Washington/Oregon JK Fun Tour a blast!

May 4, 2006

Photos

Whirlwind Tour would be a good name for our time in the Northwest following our California tour. We went from the American to Hood River had dinner in HR and then drove to Seattle. We did the TV show for the fine living network and then went back to Portland. After Portland we shot up to Leavenworth Mountain Sports and hit the Wenatchee River at 7,000 cfs. The river shot up just before we got there and it was the highest they had seen it in 2 and ½ years, sweet! Great play on it. Emily, Dane, and I got to paddle with a good number of local paddlers. They all seemed to be having a good time on the water. After the run we went to the shop and had a BBQ (good food and fun). That night after everyone left and we got loaded up we headed towards the Snoqualmie River near Seattle for a Seattle Raft and Kayak paddle. This shop had tons of people there both for the river run and also for the BBQ afterwards. That night we left for Portland and met with the Sports Unlimited guys who help us coordinate our sponsorships and who work with Lee Hart on our media stuff. After meeting with them and seeing Rebecca Hynes who was once an employee of 4-Corners Marine in Durango and now works for a producer of commercials, we headed into Hood River.

In Hood River we met with Kayak Shed owned by John and Jen Hart and their sales guys in a super cool whitewater shop. Dinner at 6th Street Bistro is next, with the Jackson family, Moe and Trish Dixon, Eric Sanford, Dick and Penny, Tao Berman, and John and Jen Hart. Too many conversations to really catch up with everyone but super fun.

We headed out after dinner towards Boise, Idaho for our next stop at the Payette River and a top Jackson Kayak Super Store, Alpenglow. There must have been 40+ kayakers at the “Bladder Wave” which is an 11,000 cfs river with a big rubber dam that you eddy behind and ferry out to a big sweet wave that changes on each ride. Every move you wanted was there. McNasty, Big air blunts, etc., etc. I also did a short clinic in which I took requests and did one skill in Strokes and Concepts, one in Rolling and Bracing, one in Playboating. Then we started over. I taught one guy to hand roll, one an offside roll, some double pumps, and the sweep stroke. Meanwhile, Emily and Dane did a kids clinic with a 9, 12, and 14 year old. After the Bladder we headed into Boise to Alpenglow and got to meet everyone and drink some local microbrew beer and then do premiers of Nomads, the JK promo video, and also do a slide show from our Africa trip. Dane was the MC for the slide show and did awesome on the microphone. It was a great gathering of a variety of local paddlers. I also met up with Rob Lesser (one of the original whitewater heroes of the world) and asked him if he would lead myself and the kids down the North Fork of the Payette at high water. Rob suggested that there was a better run that hadn’t run in 7 years and it was prime from the major snow melt at 17,000 cfs. The Murtaugh section of the Snake River. Rob suggested that it was one of his all time favorite runs. We drove about 2 hours outside of Boise to Twin Falls and met Rob in the morning.

We dropped the Mini-Cooper and loaded a 4 Fun on the roof for Rob, which was a big deal since he has had nothing but Perception boats since the 70’s (yes that is 30+ years!). We drove to the take out at big falls below a dam and left the RV and Rob’s RV there and Kristine drove us to the put-in of a 14 mile run. The normal put-in is at a bridge, but Rob had once (20 years earlier) been to a water fall called “Cauldron Nil” that he couldn’t even remember if he had run or not. The main drop is about 15,000 cfs going into the ugliest hole you can imagine and walled out on both sides. However on the river left side there was water flowing in over a 25 footer downstream of the main hole and it looked like a lot of fun. Admittedly we figured it at 15-18 feet from the far bank because the big water was dwarfing it. However, in the back of my mind I remember how waterfalls are hard to judge from the top of them and I accounted for that and told Dane that it might be well over 20. Dane and I walked way upstream to make sure we could make the ferry to river left with margin for error and then some (not making to the left meant the hole of terror, and then worse). We had to snake our way down brush filled channels above the main drop and duck under overhanging trees and brush to get to where we could get out and scout again at the lip. It was a little scary since I was looking at a channel that I was sure was the right one to get us to the lip safely but stopped and explored a little more from the bottom of an eddy and found that we were a good 20 feet too far right and below us was no more eddies before the waterfall in an area that drops into a crevasse that we hadn’t scouted. After I got to the safe zone I signaled Dane down and we got out and looked. Emily, Kristine, and Rob Lesser were watching from the other shore. Kristine had the camera and Emily would signal to Dane after I was clear of the drop safely. Both of us got into last chance eddy and Dane gave me a hug and kiss and said, “have fun and be careful”. I returned the fair well and made a mental bookmark noting the special moment, splashed cold water in my face and peeled out lining up just left of a small rock and angling into a curler that was defending the “pinnacle” rock that would carry us clear of the messy part of the drop. The curler was easy to see but the takeoff point was only visible at the last moment and was only 1 boat width wide. I wanted to let my bow drop to 45-60 in case it was well over 20 feet, even though the water was aerated by the falls upstream. I got my bow over the curler without getting water in my face and saw the ramp and hit it with a good view of the landing and it was not only higher than 20 feet but also was a weird thing to see the 17,000 cfs river flying to my left while I was doing a creeky falls. The upstream water punched me in the face and accelerated my boat downstream and I came up pointing downstream about 20 feet below where I landed. I gave the “OK” sign to Emily and she signaled Dane who was waiting in the eddy that was past the point of no return. He dropped off perfectly only about 15 seconds after me and landed it perfectly and was all smiles. This was only the beginning.Rob and Emily met Dane and I downstream and we had two of the bigger rapids right out of the gate. Rob was trying to remember the run from many years earlier. We were so lucky to be on this stretch of river that the local Boise hero hadn’t run in 7 years due to drought. We went through Grand Canyon style big waves with big holes to drop into or go around, if you saw them, which we usually did.

BIG play waves and holes along the 14 mile run with tons of just bombing the river since most of the rapids had big rolling waves and crazy currents but only about 1 out of 3 rapids had play on it, beyond the kick flips and macho moves, of course.

A couple of memorable rapids were “Paradise” “Let’s Make a Deal”. Paradise was another commitment move into a toilet bowl of a seam with big holes defending against anyone trying to sneak it. Dane and I decided that we could run the seam fairly dry if we did it just right and I went first with Dane and Rob watching from the lip. Sure enough I seal launch into a little eddy that you can’t get out of without running the drop and my hands are greasy from the Power Bar (who would have thought). Oh well, I peeled out and got about 20 feet from the shore while being pulled down into the drop and then drove hard left towards the rock that juts out and dropped down into the meat of it and bottomed out on a barely submerged rock but it only slowed me down a little and I managed to boof my bow up on top and slide through easily. Dane jumped in his boat and did the same only didn’t get quite as far left and did a quick roll that looked more like a kickflip. Emily seal launched from the island into the eddy below the drop and Rob ran the back side of the island which looked really cool.

“Let’s Make a Deal” is a cool rapid named after the game show. 4 BIG rock pillars in the middle of the river create 5 “doors” that are available to paddle through. Rob said that doors 2 and 3 are good to go and you need to avoid 4 and 5. We found a great play wave/hole above the doors and played for awhile and then Rob said to spread out because there might be good play just below door 3. Well the only thing waiting below door 3 was a surprise BIG hole that could be avoided and I avoided it after getting Dane’s signal that said “hard right!”. Rob was like, “That wasn’t what I remember”. I had to remind him that in the TV show, they change what is behind the doors before each show.

We got to the take out tired and smiling. Rob told me that he wanted to continue to paddle the 4 Fun. He liked how easy it was to roll and how well it surfed. He was also excited about getting into a modern day kayak. I ended up getting it organized so that my yellow 4-Fun would become Robs. I am beside myself that after 30 years of paddling Perception, whitewater hero Rob Lesser chooses Jackson Kayak as his new boat!

It is 11pm and Kristine is driving right now on the way to Reno. We started what we thought was a 4.5 hour drive and after 3 hours of driving we looked at the map again only to find out that we had another 350 miles to go! The ipod is blasting Kristine’s playlist, while Emily and Dane are watching a movie in the back of the RV… OH yea!>>>>

There was this really big wave that Emily caught on the fly and then Dane dropped in on her. Dane ended up surfing at the bottom of the wave and Emily was carving around above him and Dane couldn’t find her. Then Emily started bouncing and her bow kept bouncing on his head and shoulders and he couldn’t get out of the way and she couldn’t stop laughing. I was back surfing on the first big wave and dropped in after Emily fell off and got a short surf with Dane too. I caught up with Emily and she still couldn’t stop laughing about it. It was another one of those moments to remember. The whole day went without a single negative comment, emotion, action, and the highs were very high. Today was a perfect day.

🙂 EJ