Silver Falls Huck and Tuck with J. Bisson

Silver Falls – Ohanepecosh River, WA

Matt Kurle and I were still stretching and cooling off with a couple of cold beers when Jeremy Bisson decided to drive up with his crew to nearby Silver Falls.

After a fun quick lap on the main section of the Ohane, I thought our day was over and we were resigned to another 3 hour car ride back to Seattle. Jeremy put a stop to that nonsense.

A quick drive from the Secret camp, at the put in to the Ohanepecosh river, and you’re inside the Rainier National Park boundaries and looking for a small trail sign on the North side of the highway. As Matt and I pull up, the boys are already there, whipping eachother into a frenzy over who is gonna carry Jeremy’s boat back up the trail if he doesn’t run the falls.

I had spoken with Jeremy earlier in the day about the water fall and his thoughts on whether or not this idea would fall into the good or bad category. Jeremy was of the opinion that it was a decent idea as he judged flows would allow him to hit his line easier than a more padded out level. I thought it a marginal idea, at best.

The trail down to the river is short and beautiful. You are immediately reminded that you are in the middle of a pristine Washington forest: the trail winds through dense Douglas firs, red cedars, and Western hemlock. The undergrowth of moss, maidenhair ferns, and Oregon grapes is so thick you can barely see the ground outside of the immediate trail.

You come around one more corner and BAM! Silver Falls

While Jeremy walked up to the top slide to scout the drop, we all kind of spread out. Connor and Robby walked up to the lip of the falls. Matt, Garrett and I started taking pictures of the scenery and exchanging raised eyebrows.

After a bit it was just Jeremy and I and the short conversation went something like this…:

Jeremy: I can see my line, just gotta stay left of that ledge.

Me: Can you make it? Can you hit it?

Jeremy: Yeah, I can. I can make it, I just don’t want to miss it. I don’t want to go right at the lip.

Me: What about the slide above the falls?

Jeremy: That’s good to go, Im not worried about that.

Me: You gonna run it?

Jeremy: I was, until you talked to me. Now I don’t think so.

Me: Oh… Sorry man.

Jeremy: F*$k it, I’m gonna get my boat.

Me: Wait... What?

Jeremy walked back over to the trail above the run out and started gearing up while we had a quick safety talk. We would have two people with lifejackets and throw bags down on a rock in the pool immediately below the falls. And, like any dangerous endeavour, we would have three cameras to catch the action. Matt decided he was going to shoot video so I opted for photos.

The sight of Jeremy shouldering his boat up the side of the river to the top of the falls was impressive to say the least. My stomach was in knots and I was wearing shorts and a ball cap, not a sprayskirt and helmet. I cannot imagine what kind of internal monologue was going on during that hike.

Silver Falls is every bit of 40ish feet. The truly terrifying part is the lead in. A 30(ish) foot cascading slide drops into a river-wide hole and then rolls over another 50 or so feet of steep slide before the lip of the falls proper. The drop is anything but straightforward. The tongue has two cross currents at the lip. One hard one coming in from river right and another softer one coming in from river left. Jermey wanted to be on river left with a little bit of right angle.

Jeremy smashed it though, hit his line and connected with the pool in good form.

He was ejected from his boat on impact and watching his empty boat launch from the pile back upstream a good 20 yards was something I had not thought I would ever see.

Good lines, good times. 

Video & Trip Report: Elkhorn Canyon on the Dosewallips

Do you like to hike?

Do you like to carry heavy stuff?

Do you like to hike and carry heavy stuff at the same time? Then this run is for you!

Elkhorn doesn't have a lot of beta out there on it, and for good reason; no one runs it aside from a few locals.

Elkhorn Canyon is a steep burly little section of the Dosewallips River in Washington state. True to form, Elkhorn carries characteristics of its Olympic Peninsula brethren. It's hard to get into, remote, steep and scary with a healthy sprinkling of wood.

I first ran Elkhorn in January of 2010, when I was still earning my creeking wings. Darren Albright called me up and asked me if I had ever heard of the run. As I didn't own a Korb book (the peninsula's whitewater bible) I didn't know what I had in store for myself.

When Darren called this time I couldn't actually recall the majority of the run. I think I had suppressed the pain way too deep to recall without the aid of a therapist.

I was actually able to get into the canyon on back to back days, Saturday and Sunday. Somehow we had great levels and SUNSHINE both days. This is like winning the lottery in WA...

Saturdays flows were in the low 600's and Sundays flows were in the mid 600's. Saturday Darren Albright was able to make it out after pulling a 24 hour shift at work. Huge props. Sunday I was to show two first timers down the run, Shane Robinson and Matt Kurle, until Matt left one crucial piece of gear behind and had to sit the run out.

After looking at pictures and some of the video available online, it's not readily apparent why the run isn't a classic for us OP'ers. Well, its the pain involved. A flood in the early 90's washed out the road to the campground just below the putin. Prior to this flood you could conceivably drive to within a mile or so of the waterfall that marks the beginning of the run. Now, a five-ish mile hike is required to get at those sweet, sweet goods.

The hike isn't bad. Its over a very well maintained forest service road that gets used quite a bit by hikers of all calibers.

The run starts off with a bang; putting in within sight of an "unrunnable" waterfall and no way to see whats around the corner. You pray for no wood as you peel out and into the neon blue water.

A couple miles downstream you come out of the canyon and the tightness in your chest starts to lighten up.

Enjoy:


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Chelanigans time...

The Chelan Gorge: a 4 mile stretch of whitewater dropping 400 feet of elevation in the last 1.5 miles...



The Chelan Gorge was first run by kayakers back in the year 2000. Six kayakers got exclusive rights to the Gorge for 3 days in July. They were tasked with showing that the riverbed was navigable by modern recreational water craft.

This was only allowed because it was part of a larger hydropower relicensing process that American Whitewater negotiated with the Chelan PUD.

A group of paddlers have been going into the gorge for the last 3 years to complete a flow study, proving to the public and the governing body in Chelan, that the Gorge is a viable boating option and should be available to the boating community at large.

Fast forward a decade from that first descent and Tom O'Keefe, with American Whitewater, have fought for and won our right to get recreational flows for one weekend a year in September. This year (2012) will be the landmark year.

The Chelan PUD will be releasing water into the Chelan Gorge again this weekend, September 15^th and 16th. There is a scheduled release of 375cfs on Saturday and 400cfs on Sunday, with 400cfs getting juicy!  We will only get one weekend this year, unfortunately, so we need to make it count.




This year is a little different from the previous three years of the flow study; there is no minimum boater criteria. That being said, I do not think they will let in a solo boater, for safety reasons.

They have also slacked on the "no rubber" rule this year. We have three raft teams signed up so far so this coming weekend will see the first ever raft descents of the Chelan Gorge.
While we are out of the forest with the whole flow study process, we are still not out of the trees; the Chelan PUD will still have a tight hold on the weekends activities, but not in a negative way. Prospective boaters still need to be signed up, online, by Friday at 5pm.


Link: http://www.chelanpud.org/7077.html

Here’s a couple videos and a picture dump to raise the stoke.

Hope to see a good crowd this year!

Chelanigans Video from Matt Kurle:


Chelan Carnage Fest from Chris Totten:



My  version of the events:



Pic dump:




And to finish it off; Matt Kurle destroying Super Boof:
So come out and enjoy the gorgeous weather, Senior Frogs, and epic carnage that always takes place!

Hope to see you there.