Paddling tales?

[Cone Bone]

So... was there any paddling done over the holiday?

Out here in the cool (not usually cold - though it may snow a bit tonight...) Pacific Northwest, rivers are comin' on and the winter season is looking good.

After a long time spent making money instead of paddling, I made it back to the river over the holiday.

Friday after Thanksgiving I ran the lower section of the Skykomish (railroad bridge to Big Eddy). The river was running around 4k - higher than I am used to. Very fun to run a sizeable river in my Wheelboy, which treated me just great. I played a fair amount, made two battle rolls, and experienced no carnage.

Saturday was spent on the powerhouse stretch of the Snoqualmie, a local training run that is downriver from the dam of a large reservoir. The sun was out but the water was running high and cold. Enders and ice cream headaches were the common trick of the day. I pulled off a nice pirohuette, and I felt pretty good about most of my ferries that day.

Any other northwesteners getting out? Any other Wheelboys get wet recently?

[dixie_boater]

There were quite a few folks on the Chattooga this past weekend. I and my friends ran Sect. IV on both Friday and Saturday. I camped out Friday night near the river and enjoyed a beautiful, clear star-filled sky. It wasn't too cold either. Got down in the low 30's that night.

The river level was 1.36' on Friday and 1.30' on Saturday. A little scrapey, but OK. It rained earlier in the week so we still had water last weekend. We need more rain badly.

We had an open boater on Saturdays trip who was a Sect. IV first-timer. I had met him at rolling practice a couple of summers ago. He did great. He had no swims. He ran everyting except Crack-in-the Rock which we all carried. Center crack is not easily run at low water. Overall an excellent weekend.

Unless we get more rain soon the SE creeking season is not going to be very good this year.

[Jan_dettmer]

Hey Cone Bone,

I'm on Vancouver Island, not far from you. We were treated with some nice sunny weather over the last 2 weeks, too. I was lucky enough to explore two new creeks. They are calles Hemmingsen and San Juan. Both were awesome. Getting changed for the San Juan was something else. We were basking in the sun and I actually got too warm in my drysuit. That changed once we were in the canyon though.

On the Hemmingsen, we were lucky, too. We planned to run Harris Creek, a local favorite, but it was too high. So we started scouting the area for new runs and paddled this creek that turned out to be classic class 4/4+ creeking.

We then finished it all up with a classic run on the Lens Creek. It was a bit low but still tons of fun.

Happy paddling, Jan

[the great gonzo]

Well, even here in Ontario some of us still go out, although it's getting hard to talk people into paddling when there are 4 inches of snow on the ground and the temperature is below freezing .
On Sunday we headed up North to run the Magnetawan, a 10 mile stretch of with come nice class 3/4 rapids.
I pick up the token kayaker for the day, Isaac, and then we proced to the put-in to wait for our friend Steve who went to Ottawa on Saturday to pick-up a used Spanish Fly. We wait until a good 1/2 hour after the agreed meeting time, still no Steve in sight, so we proceed again towards the HWY to get into an area with cell phone coverage to see what's going on. Turns out that he missed the the tun-off for HWY 60 and drove around the North end of Algonquin Park, a detour of at least one hour .
So we decide to head to the next restaurant to grab a coffee and wait for him there.
On our way there however Isaac and I decide that, since we may run out of daylight if we do the full run, we should maybe check out an alternate take out that cuts out the longst stretch of flatwater.
We have never taken that particular one, we just know it from hearsay. we rip up and down a few logging roads, without ever finding the place, we only accomplish to slide off the road into the ditch. Now we are stuck, at least 5 miles from the HWY, with no cell coverage. Great ! After 1/2 hour we finally get going again, but now we are late. Steve is in the meantime ripping up and down the Hwy, wondering where the heck we are ...
Well, we meet fnally, set up for a slightly shortened run and go.
It was well worth it, Steve had a great time in his new Spanish Fly, Isaac however was cold and in pain, as he had some dental work done before and his pain killers started to wear off. It was funny to see him, who usually take the harder lines, choose the easiest and dry ones and passing all the nice surf waves, while Steve and I were taking the harder ones and surfed wherever possible.
Overall a great day, will go back there this weekend!

martin a.k.a. The Great Gonzo!

[Martyn]

Hey Martin,

That's pretty hard core. I waited until it had got tropical yesterday and went out. My buddy who I paddled with had been skiing when you were boating.

I've finally decided to go over to the dark side, but who would have thought a C1 would be so much fun! I was pleasantly surprised to find I could roll it in the river as rolling it in the pool seemed to escape me.

What were the Mag levels like? There doesn't seem to have been a heck if a lot of low around here. If you are up that way again, check out the South River in South River, it looks runnable at some levels.

Martyn

[the great gonzo]

Hey Martyn,

Well, I am stuck with paddling on weekends, as usually after work it's too late to get out anywhere, particularly in late fall.
For me, the ski/snowboard season starts when the eddies and the flat water stretches start to freeze over and you can't get to the rapids any more.

You switched to the dark side , does that mean you started kayaking? Cause C1 is defunitely NOT the dark side !
Yes, C1 rolls are way easier than open boat rolls, although my combat roll in my Prelude has gotten extremely solid this season (having said that, now I am probably gonna swim neat time I'm out in it...).
Strange though that you say rolling the C1 in the pool, escaped you, I always found it way easier than in the open boat.

The Mag is at a medium level, the right side channel at the top of Knoefli is fairly juicy, the left one not runnable. The bottom of Knoefli is deep enough on the left, but very bony in the center and on the right.
Poverty bay is fun, the right side at the top is easily runnable, the slide on the left is runnable on the far left, with a nasty hole on the right. the right side channel at the bottom is easily runnable, didn't look at the left side.
Sellers is not a problem, the big hole at the bottom is more of a very steep wave at the right, and the center part will flush (yes, I checked it out personally ).
Ross has a sweet fast surf wave, I could have stayed on it all day long!
It's definitely worth running at this level, a bit more playful and less full on than during peak spring runoff.
We'll run it again this weekend.
I'll definitely have to check out the South River some day.

martin a.k.a. The Great Gonzo!

[Mike W.]

My new dry-suit came in Wednesday If you've never had one with sewn in Gore-Tex socks you should really consider it. I've never been more comfortable in the boat this time of year

Friday we ran the Roanoke. Lots of great surfing to be had with spins & a few shove-its. I couldn't quite pull off a 360 though. The air temp only got up to 45 & the water temp was 53. Sure is getting chilly. This was the first time this fall that I've seen my breath while on the water.

Saturday I was on call, but did manage to get to Weldon for some park & play. The air temp got up to 51 which was much nicer. A group was leaving when I arrived so I had the wave to myself. It's nice to not have to wait in line, but it is more of a workout since you don't rest as much. The water had dropped a little & the wave was not quite as retentive, so spins were tougher. Good surfing & carving though. This was the 99th day that I've paddled this year I'll hit 100 this weekend

[Alden]

well, not a northwesterner, but I did get out over the holiday on the course at Dickerson on the Potomac. I was actually there just now. Pretty rough day - we've been watching some of the world cup clips recently and I guess we set some especially hard courses today. One involved surfing out of the big hole on the offside (resulted in one guy having to try some offside rolls). Then lower down I flipped doing a turn and ran the "curler" drop upside down and busted my elbow. It's pretty swollen. Hopefully head back for some redemption on that move tomorrow.
Alden

[bearboater]

at about 3:30 wednesday when i got home from school ,i put the boat on the truck, and went to a pretty chill section of a local river, it was snowing, and there was already 6 inches on the ground, temp well below 32, after ward there was a lot of ice collected on my blade, and shaft, and the stern of my boat, it was fun though, sure wish i knew where my dry-suit was, all i could find was a spraytop.
-isaac