Surgical Strike: The Box

SURGICAL STRIKE:  (Noun) an attack, usually without prior warning,

intended only to deal with a specific target.  

A few months back, when flows were low across the Pacific Northwest, and the summer flows of the Little White had faded along with the color in the leaves, I was searching for something to run, and willing to go a long way to get it.  My buddy Chris Totten, who lives up in Seattle, happened to be on his way back from a fishing trip with his dad in Idaho and stopped in La Grande for a beer break.  We got to chatting about what to boat, and remembered that there were releases on the Ashlu into the fall.  So we made a plan to get on it the final weekend of scheduled releases, which happened to be the next weekend!

After doing a little bit on interneting, I found the website where you request flows for the Box, and was able to talk to representatives from the hydroelectric company who assured me that flows would be available, I just had to make the request.  Check it out here:  www.innergex.com/kayak/

So I made the request, finished up work on Friday afternoon, and hopped in the rig, and thus began the Surgical Strike.  The next morning, Chris and I met up with Adrian Wigston, another friend from seattle, rearranged the gear, made sure we had our passports, and set off to Canada.

We went straight to the put-in for the box, got out of our car, and were immediately given beer and other goodies from some new Canadian friends that showed up a minute after us.  They were just cruising about the woods having a good time, and wanted to make us feel welcome.  Gotta love those Candians, aye!

Stoked to be at the Put-in!

Amazing scenery and a super stout drop

 We walked on past 50-50, and dropped into the epic canyon.  Chris had been down before, so we were just tailing him through every thing.  The Ashlu is one of the most beautiful and impressive places I have ever been, and I'll let the pictures do the talking from here. 

 Sequence of Adrian and I dropping in

One of so many perfect drops!

Once you leave the boxed in part of the canyon, there's still more, it opens up into huge boulder gardens.  The highlight is this killer double drop, depicted below.

One.

And two.

But the rest is still pretty dam good.  The following shots are of Chris and I at the same move, one from above, the other from below.  Nice little rockslide boof in the middle of huge boulders.  Perfect.

And then there's more. 

Totten on one of the final boofs.

After we got off day one, we headed up to Whistler for some Saturday night raging.  By the time we left the club, where there was plenty of dubstep and dance-pop, we were all soked in sweet and went and crashed in the Whistler parking lot.  We awoke at 7 AM when the guard came by and wrote a ticket for camping in Lot 4, so we headed back to the Ashlu, grabbed some z's on the forest, and lapped the box a couple times before heading back.  We were in Canada for less than 36 hours.  That's what they call a Surgical Strike!

Signing off,

Matt