C-Forum

To All,

I am looking for more information or pictures regarding the Middle Fork Snoqualmie River, WA (North Bend, WA) and Tamahi Rapids on the Chilliwack River in BC, Canada. My sons and I will be motoring out there for the Age Group Nationals and Junior Olympics mid-July. I am trying to get them a feel for what they will be paddling so we can begin to work on some things around my area in preparation. I found the hosting club website and Chilliwack Center for Excellence (CCE) website as well. Of course I found the AW page for the MF Snoqualmie as well. They where all quite helpful.

Email: tom20882<AT>yahoo.com (Note:<AT>=@)

Thanks for your consideration,

Tom

I'll get back to you
cheers
-isaac

Hi Tom,

There is one picture that scrolls through on the homepage of the Beaver Canoe Club (at low water - probably about 20cms), and another one on page 3 of their gallery. http://beavercanoeclub.org/default.htm

The RCABC (provincial canoeing association) also has a gallery that may have pictures of Tamihi.
http://www.bccanoe.com/

And Paddle Trails Canoe Club may be a good resource for the Snoqualmie, I think they have a newsletter supplement with photos of their trips.
http://home.comcast.net/~paddletrails/

Good luck, Pat.

Hi Tom,

Do you know what stretch of the MF Snoqualmie that you are most interested in? There are three runs on the river, a class II followed by a class III stretch (the 'Middle Middle'), and a lower stretch often called the 'club stretch' - this last run is on the easy end of class II. I imagine that I can scare up photos for you if I have a bit more direction.

All I can get on the location of the Age Group Nationals is that it is on private land near North Bend, WA. They say it is right off of I-90 with on site camping, 10-minutes from North Bend. So, it sounds to me like it is the club stretch, maybe?

the photo on page 3 of the gallery looks like the site below the tamihi proper, and the amount of water in the photo was about 2-3 times the flow that i had it in. the water looks just as fun at low water as at higher flows.
cheers
-isaac

There is a slalom course that is sometimes set on the Sno... The location of the course that I am thinking of is about a mile before the take out for the Middle Middle run described here:

http://www.americanwhitewater.org/rivers/id/2220

It is on the section of the river above the put in for the 'Club Stretch'.

I believe that the course in question is described as:

Davidson's Chateau of Whitewater Excellence, 10 slalom gates on class II section of the Middle Fork of the Snoqualmie River near North Bend, WA.
For access contact Matt Davidson. Private property.

Matt's email address is: Matthew@AntecCorporation.com

I don't personally know Matt, his email address was posted on the NW Whitewater website shown below. However, I believe that he lives on the river and maintains the course on his property. If you ask him, perhaps he will go out to the river in his back yard and take some photos for you!

http://www.nwwhitewater.org/TRAININGSITES.htm

If all that doesn't work out, let me know. I might be able to run the Middle Middle this weekend and take some photos to send to you.

Well, how were the races?

I was paddling the easier section above Tamihi on Sunday, and a group from Seattle was also around the Chilliwack Sat-Sun too, so you may have seen some open boats kicking around.

I was sure impressed by the young kids and especially the C-2 paddlers! Those race boats are funny.

The paddlers were good, but some of the fans, coaches, judges, whoever could use some work on their throw bag tosses!

Tamihi was just a touch higher than I've paddled it in the past, so I'm relieved that the race event gave me a good excuse not to run it! Although, it was so hot I could've used the swim anyway.

P.

The Junior Olympics where really fun. The race organizers where truly excellent. The course was very tough and a bit much for my C-boatting son to reach. The Middle Fork of the Snoqualmie for the Age Group Nationals was much more to his level. My other son who paddles K-1 put up two runs after recieving a slight concusion earlier in the week from a nasty hole in the main drop of Tamahi.

Tamahi was much lower on race day than when we first go there by several inches. When I first looked at it I figured a lot of people would not race as it was a boiling mess. However, it fell fast and became much more manageable. I saw a bunch of open boaters on Saturday. I was kind of looking forward to seeing them make a run. I think I saw it on this board how Canada Whitewater ratings are slightly different to the conservative side. I belive it. Tamahi Rapids is quite large and long. The individual drops are not so bad if there was pool below; however, it is continuous with really no place to recover until the bridge and that pool is awfull small as well before the next Class III+ rapid. I saw a lot of nasty swims and many broken boats through the week. I have a few pictures as well.

You are right about the throw ropes.....

The C-Boaters where few but impressive. From the US Casey Eichfeld just barely beat out a tough C-Boater from China, Mang Hang. It came down to penalties as Hang had him beat on the raw time. Zach "the Bug" Lokken from NRC pulled Gold Medal for his age group and placed third overall. He was very impressive for being so young. Alex Clarke from Alberta grabbed the Gold for his Age Group and finished fourth overall. AJ Chapman from PA, Mach 1 pulled in the Bronze medal for his age group and was fifth overall. Lastly, Tyler Hinton from I think Colorado Front Range Paddling Assoc. received the Gold Medal for his Age Group.

If you all know any of these fine paddlers please drop them a note of congratulations! They need it and are deserving of all our support to keep our class going.

Yes, short, warm class III/IVs are different from the cold, long ones like Tamihi, so the ratings don't always tell the whole story - sometimes I feel like a suck when I tell people I just paddle class IIIs, but I'm not sure they're picturing Tamihi.

I wondered about racing the entrance to Tamihi, and I was relieved to see that course actually started below the main drop.

According to the 'Chilliwack above Sleese' gauge, the river rose a few cms in the heat from Thurs through Sun, so maybe you just adjusted and got more comfortable?

So, the OC crowd from Seattle didn't run Tamihi on Saturday? I was hoping to run into them on Sun, but we didn't see them. They had more ambitious plans of running the class IV canyon, so maybe that's where they went.

Congrats to all the junior paddlers, your sons included!

When we were taking out at the top of Tamihi, I saw one K-1 paddle through that top hole pretty casually and without problems - we looked at each other and commented on the ability of long, fast, skirted boats, as we wouldn't get away with that in our tubs!

Hope you enjoyed the trip!

Pat.