Fall Boating in Washington

In mid August, after an awesome summer in Colorado, I headed back out to the Northwest and to school. On my way I stopped in Hood River and camped out there/loitered at the Truss take-out for a week. I happened to meet up with Jay Gifford and the brothas Wells, Todd and Brendan, who showed me the sickest lines down their backyard run.

After a week in HR I linked up with a group of boaters and headed to the beautiful Ohanepecosh. The Ohane comes off of Mt. Rainier and offers some fun creeking and excellent camping at the edge of Mt. Rainier National Park.

Here are some pictures courtesy of Matt Kurle:

After a couple days on the Ohane, we headed to Lower Lewis Falls. Lower Lewis is a sweet 40 footer that stays in through late summer.

Photo by Brett Barton

A sick photographer from Portland named Isaac Koval came along and shot some super rad pictures as well. Check em out

Sick shot Isaac took from the overlook

Base of the falls. Photo: Isaac Koval

After Lower Lewis we headed to the Upper Upper Cispus. UU Cispus is a cool run with several waterfalls on it, the biggest being Behemoth. Behemoth is a sliding 20-30 footer that lands in a boily pool before exiting in a pretty stout hole. We had a pretty scary/eye-opening situation happen on this day. One of the crew came off of the drop crooked and went into a nasty cave behind the falls. We had to vertically extract him out of the cave and up a sizable cliff face. I did not have a pin kit on me that day, but fortunately several others did. This served as a reminder of how important it is to practice rescue scenarios such as this so that you can react quickly and efficiently if and when the situation actually presents itself. And to never forget my kit again.

Fall boating in the Northwest has been really good and is just going to get better as the rainy season approaches. I have been paddling on Robe and the Middle Fork of the Nooksack several times this fall and I am excited to get on some new runs once the rain picks up.

Stay tuned for a BC update and the sickness that lays within the Ashlu river valley.