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.
