successful runs down this stream.  There are many other rafters who also run this stream now, with many having logged in the double digits.

However, Spirit has posed a problem for rafts in the past. With a handful of descents, only one attempt was successful.  Most resulted in lots of pain, followed by some downtime.  Dave Saquety and Doc Loomis reported taking the hit of a lifetime on the earliest attempt of this drop.  This low success rate keeps many rafters away, but also creates a draw for the daring to attempt following the few that went before them into one of the most special pools in the PNW for whitewater boaters.

Josh Sheldon is one such boater who wanted his own Spiritual experience on the Little White.   The following account is from Brandon Bloomquist, who was on the trip where Josh took the risks involved with reaching the sacred pool.  Not all went to plan, take what you will from this account.

  -jacob

---------------------

Sunday was a fantastic day on the Little White, at least once things got organized.  Nice weather made the three hours we were waiting for the final member of our party to show up more bearable.  We finally got on the stream a little after 1:00.  Jacob, Brandon Lake and I put on a little earlier than the raft and we all had nice lines through Gettin’ Busy.  There was a quick scout of Boulder Sluice, and I followed the green tongue in front of me to a porn star finish. 

Brandon ran Island, with a degree of success.  He made it halfway down when he pitoned the nose, which spun him into a tail piton.  He rolled quickly and we kept moving downstream.  Sacriledge and Double Drop were awesome.  I walked S-Turn and had a creative line over wishbone where I didn’t get square to the drop until I was 5’ from the lip.  It wasn’t good, but it worked out.  After watching the raft get hung up sideways on every rock and hole in the gorge, I was happy to see them catch the eddy on right below Horseshoe, which cleared us to follow into the gorge through which I was happy to have a stylish run.   I haven’t run the right side of Stovepipe before, but, wow, that’s a cool rapid. 

We got to Spirit at 4:00 with the sun shining.  We knew the rafters were going to take their time to consider the drop, so we broke out a lunch of smoked oysters, salami, cheese, crackers and snickers right at the lip.  We wave to the gathered crowd of about eight who hiked in from milepost 2, including Paul Thompson, Josh’s Mom and the Manimal, Trevor Sheehan.  

I turned to Jacob at one point and said “this feels civilized.”  I gave Spirit a lot of thought, but decided that I can’t afford an injury right now and told the boys I’d be at Chaos for them.  I was able to lower my boat into the Chaos eddy, where I delicately got in, then ran the ledge to the left of Chaos straight into the proper eddy. 

By this point in the day, I was feeling like the river was actively helping me be a better boater. 

When I got into position, I was surprised to see Jacob standing on the rock on river right in the pool (The Alter as some have called it).  He’d already styled the big drop thinking I was positioned at Chaos.  We were glad it worked out well, because I was a few minutes late.  Jacob practiced his throws, both into the boil and into the current past him.  I uncoiled my ropes a little in my defensive position slightly below Chaos and we wait. 

Jacob approaches the pool.

photo Paul Thomson

At 4:51, Brandon signals from the lip that the rafters are paddling.  Dan was on the right, Josh on the left.  They look good coming over at the lip.  One second and twenty-five later, the over-rotation was obvious.  They hit, the boat just went deep, then rebounded straight up with the paddlers still in.  Their weight pulls the boat down on top of them.  Dan and the raft are kicked out to the eddy on the right.  Josh goes deep in the boil and surfaces behind the curtain.  We don’t know it yet, but he didn’t square up his feet on the front thwart at the landing, and severely rolled his ankle (crutches for two weeks). 

Even seemingly good lines don't always work out.

As a recap, we have Brandon at the top, John the Grizzly on the left, Jacob on The Alter and me at Chaos with Josh’s Mom freaking out at the viewing area.  

The folks up top can see Josh moving around behind the curtain, but I can’t.  All I know is that they aren’t panicking, so I’m just staying put.  In any case, I can’t leave my station in case one of them comes around the corner.  Brandon tries to throw his rope gamely over the lip, but because of the undercut, it wasn’t going to work.  John tries to throw through the column of water from the right, but is rejected.  Jacob gets in his boat to paddle over to Dan, and they get the boat flipped over.  Jake gets back in his kayak and paddles over to river left, just below the left side of the falls.  There is an eddy there, where he gets out, then throws a rope to Dan and pulls him across.  It is already 5:15.  Jake has Brandon come to above him to lower a line with the intent of pulling them up the convergence zone and then into the undercut area.  They clip the line onto the raft, have Brandon walk back upstream on the cliff and start paddling, but the rope gets snagged in two places on the cliff.  I’m the only one who can see both halves of what’s happening.

At 5:30, they give up on this approach and move to simply paddling upstream directly.  Dan decides to first pump up the thwart and adjust it back to paddling position.  15 minutes later they make their first attempt and only get to the nub that sticks out on the right, and Dan is getting pounded by the waterfall landing on him.  They are within ten feet of the point where the current flows into the wall, but just can’t do it.  Over the next fifteen minutes, they try four more times and are rejected each time. 

I can’t see it from my post, but John managed to get a rope to Josh behind the veil.  He attempts to pull him up, but can’t.  Josh can’t climb, either, with a bum foot and an overhung wall.  He eventually cuts himself off the rope, landing on the bad foot, making things worse.  He’s getting cold, too, with the constant mist.  It’s been almost an hour.  Jacob switches boats and paddles his kayak through the veil, only to realize there is a secondary room and he cannot contact Josh from this lower room.  He paddles back out through the veil and down to Dan to further discuss. 

At 5:45, Jacob gets back into his boat, to the massive disdain of Dan.  For the first time, I can hear him through the roar.  Jake comes back to the river right eddy to study the situation, then gets in the current to catch the left eddy above Chaos.  He misses, but knows it and turns to face the challenge directly.  I’m relieved to see him simply style it and carry on to get out at the left, where we normally put in after the portage.  He runs up to where Brandon is, where they confer.  They pass a single line down to Dan again, but I know this won’t work.  I frantically motion to Jake and Brandon to clip the lines together.  They do, and start walking.  I blow a short whistle to stop them.  I get Jake to stay put, holding tension on the line, while Brandon walks around the curve of the falls to where we had lunch.  This keeps the line from snagging on the left wall. 

It’s 6:00 by the time that Jake walks to meet Brandon at the top, then with Dan in the raft.  The boys at the top start pulling, with Dan simply highsiding to keep the boat upright .  They are able to pull the raft straight in to meet Josh.  I can’t see this for a long time, as there was mist from both sides of the falls jetting across my view.  Eventually I see a second piece of red clothing, and from the positions infer that it has to be Josh.  Then things get weird, and I see Dan break out the K-pump.  It turns out that they’d deflated the raft a little for the drop in an effort to make it taco on landing, but it is just confusing from my post.  I’m starting to dance to stay warm, and I haven’t been getting blasted by mist. 

Finally, at 6:15, with the left falls pouring on them, I see the raft emerge with two paddlers.  We all cheer, but they are just ten seconds from Chaos.  Dan knows it, and is shouting at Josh, but Josh is so cold that he can’t paddle well.  I see the look of a shelled soldier on his face.  The boat keeps turning to the right with Dan’s power.  They drooooop over the main drop at Chaos.  Josh falls out of the boat, right into the main pourover and loses his paddle.  I’m ready to hit him with a rope, but he grabs the chicken line.  He stays there for a few seconds, yelling at Dan that he can’t get back in.  The fear reaches through the air.  Dan hesitates, as he’s keeping the raft from flipping in Chaos, but pulls Josh back into the boat.  After a few more rounds while Josh retrieves another paddle, they are able to carry on downstream.  I watch the paddle make rounds in the hole for another two minutes before it finally spits out.  When I get back to my boat, it was waiting for me in that eddy. 

We run Master Blaster blind and catch up with the raft below the hatchery.  We drink beers on the float to the take out, where we carry Josh up the hill to the road and analyze how we can deal with situations like this more efficiently in the future.  

--
Brandon Bloomquist

The Ohane

 -Story by Nate Merrill

Since I made it back to the great north west from a winter in Crested Butte, the Ohanepacosh has been at the top of my list. Two weeks ago, Dan, Jacob, and myself headed up to knock off the PNW classic. Jacob had done the run once before, but it was the first time down for Dan and I. With flows looking to be on the upper end and a sunny day in the forecast, we agreed to meet in Jantzen Beach at 8 AM to begin the long haul up towards Mt. Rainier. Somewhere along the line there was a miscommunication and upon arrival at the rendezvous, I learned that Jacob and Dan were rafting together and I was going to be the only kayaker on the water that day. After some funny interactions in the grocery store, we loaded up Dan’s raft into my car, strapped the kayak and the bike onto the roof and we were on our way north. 3 hours later, we were standing at the secret camp put-in starring at river that was moving like a freight-train. I think it was this point when Jacob turned to me and asked “Hey, you see that big hole over there along the right wall?” to which I replied, “yeah, it looks pretty sticky.” Jacob smiled at my response and stated “on my first trip down, that hole was a shallow auto-boof and today it looks like it could pound the bejesus out of you.” The river was high. I don’t think I realized how high it was until much later in the trip. Note: the Cowlitz was reading about 2,000 cfs.

 After a quick discussion and a scout of the drops just downstream, we all decided to give her a go, despite the high water. I’d like to mention that Jacob and Dan were very respectful of my initial hesitance to commit to the run. Both offered to drive elsewhere in the drainage to catch other creeks and even offered to allow me to guide the raft R3 style if I wasn’t feeling comfortable with being the only guy in a kayak. In the end, we decided that we would take our time, setting safety at every drop, and work our way down the run in a methodical fashion. I busted out the bike shuttle in about 30 minutes and we were on the river before 2pm. Note: the bike shuttle is stupid easy for this one. The river starts off with a series of narrow ledges. The second of which is the drop noted on oregonkayaking to possess a dangerous crack/cave combo on river left. Each ledge was clean and the boofs were some of the best I’ve ever seen. Pretty soon we approached the first recommended scout on the run. It is worthwhile to note that after the initial ledges, the river mellows for about half a mile. Just when you least expect a major drop to be around the corner, hop out of your boat to scout this wood chocked 7 foot pour over. I portaged on river left while Jacob and Dan fired up the thin line with ease.

  From here, we entered a series of complex boulder gardens separated by moving pools. I have a feeling that some of these boulder gardens were actually made easier by the flow that we had. I think the extra water opened more lines and covered up a few rocks that might have thrown someone off line. The holes were big but avoidable for the most part. Clean lines were had by all. Before long, we go out to scout Triple Drop. This class V drop starts with a log jam, which is doable, but leads into a romping stomping terminal hole and is followed by two more giant pour over style hydraulics. I portaged the drop outright while Dan and Jacob walked the tricky log jam/hole combo at the top and ran the second and third holes. The last of these holes is backed up by a giant boulder that gives the hydraulic a retentive nature. Lines existed on both the right and left side of the drop, but anything in between would lead to a long and nasty beating.

 

This is where things started to blend together a bit. There was a lot of eddy hoping and boat scouting through some amazing boulder gardens. The crux of this section consisted of a really funky ledge drop with a tall curler right at the lip. The ledge was narrow and dropped into a slot that looked turbulent, but was flushing nicely. I ran the drop first while Dan and Jacob set safety. The goal for this drop was to boof off the curler at the lip and have enough speed and a strong enough stroke to gap out over the pour over and land in the slot below. AKA. Paddle really hard and try to boof 5 feet downstream. The line actually worked very well for both me in my kayak, as wells as the raft. And the photos of both runs turned out great.

  Next up was an 8 foot ledge that we didn’t scout, but probably should have. Jacob likened this drop to boulder sluice on the little white. Being in the wrong place at the lip or missing a stroke would probably result in a beat down. Below this ledge, you have about 75 feet to hit an eddy and begin your portage around Elbow Room. This drop is nasty and the portage isn’t much better. Dan opted for a seal launch in the raft, which nearly resulted in his head knocking a rock, while Jacob did the 45 foot cliff jump into the walled out gorge below the rapid. I wasn’t feeling the jump and spent about 25 minutes roping my boat and then myself down the cliff side to a small ledge at river level where I was able to get into my kayak. After a few more smaller rapids the walls began to rise up even higher on either side of the canyon and we entered the crux section of the Ohanepacosh. It was at this point when I realized just how high the water was. I was standing at the lip of a falls that I had studied intently via photographs, yet I could hardly recognize the drop nor the class V rapids below. All of the photos that I had seen of this section were no help at the water level we had. Everything looked completely different and a lot harder. Dan and Jacob opted to gut the falls and had a great line. Somehow Jacob got bucked from his seat in the raft and landed in Dan’s lap. Apparently, this was a theme for the majority of the trip…. But you would have to ask Jacob or Dan about that. I opted to take a line that was more technical, but if performed correctly would allow me to avoid the meat of the falls and maybe even keep my head dry. I ran the lead-in (a series of 3 small pour overs) on far river right before catching an eddy at the lip of the big drop behind a midstream boulder. From here I surfed a wave, which was created by the boulder I was behind, over to the river left side of the maw and drove hard onto a flake. The result was an autoboof that kept me high, dry, and well away from the powerful hydraulic at the bottom of the falls. Although the line sounds convoluted (and it was) I’d do it again in a heartbeat. So fun and I didn’t get worked!

  You can see the small series of pour overs I came down on river right and the eddy I caught (just below the raft) Dan and Jacob gut the falls. I surfed over and boofed off the flake river left of the raft. After the adrenaline of the falls, I was content to walk the last rapid on the Ohanepacosh. It looked good to go, but a blown line would mean a beat down and I was starting to feel tired from the long day. Of course, Dan and Jacob, steped up to the plate and fired off the drop with style. A photo is worth a thousand words, so I’ll let the pictures do the talking on this one. I would like to note that this is the section that is often photographed in trip reports and guide books. I suggest comparing the photo here to the photo in Bennet’s book. The comparison gives a good indication to the amount of water that was in there on our trip.

 

After Jacob and Dan had completed their run, we boogied down to La Wis Wis campground and began our long drive home. As I was getting out of my boat it dawned on me that I had just completed my favorite run thus far in my kayaking career. The rundown: easy shuttle, amazing whitewater, pristine old growth forest, crystal clear pools, steep granitic canyons, and lush steam side vegetation. All this coupled together with the adrenaline of a high water descent has certainly left an impression on me and I can’t think of any run I enjoy more. I’ll be back as soon as I can.

Little White Rafting

Dan and Jeff Compton rafted the Little White Saturday. We put in a ways behind Hans and Tom, who were also rafting the run. Cool to see the rafters taking charge! I helped them remember lines and we set safety for each other on the way down. It was a fun run. At the put-in Dan slipped and fell, causing his thumb to really swell up, he didn't make a big deal of it and said it was all good, so we put on.

The raft did really well, hitting a log near the end of getting busy, but not getting stuck. Aside from that they styled everything they ran. Dan fired up Stovepipe R1. We all walked Island and Spirit. We finished the run in good Spirits so to speak, we took our time doing the run, hanging out on the platform at Spirit for awhile and floating through the lake at the take out. I always enjoy taking time on this run, its such an amazing pace. The Columbia must have been lower than usual as we had current all the way to the take out.

The video for Kathy Mccain.

little white salmon from Jacob Cruser on Vimeo.

Dan also called me the following Tuesday to say he went to the doctor and the fall he took hiking around the put in area broke his thumb. He is getting surgery on it today(Wed.), and is getting a plate put in there. If anyone wonders how someone can paddle off the things he paddles off, maybe this will shed some light on the type of person he is, he paddled the Little White with a freshly broken thumb! Toughest guy I know.

The Level was 3.2

Life is good.

"LWS Drano"

-Jacob

Mesa Falls (raft)

Some photos of Dan running Mesa Falls.

  Getting set up at the top. All photos by Ümit Yüksel

Dan doing what he does best. R1 descent of the upper tier. With his buddy back in the boat, together they drop the second falls. freefall. stuck it. all photos by Ümit Yüksel Dan's percentage of waterfalls cleaned to waterfalls not cleaned is baffling.  He has a one hundred percent success rate on drops 30 ft or more.  Given the type of stuff he is doing this obviously won't last, but it makes you wonder what is possible in these large rubber boats...

It is difficult to see what is going on in this video.  But if you tilt your head just right you can see them go over the second drop about 20 seconds in.

           -Jacob

Salmon River Canyon; Rafting

I finally got to run Salmon River Canyon this last weekend. It was everything anyone has said it was. Just as committing and full on, and the drops live up to and exceed the expectations I had going into the canyon.

 My first trip down was under unusual circumstances. I was with an R2 team who had been wanting to run the drops of the SRC for some time now. Hiking the raft in the day before it was obvious why this doesn't get done. After the dolly broke Dan cam strapped the raft to his back and hiked it the next mile to the meadow turn off for split falls. At this point I gave him the backpack I was using for my kayak for him to use as the cam straps were destroying his shoulders. He went down the sliding bushwack/trail with it on his back until the last hundred yards were he sent it barrelling down the hill right at me! I hid behind a tree as the raft/missile came barrelling down, but stopped short of where I was. We made it to Split falls and pumped the raft a bit and started rigging it before heading back out.

 After two days of hiking (Dan and Shane had hiked the raft the first half mile the day before), a river crossing, lots of pain, little water and food, we had a sense of accomplishment before even taking a stroek, Dan finally had his raft into the SRC. There was only one reasonable way to get that boat out now, paddling it downstream.  We walked the trail back out and drove home anticipating the adventure waiting for us the next day. The next day we hiked in from the bottom to avoid a shuttle at the end of the day with Luke Spencer as Dan's R2 partner and our trail group; Dans girlfriend Lydia, Shane Conrad and Christina. The hike was a long one that took its toll, sapping precious energy and taking time. We made it to Split falls and within half an hour I was in my boat and dropping over the falls, a fantastic put in!

 I set safety and after a few minutes they came down. The raft didn't fit... We had figured this might be the case though so Luke jumped onto the bank right at the lip and pushed and yanked on the raft until it was only a little wedged. Then he jumped back in and they rocked the boat until they dropped over, a perfect line and they came out upright but the falls was landing right on them and ripped them out of the boat. They self rescued and we made quick work of the portage below.

After this I took off to catch the group ahead of us who had the climbing rope we were planning on using at Final Falls. I also wanted to catch them for safety reasons, as I had just found we only had one throw rope, and that was in my boat.  So if we didn't catch the other group I was going to have to be mistake free. I arrived before too long and there was no trace of the other group. By my watch I had made it by the meeting time (which was interpreted differently by the different people in the two groups), so I must have missed them by less than five minutes.

I waited at the spot for Dan and Luke. When they arrived we had a short pow-wow. Were we going to try to catch the group ahead of us before Final Falls or hike out? We came to a draw because Dan and my vote was to keep going, but Luke counted as two votes in this situation since he had been there before and favored hiking out. In the end optimism prevailed and we set off in an attempt to catch the group ahead of us (who also had a raft). Little Niagara went well and ended up being my favorite drop of the run.  The raft went next and also executed the line we had picked out well.

In the throw and go around Vanishing falls Luke hit bottom and sprained his ankle. This was to be a factor the rest of the day. We regrouped and got ready to drop the next ledge, a boxed in 8 footer with a sticky hole.  Luke remembered this drop as unscoutable/unportageable so gave me the beta, run it on the right and keep your nose up with a left stroke.  It turned out to be easy to clear the hole if you hit the line and I signaled all good to the rafters while I set up the camera and safety. They had a good line and we headed downstream.

 There was one more class 4 ledge drop, then Frustration falls presented itself after a narrow and calm alleyway. This drop was committing, which weighed especially heavy on me as having the only rope I would be going without safety. While we were scouting Luke caught a glimpse of something unnaturally colored downstream, hoping it was the other team we headed down and could see them. They signaled for us to head down, we had made it! We were elated that we had done so and were going to be able to repel around Final Falls, but we had our work cut out for us first. There was a lot of discussion about how we were going to get passed Frustration Falls. The end result is what is important, so what we did was lower Dan down to a ledge right above the final 40 footer, then he counter the raft down to where he was. Because of Luke's sprained ankle, Dan would be R1ing the drop. We felt it was safer for Dan to R1 the drop than to risk Luke injuring his ankle further.  Because Dan was R1, he would not be able to paddle away from the undercut all at the base of the drop.  To deal with this I would go first and from a small ledge throw him a rope after he landed to get him free of the wall.

 I put in below the first 20 which had some wood. The second drop is tricky. I had seen a number of blown lines there on video.  It appeared people would boof, only to have their tail caught by a shelf part way down, sending them over the bars.  My plan was to not attempt a boof, hoping that when my nosed dropped it would hit that shelf, bringing my nose back up.  This did not work according to plan and I hit the weird shelf and went into a bit of a freewheel.  I resurfaced upside down and trying to roll against the current, I did make it up and instead of being inside the bowl at the base of the ten footer, I was looking over the edge of the left side of the final drop!  I modified the final part of my roll into a partial backstroke as this side of the falls drops into a pothole of sorts that Luke had mentioned earlier had a rock in the landing and no one had ever run before.   The modified backstroke followed by another one kept me from dropping over. I stopped in the eddy created by the raft and set up for the bottom forty footer.

Instead of the reconnect line some people take, I used a little left angle off the kicker and free-fell into the pool below.  I was tucked forward and felt a good impact, my left leg popped out of the brace, but I was upright so I put it back in and started paddling against the current pushing into the undercut. I brushed it at the end but then I was into the clear and setting up for footage and safety for Dan.

He took his time preparing, then I saw some yellow, then I didn't, then here he comes! He dropped over straight and dove for the back of the raft and hung on. Then he was below upright and elated. We were all so stoked that he had just cleaned this drop! He was pushed against the wall which wasn't such a big deal in a raft, but being an R1 he was unable to paddle away from it as we predicted so I through him the rope and reeled him in. Then Luke jumped in and they tried paddling out past the veil of water that blocks the exit. After 3 unsuccessful tries Luke hopped out with my rope and pulled Dan through as Dan paddled. This worked and we were then above "In Between", the final drop above Final Falls.

We pulled onto the shore and saw... no one. This was not the site we had hoped for. After commenting on how unpleasant this situation was we started figuring out what to do. Luke was certain the other group would not have left without at least leaving the rope and thought he might have seen it so I ran the twenty footer and eddied out above the 70 foot Final falls. I walked down to the repel point and there was no rope... I signaled this back to the rafters and we discussed what to do. We regrouped again below the 20 and discussed our options. The last 4 people to jump the falls had all hit bottom, so that was iffy at best. Dan offered to lower us down on my throwbag and then jump, take the hit and just hope he didn't get injured to the point he couldn't hike out. In the end we decided to use Luke's plan and hike out on the left side, then cross the river when we could get back to it (it would take a couple hours of bushwhacking first), then climb up to the river right trail and hike out. Estimated arrival time at the take out bridge; 1am.

We geared down and started looking for a place to get up the cliffs. Luke thought he saw a draw that would go, but I wasn't really down with rock climbing and Dan was adamant that Luke was sure to hurt himself if he tried that. We looked around for another hour and finally came to the decision to head back to the river and have Dan lower us. We were a bit solemn as we headed back and got geared up. When we got to the platform above Final I looked around for a better jumping spot and found a small perch closer to the falls than where people had jumped and hit bottom before.  I thought that hopefully the scouring power of the falls would have made a deeper landing zone.

So Dan volunteered to jump first since he was going to jump anyway, and if he didn't hurt himself we would follow.  As Dan lept into the air I pushed away the thought that if he hit bottom we would probably have no other option than to jump anyway. Luckily he didn't, we shoved the boats off then followed suit, all of us minimizing our depth into the pool by filling our dry suits with air and planing our bodies once we hit the water. This worked, and we were together at the bottom, a happy set of boaters. We took some time to eat and drink, then took off downstream. We ran a couple more boulder gardens, then portaged a couple sieves, then we were in the class 2-3 runout. It was a great feeling to have met the challenges. I took off ahead to let the people at the takeout know we were ok, the raft joined us half hour later, with an hour of daylight to spare. In the end we were all ok, but we left with a sour feeling. We were definitely 3 unhappy people at the top of Final Falls, but I guess all that ends well is well.

 800 cfs Sandy at Marmot

   -Jacob

Eagle Creek

We had an epic day up on Eagle creek saturday.  This mission was about the first raft descent of Eagle Creek.  The day was led by Hans Hooman who did all the legwork and made the calls to get this together.  He was kind enough to share his descent with the group and we all had a super fun day.  Everything except Metlako and the narrow cascade below it got run.  Here are some teaser pics, I will have more up this week including the full report, video, and pictures.

     -Jacob

all photos by Paul Thomson www.ptnature.com

                                            myself probing Skoonichuck                 First known raft decent of Skoonichuck falls in a raft.                      First legitimate raft attempt at Punchbowl falls.

all  photos by Paul Thomson www.ptnature.com