Snow Gnomes - Robe in January

Yup, more Robe pictures.

A group of us made it into Robe when all else was too low. Snow on the ground, Ice in the trees and bright blue sky made for a memorable day on the water.

We used an alternate putin:



The forest on the trek down to the river was gorgeous.

Signs of man.

The boys breaking the frost off of their sprayskirts

Theres quite a few small hot springs in the area, none are large enough for full immersion though.

Sean Lee in T1.

Garbage.

Brett Barton in Garbage rapid.

Christian knight in Garbage rapid.

Icicles at Catcher's Mitt.

Good day on the water.

Stay Stoked, Stay Safe.

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.