This first trip was not as eventful as our second trip the following Thursday, so this report will be on that run.
On this trip was Nick and myself, along with Jordan Englert (his first time) and my father (Rob Cruser) who was making his first descent in ten years in an IK. The last time he did this section in his IK he nearly died in lower Zig-zag. The story of his entrapment can be read here, http://www.oregonkayaking.net/tales/robcruser.html
We decided to lower the boats off the bridge this time, which was easier and less sketchy than the normal put-in. We ran the warm up drop right below the Truss Bridge and headed around the corner and boat scouted the first few drops down to S-turn. On the second drop I had my only flip so far on the Truss, in a slot at the bottom that I do not like anymore, but I rolled up fine and continued without another hitch. We all made it down S-turn fine with the hardshellers getting a great boof off the bottom ledge. 
Things were looking good until we got to meatball, when we discovered that Nick had broke his paddle in the drop above. Luckily it was a cheap plastic paddle, that had broken in the same way twice before. All that happened was the blade came apart from the shaft. With the prospect of hiking out a daunting one, we found a couple sticks and used them as supports as we duct taped them on. Then we all cleaned Meatball and Bob's
Myself in meatball
We all portaged Big Brother and all cleaned Little Brother.
Jordan drops Little Brother
The paddle held until we got to double-drop, where in the rapid above it broke again. Nick borrowed a paddle to run Double-Drop from Jordan who decided to portage, and had his only swim of the day in the bottom ledge. My dad and I both did great in this drop. Below here my dad set to work loading up the paddle with sticks and duct tape until it was on just enough to make it the rest of the way if Nick took it easy on his paddle.
Rob Cruser (my dad) fires up Double-Drop
Myself dropping into Wicked Hole
Below here we made descent time to Zig-Zag canyon, with no flips occuring. Cheesegrater and Unavoidable were fun as usual and we got pictures and video for both of them.
The Author in the top drop of Cheesegrater
Rob Cruser in the bottom drop of Cheesegrater
We were all excited about Upper Zig-Zag for many reasons. My dad hadn't kayaked this drop in a long time, and had swam it the last time. Nick had swam it the last time. I had barely kept myself from flipping last time and wanted a clean run this time. Jordan hadn't ever run it and was pretty nervous/excited about it. I wasn't feeling too bad about it so I went first and never had to brace with a solid boof through the right slot at the first ledge. Then I videod Jordan having a perfect line and heard him give his first ever whoop below a rapid that I had heard. My dad followed next and I didn't get the Q from Nick so I missed his exciting line. He got pushed left in the entrance and almost flipped, but pulled it off, then he got pushed sideways into the wall at the first ledge, he flipped here and kicked hard to get away from the sieve. Nick decided that he couldn't run the rapid with his duct-taped paddle so portaged along the right wall. The portage took about 25 min. but could be done in about 10. I had read that the portage was brutal, but it really didn't seem that bad, and really might have been easier than the lower Zig-zag portage. We all portaged Lower Zig-zag even though it is starting to get run, and if you stayed up-right it would be easier than some of the other rapids on the run, but if you flipped you would get your head ripped off by the submerged log.
Below here is the Orletta, which we attempted to get down quickly, but IK's don't really move very quickly, so we took out about 8 O'clock. The Orletta was fun as usual and went well, except that my dad hit his elbow pretty hard on a wall. We all cleaned the rest of the drops and arrived at the take-out after a good day.
Myself on Triple drop
Here is the video of our second trip down.
Nick with his duct-taped paddle
Here is the video.
No comments:
Post a Comment