Outrageous Oregon and Alder Creek

May 1, 2006

By Stephen Wright. Learn more about Stephen.

Jay Kincaid and I packed it up and headed out to Oregon this weekend to
help-out Alder Creek Outfitters with their big Demo Day events. They
actually didn’t need our help, but we had a blast chatting with their
employees, helping people get comfortable in Jackson Kayaks, and hitting-up
some awesome playboating–the rivers in Oregon are going off big time. It
was a long-driving-adventure (like 23 hours in the truck over 3 days), but
Oregon is really a beautiful place to be with an awesome mixture of
evergreen forests, high desert, and big mountains. I got a little
mountain-happy with my camera, but they make for cool photos.

Alder Creek is small chain of 3 JK preferred dealers in Portland, Bend,
and Hood River, Oregon, which have some awesome employees and a very cool
vibe. The employees here are some of the best paddlers in each area and
know how to get you comfy in the right boat for you! Definitely check them
out if you’re in the area.

Apart from the long hours of driving from Reno to Portland to Estacada to
Bend to Reno, we hit-up 2 awesome play spots. On Saturday, we went to the
Clackamas river to where Bob’s Hole would normally be. The high water has
moved some rocks around (the local rumor is that Bob’s may be gone again),
but a spot just downstream and river right of Bob’s was SICK-O! They call
it Joe-Bob’s and it is epic: giving up wave moves like air blunts,
backstabs, flipturns, and helixes. It also happens to give the biggest
loops in the history of the world. We were joined by Team JK’s Dan Rubado
and a few other Portland area boaters for an awesome afternoon. This place
rocks! After boating there we had to end-up in Bend Saturday evening so we
tried 3 different roads over the mountains up the Clackamas and were SHUT
DOWN 3 times by rock slides and snow–2 hours later we backtracked through
Estacada and headed down to Bend where we stayed with paddling legend Jason
Bowerman.

Sunday allowed us to hang out at the Bend shop’s demo day and enjoy
meeting many JK fans and helping people try out our boats. We then headed
over to a top secret playspot known as AREA 51. I could tell you where it
is, but then I’d have to kill you…just kidding…kind-of. Anyway, it’s an
amazing hole in an irrigation canal just outside of Redmond. We had fun
working wheels, loops, blunt-to-mcnastys, tricky woos, and the infamous
Fonix Monkey. This was a great place to play, and I wish that we could have
spent more time there. But now it’s another 7 hours back to Reno, where
we’ll get to hang-out and train for the upcoming Reno River Fest. Enjoy the
pics!

Live from somewhere in Oregon in the passenger seat of Jay Kincaid’s truck,

Stephen Wright