The Upper Cispus River - 04/10

Friday afternoon I ducked out of work as early as possible and headed south to Kevin's house. Once at Kevin's I hitched up the trailer loaded with rafts, catboats and firewood while Kev through the last of his stuff in his camper. Within 30 minutes of arriving Kevin and I were on our way......to the bar.
Okay, actually we were on our way to the Cispus River but after a not-so-quick stop at Walt's Place in Yelm to "check the oil" with a few friends we were back on the road in raging downpour. The rain let up and by the time we turned on to FS23 we were on mostly dry ground. By the time we called it a night the rain returned and managed to stick around for the whole night.
The next morning we had damp cloudy skies but luckily the rain held out while we were getting ready for our run. It's not often that we get so lucky on these early season runs. We ran the shuttle early and hit the river with 4 catboats and two rafts (in R-3 and R-2 configurations). The water was low but still run able. We made our way through Picky Picky, Big Bend and stopped to scout White Lighting (class IV) since we had other several people that had never run the Cispus before.
After running through White Lightning we took a nice riverside break while the R-3 paddle raft and its passengers (you know who you are) flailed around helplessly in a hole just big enough to swamp the boat and hold it in place for 15 minutes. The pause in the action (for some of us) was a nice moment to relax, have a snack, and take a few pictures of the drama. After I was done with my Pepsi, Mike (oops, sorry I said no names!) managed to tie a rope to the front of the stranded raft and I was able work my way down the side of the rock face and to swim out grab the rope. Once I got the rope back to shore Kevin and I were able to pull the boat and its paddlers free from the hole with out too much trouble. Apparently self-bailing rafts can fill up faster than they can bail!
After making it back to camp we sat around the fire and ate like pigs. That night the clouds stuck around but the rain held off. I stayed nice and toasty in my sleeping bag but I could tell it was pretty damn cold outside because the sound of Kevin's heater turning on woke me up a couple times. Yes I'm still bitter about that. Especially after he told me the next morning that at one point he had to throw off the covers because it was too warm in his camper. Did I mention I'm still bitter?
Sunday Morning there was a fresh layer of snow on the mountains just above our camp but we managed to stay dry. We got an early start and were on the river by 9:30-ish. The run went nice and smooth even though the water level had dropped a bit lower. Half way through the run the sun came out and made for some nice views of the last night's fresh snow. We got off the river earlier than normal cleaned up our camp site, loaded the gear and were back on the road home a little after 1 o'clock.

Stats:
Upper Cispus, Class III (IV)
Miles Logged: 8 / 8
Flow Data: 1400cfs / 1280cfs

Clackamas River, OR - Three Lynx to Memaloose 4/10

Well decided to try a new one this time! Okay so the Clackamas River isn't really new (I think it's been around for a while) its just new to me. Friday I bailed out of work early topped off the tank, picked up Evan, grabbed some Starbucks and was on my way to Oregon trying to beat the Portland rush hour.
Heading out to a new spot is always a little interesting since I had no idea where the heck I was going and didn't really know all the details when I left. The directions from Darin basically said:

drive to Estacada, OR...now drive another 21 miles along the river...now park near the road, pitch a tent, crack a beer and I'll see you there sometime Friday night.

Not bad directions considering he knew just as much about this river as the rest of us. The campground was less than stellar and the bathrooms were how do I say this? Unusable! (we'll just leave it at that). The good news was we had the place pretty much to ourselves so we grabbed the nicest site in the place and called it home.

By the time the 30-something degree morning arrived everybody had successfully made it to camp. We headed up the road to find a usable put-in somewhere all the while scouting the river as best we could from the road trying to determine what we were getting ourselves into. We followed the best directions we could find until we came to a pull out near the bridge we had read about. After a minute of looking around we realized the put-in was located just across the road and was a nice beach with steps leading down to it. It looked like a much better option than the steep 20' rock bank we were currently facing. We lucked out and had a spare driver who volunteered to meet us at the take-out (wherever the heck that is?) to bring us back so the shuttle was taken care of and we were ready to jump onto the river. At the put-in we talked with Jessie from Blue Sky Rafting and he was a cool enough to answer a few questions we had about the river before setting off himself.

Once on the river I jumped put front in my oar boat trying to see as far as the river would let me. Since none of us had run the river before every bend and every wave seemed a little more exciting. Heading quickly towards our first unknown rapid we quickly fell into a rhythm of swinging wide on the bends, standing on the seat to read the river as far as possible, then dropping back down to punch through the rapids. Rapids like Powerhouse, The Narrows, Hole-in-the-Wall, Carter Falls, Slingshot, Rock & Roll, all went by without a hitch. That is until I came face to face with Toilet Bowl.

Toilet Bowl is one of the last significant rapids before things settle down until the take-out. The line up and drop in to the Toilet Bowl went well until I hit the wave train at the bottom. Now I'm not exactly sure how big of a wave it takes to stop and flip a 13' oar boat...but I know the last wave in Toilet Bowl is apparently big enough.

The rest of the run went by fairly quickly and we were soon at the take out then on our way to town. In town we were able to check our voicemail to make sure the people running with us on Sunday were still on their way. Once we returned to camp it was time to dry-out, pig-out, sit-down and drink-up (like most non-travel days on the river).

Sunday we were back at it once again. Only this time it was with "second day" efficiency. By the second day we usually know where we we're going. The second day on the river was a bit more relaxing since the stress of "where the hell am I going and what's coming up next" was mostly gone. This allowed us to be a little conservative picking our lines on the river since we'd seen it all before. When we came to Carter Falls instead of taking the safer left side we powered right over the drop and punched the biggest waves we could find. When I got back to the Toilet Bowl I pointed the cat boat right at my nemeses, the big wave at the bottom and pulled back on the oars in an attempt to surf the wave that the day before had flushed me down the bowl. During my display of confidence that I was stronger than any Toilet Bowl I smashed my right oar into a rock ejecting it from the oar lock and once again spinning me 90 degrees the same way it had done the day before.

Looks like I need another road trip to Oregon to once-and-for-all conquer the Toilet Bowl!

Stats:
Clackamas River, Class III (IV) - Three Lynx to Memaloose Station
Miles Logged: 13.5 / 13.5
Flow Data: 2210cfs / 2090cfs

A New Toy!

Thanks to Craigslist-Seattle I picked up a pretty sweet play/surf boat for one heck of a deal! I'm not going to tell you how much I paid for it but I will say it was the 5th of the month and the guy was late on his rent...I was able to pay for it with money out of my change jar and still had enough left over to pick up a nice new spray skirt.