The Rumors of my Demise...

...have been greatly exaggerated...


  By Nate Merrill

I'm finding that living in Bend, OR is rather feast or famine when it comes to paddling. It takes quite a bit more effort to get out on good white water in the winter than living in Portland. The gorge is two and half hours away and the mid-valley stuff is a bit of a haul too. Don't get me wrong, it's nice to have a quality class III run 5 minutes from my front door... and there is a white water park under construction in my backyard... Oh yeah, Lava and Meadow camp in the summer too... But I certainly miss the variety of the quality class V surrounding Portland.  That being said, I actually like getting away for multiple days at a time and weekend trips are more fulfilling than the home and back fare.

Here's some off the couch footage from a recent trip down the Farmlands section of the White Salmon. We were having so much fun, we decided to forgo the normal takeout and continued down into the Truss. The level was around 4 feet on the stick. Don't mind the rust, I shook the rest of it off on the Little White the following day.


The Farmlands + from Nate Merrill on Vimeo.