Two Dudes, One Boat

Scotty Baker and I tore up the Deschutes in a Dynamic Duo recently.  We ran Dillon, the Lavas, and Meadowcamp, and Scotty put together this sweet little video of our runs down Lava One and Two.  Funny thing about the whole two-man deal is that we were too scared to try a roll in the flatwater, and Scotty thought it'd be best to just keep our first roll lucky anyway.  So we just charged this stuff with that big unknown.  Fortunately for us, when we flipped after the crux in Lava Two, despite the hero-brace from Scotty, we styled our first duo roll followed by much hooting and hollering.  Enjoy the video!


topo duo in lava from baker scott on Vimeo.

Huge thanks to Tumalo Creek Canoe and Kayak for letting us crazies borrow their Duo and making this all possible.  You rock!

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From a future report...Matt King is in there somewhere attempting this 40-50 footer in the coast range.

   -Jacob

On Mt. Hood's Shoulders: The Salmon River Gorge

 

Sometimes when you have your sights set on something big, it takes a few tries to get it done.  Such was the case for the Salmon River Gorge.  Prior to this spring, I'd hiked in and scouted Frustration twice without a boat at low flows and decided that it wouldn't be worth it.  This spring Conner and I tried to do the surgical strike (a.k.a. driving many hours, usually late at night, to get on a river, surf spot, etc. while conditions are right) but we got turned back.  On that particular occasion, Scott Baker hiked in with us, boats and all, only to find that the exit to frustration looked terrifying and impassible.  We hiked our boats back down, paddled some manky class 3, and went for a swim at the takeout before the long drive home.

Needless to say, I knew I had to be there when I heard from Scott that he had a crew for a mid-week mission.  I packed my gear and headed out at 4:30 AM to meet everyone at the take out; Nico Peha, Andy McMurray, Ryan Scott, Scotty, and a couple of Nico's friends that he cajoled into running shuttle for us.  The shuttle sucks, by the way, and unless you have a driver it's probably better to just hike up from the bottom.

After some nervous chatter and a quick hike, we found ourselves at split falls, the put-in.  You come around a corner, boof under a log, drive straight into a wall, then do a slow deep water boof off a 20 footer. Amazing warm up!

This sequence shows me, then Ryan, then Nico, then Andy. 

 

 After split, there's some manky stuff that we portaged, then a couple of really fun boofs including Little Niagra.  Then there's Vanishing Falls.  This one feels really intimidating, not least because you either run it or do a throw and go into a totally boxed in gorge with a 8-foot ledge that seems like it could hole you in perpetuity.  Scotty was feeling the right line on this one, which the guys in the Oregon Kayaking crew ran, but the rest of us thought he was crazy.  All the water basically falls 4 feet into a crack, then shoots out into the caved out landing zone and directly into a wall.  Scotty went for it anyway, and didn't make it look all that good, but came out upright and grinning.

 No room for a stroke... Scotty cracks it up.

I didn't like Scotty's line, and the middle looked pretty good, albeit quite shallow.  I think the middle was dry when the OK guys were in there, so that's probably why they went for the crack.  I got as much speed as I could muster and launched off the middle rock, landing with some much momentum that I did a mini wall ride at the bottom.

 Approaching Mach 10

After Vanishing, there's a must-boof boxed-in ledge in a ridiculously beautiful gorge.  That's one really striking thing about the SRG, there are all these epiphytes and ferns and flowers growing on the canyon walls that thrive on the mist from the various waterfalls.  Very fascinating habitat!

Ryan looks on as Scotty drops into the box.

Then there's Frustration.  This one has all the elements of hard exploratory-style boating; marginal but doable portage, with a cave and some ropework, huge runnable drops with major consequences, difficult/nonexistent safety options, and some damn good scenery.  Scotty ran the whole thing, getting up close and personal with a log in the first tier, but styling out the angle and scooting away from the wood nicely.  Nico and Andy ran the second and third tiers, while I seal launched above the last tier and Ryan walked and got video.  Good lines were had by all, but the most exciting line of the day went to Nico, when he dropped in a little bit to far left and subbed out underneath a log, but blasted through without issue. 

 Scotty goes for a no-portage decent of Frustration.

 And nails the log-avoidance line!

 Scotty giving the second tier everything he's got.

 

Nico dropping in, Ryan in the background above the undercut wall.

After Frustration there's still one more great drop, Niagra. With some backwards beta from Scotty, I ran this thing blind and botched the line, running far right into a crack and rolling at the bottom.  I thanked my kids-knee-pads turned elbow pads and eddied out, avoiding the plunge off Final.  Everyone else had great lines off this thing, one good boof after another.

Scotty being stylish again.  You can see the right part of Frustration in the background.

After all the excitement, you end up at Final and get to take a break, calm your nerves and celebrate the successful decent of some of the craziest drops around!  You can't celebrate for too long though, because Final needs to be dealt with somehow, and it can be a lengthy process.

 Contemplating the craziest quarter mile around.

 The rappel from the top.

Rappel from the bottom.

 

 We only had 4 harnesses, so I decided to give mine up and go for the jump.  Jacob had told me about a small ledge you could walk down to to jump into the middle of the falls, so I knew I could find a good spot.  Then again, Jacob told me the Metlako jump was good to go, and I scared the shit out of myself when I did it, and broke my helmet off on impact, so maybe I should think twice when taking advice from Jacob.  But I trust him with my life, so I went for it.  I was quite nervous, and had to count to three and force myself to go for it.  The fall was long, the landing was soft (softer than frustration), and I didn't hit a thing.  I'd do it again. 

 The Leap of Faith

 

The Salmon River Gorge is an epic place.  Even if you don't want to go boat it, get up there and take a look at the amazing waterfalls on foot, the hike is easy, the scenery is otherworldly, and it's damn close to Portland and the Gorge.   A perfect place to get Into the Outside!

 A parting shot.

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!