Be Ready

Bomber gear just came out with a cool new ad.  Matt and I make split second appearances on a couple rapids in the Wallowa's.



   -Jacob

Completion

Last fall Emile Elliot, Anna Herring and myself began our hike out of a massive gorge in southern WA.  Last weekend, Emile, Liz and myself finished that hike.

The story can be read here.  The short of it is we abandoned our boats and spent 8 hours hiking through the woods before connecting with search and rescue.  On the third attempt to retrieve our boats we were successful.

Emile created this video highlighting the recovery, adding very fitting music.

I have to thank Liz for spotting the boats, without her I have no doubt Emile and I would have left empty handed.  As Emile said at one point, "our boats could be 300' to our left and we would never know" (they were).

   Enjoy our trials and tribulations.


Kayak recovery mission from Difficult E on Vimeo.


   -Jacob

Other reads

We have some new media to get up on the blog here soon, including epic Gopro-meal time from Caitlyn coming at some point.  We have also been getting after some good adventures that will be written up in due time. For now check out these other pages that explore adventure and life in the lesser known reaches of Oregon and the PNW.

 http://www.lagrandelife.com/tag/kayak   -  This is just a link to our recent Wallowa teaser, but exploring the website further will give insight into the people who call this majestic area their home.

http://beachwalkproject.com     -  The most recent story is about a trip my dad was a part of involving a project to boat all stretches of the White River this year.

http://riverlog.blogspot.com    -  And after a long hiatus, the IK riverlog is back in business for the time being.  Brian is currently writing about their recent trip into the Chetco wilderness.

A quick teaser I am making from our father's day trip

    -Jacob

Four Decades of First Decents: A Return to Roosevelt, Washington

If you asked me last year if I'd ever return to Roosevelt to kayak, I would have told you no way, never, not going to happen.  Not that the far-east gorge isn't beautiful or anything, but after our last epic out that way, I swore it off for boating.  

Never say never, as they say, and when Jacob and I got the word this spring from John Whaley about a creek with a 30 footer, a bunch of bedrock, and the right flow, we knew we had to head back, especially since someone else had already done the homework.  It sounded like exactly what we had hoped to find in Jupiter Canyon, so we jumped on the opportunity and planned to meet up with John the next day.  The mission:  Rock Creek.

Now, neither of us had ever met John, but we certainly knew his name from his days with the Oregon Kayaking crew and knew he was had great exploratory credentials, including at least one first decent in every decade from 1980-2010, so this one would make it his fourth decade with a first decent.  I hope Jacob and I get there some day! It was Pete Giordano who got us all connected after John asked him if he knew anyone who would be willing to get after a questionable first decent with a big hike starting on a tiny tributary of a tiny creek that goes into a small creek with only a couple hundred CFS.  Pete didn't hesitate to give John our info, knowing that we're masochistically addicted to hikes and portage-fests.

We met up with John on the banks of the Columbia, set shuttle and got things rolling.  On the drive up to the put in, we passed lots of ominous no trespassing signs describing the various punishments that would be levied onto anyone entering private land.  John had some extra marines stickers for exactly this reason, and we slapped a couple on the car, hedging our bets against the crazy landowners.  All went well getting up to the put-in though, with only a few crazy snow crossings in the subi, and we got to hiking.

 This sign warning us about entering logging land wasn't very intimidating after what we had seen on the way up.

 

The hike was pretty easy, somewhere around 4 miles, pretty flat, with some nice snow to drag on at times.  John had looked at everything on his mountain bike, so he took us right where we needed to go and we started out final decent to the river before noon.

 The last push down to river level.

While we where hiking down, we got excited about some bedrock in a tiny tributary that ended in a waterfall.  On the other hand, the brush covering the creek and only about 30-40 cfs reminded us of Jupiter Canyon and we knew we'd be bashing brush all day.  Luckily, we'd already perfected the brush tuck, so we could make good progress while practicing our waterfall technique.

 Bedrock on the trib, with the creek buried in brush.

 

Not long after we put on, we came to the first bit of bedrock, two back-to-back slides that were quite fun.  Already we'd found some stuff that was better than anything in Jupiter.

John having a blast.

We worked our way further downstream until we got to a tight gorge at our first confluence. John had seen this on his scouting and named it Pine-in-the-Ass, after the huge tree blocking most of the falls.  John portages from upstream, I portages at river level, and Jacob portages the first part on river right, then slid down the bottom.  With more water and less log, this one could be pretty fun.

Pine-in-the-Ass

After the confluence, with the welcome addition of more water, we bashed through more brush until we reached a significant horizon line.  We all eddied out and took a look, with big smiles on our faces when we looked at the squeaky clean waterfall.  It wasn't 30 feet by any means, but it made for a fun drop, and we all launched off with a hoot.  Just seeing the smile on John's face at the bottom of this drop made everything worthwhile.

John's 30 Footer

After the waterfall, we had several more miles of water, but nothing too exciting.  A couple good drops and innumerable portages, and John and I were both fighting cracks the whole way.  We kept up the pace, as we where worried about light and didn't want it to get dark on us.  The take-out came into sight right as it was getting dark, and we celebrated with beers and donuts before heading up to get the car, which we knew we'd have to hike to despite the best efforts with Jacobs civic in the snow.

All and all, it was a great trip in an absolutely stunning canyon and an awesome group, and it made a great counter-point to the Jupiter Canyon debacle.  That being said, I doubt any of us will return to this one.  Thanks much to John for finding this one and giving us the call, hopefully we'll find exploratory missions for decades to come! 

Product Review: K-Bomb Skirt

Product Review

K-Bomb Skirt

Here you can see how the K-Bomb repels water, while the other skirt absorbs it.

Fellow Earth Science student and adventurer models the dual-fabric of skirt tunnel.

In use.

              -Jacob

From the Great Salt Lake: Provo River Utah

My good friend Nick just sent me this trip report of a run down near Salt Lake City he has been talking about for a few years.  He finally got the chance to run the stream and it looks like it was a great trip!  Here is his account...

For the last three years I've been trying to get on one of Utah's only steep creeks and have be turned away by lack of water and road closures.  However, this May things finally lined up and I was able to throw together a trip.  The creek only runs for about one week a year and you need an average amount of snowfall on the year.  If its too high the snow melt happens too late and the creek turns into a monster.  Too low and the road won't be plowed before the creek turns into just a trickle.  

Although I have plenty of boats to borrow out here I only had one day notice that the trip was actually possible.  I took the best option I had; an IK rental from REI with no thigh straps or foot pegs.  I'm plenty familiar with IK's (look some of the archived footage from 2007 on this blog) but hadn't paddled one in two years.

The creek was a bit low at 700 cfs, I would have preferred around 900 but hey, beggars can't be choosers.  The run is only 1/2 mile and can be scouted in its entirety from a trail running along side it.  Thankfully my roommate wanted to check things out so he said he would take some media.  

The first 1/4 mile is all 3-5 ft drops similar to the one below.  I instantly realized that without thigh straps I would not be attempting the lower two drops, which both have very narrow lines.

After the warm up drop are three slides that provide a good warm up for the steeper drops.  I am in the middle of slides 1 & 2 below:

Three main drops make up the 50 feet of vertical drops that this run is known for.  The first is a 15-20 ft slide that ends directly above the main double drop.  At higher levels it would be almost impossible to eddy out above the main drop.

Since I was using a rental boat without thigh straps I chose to run the bottom half of the main drop.  The line for the upper part is to run river right, which worried me because the deposit I would lose on the IK if it were to tear was $500.  Needless to say the bottom tier was straightforward and I ran several laps to please the onlooking families.

Below are the two big drops below the double drop.  They both land in waist deep water.  The larger of the two has seen 3 broken backs in the past few years.

Overall it was a great trip.  It felt great to get back in the water and get some vertical in-even if it was as straight forward as they come.  If anyone reading this ever ventures to Utah in May I would highly recommend getting on this creek and checking out the surrounding areas.  In my opinion it is some of the most impressive country close to Salt Lake.

   ~Nick Hymel

County Teaser

Here is a quick teaser showing some of the wealth located in NE Oregon.  The melt is about to start, get out and explore!



    Some pictures Matt took of the intimidating gorge the crew took care of a few weeks back can be found here.

              -Jacob