Robe Canyon - High Water Run

Prior to this morning I had never run Robe higher than 5.9.

There are a handful of boaters in the Seattle area that regularly boat Robe above 6 feet but I could never say I desired to be among them. At 5.8 and 5.9 the holes get much bigger, the wave trains steeper and the pucker factor magnifies by a factor of around 20.

I kept hearing it was "good to go" and "almost fun" above 6 feet, from a couple of locals, but I wasn't convinced.

Then the day finally arrived; Nothing else was in (at a reasonable level) and I HAD to get on the water. Darren had called earlier in the morning and told me that there would be a decent sized group on the river, so safety would be less of an issue. I tentatively agreed to join.

I called Joe and his response to my inquiry as to the intelligence of the undertaking at hand was: "what could go wrong?"

By the time we got to the takeout I had worked myself up to walking T1 and probably Sunshine, as well as the possibility of walking Hotel California (the longest rapid on the run). I told my rumbling gut I would give it a look.

Some Bellingham boys joined us and all in all we had close to 10 kayaks in the water at the put-in. This time last year I would say it would have been wishful thinking to get 10 people to join you on Robe at a more agreeable level of 5.5 or so. The class V community in Washington is expanding rapidly!

We put on and I was surprised to see that there is a sneak line on RL of T1. The boof at T2 is a must make and the hole at the bottom of Last Sunshine looks like the Boogie Man, Pinhead and whatever demon lived under you bed as a child all rolled into one massive mosnter. The video speaks for itself, it was an amazing day. My only out of boat experience was the portage at Landslide and I got a huge boof off the left side of Off Broadway.

The 6 foot and higher realm is actually a fun place to be... if you're on line.






Robe Canyon - 6.3' from daniel patrinellis on Vimeo.