White Salmon: Green Truss: another day, another cave rescue

The Green Truss in summer can be a real treat. This weekend, we had sunny weather with temperatures pushing 100 degrees F. You know it's a hot day when you can sit safety in the mist coming off Big Brother in total comfort, wearing shorts and a lightly-insulated drytop. My lines were good this weekend, so I got to be the rescuer in the scenario below.

Steve and I yard Eric out of the cave at the base of Big Brother
(photo by Chris Arnold)

Low water Green Truss

Paul, Allen, and I rallied from Portland to meet Kenny K. at BZ Corners for an afternoon Truss run. We ran into Rachel, Joe, EJ, Kate, James, etc. and got the word that the Truss was holding up relatively well for the low flow, with most of the water coming from the top instead of the aquifers. It's a trippy drainage, the White Salmon.

No swims, and decent lines were had by all. I hadn't been in the Magnum for a few weeks, so it was nice to get my boof on once again. I managed to keep my head dry the whole run, except for a quick roll at the put-in to cool off. Paul had the cleanest line at Big Brother, as Allen and I both utterly crushed our boofs -- straight into the cave. It was nice to get out on the river with Kenny, as he's coming off a long hiatus, and has just moved to White Salmon, so he's been jonesing.

White Salmon: Green Truss: two laps

After breaking camp near the put-in, I headed into town for some breakfast fare. Well-fed and full of hot coffee, I proceeded to BZ Corner to lounge in the sun and wait for boaters to show up. After a nice morning run with Lewis and his roomie Pat (who fired up both Big Brother and BZ for the first time, with good results), I hung out my gear and got back to lazing in the sun.

The PDX crew finally showed up around 3:00, and we got underway.

(More update to come. Here's a couple clips for now. Johnny exhibited his renowned brawniness on Big Brother, and I finally got a decent line on BZ Falls.)


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Green Truss, after work

I haven't been keeping up to date on my blogging, and this entry is a partial one, but I thought I'd post something for whichever of my faithful readers have not already given up hope. I have about 35 incomplete and unpublished entries, many just standard runs and one-paragraph trip reports, but some that will be worth waiting for.

If you'd like a sneak peak at forthcoming video clips, check out my videos on Vimeo.

This entry in particular has some carnage to report, which I will do once the video is uploaded.

Luke, Tony, Ryan, and I headed up to the Green Truss for an after-work run. The recent rain had brought the level back up to just barely above 2.5 feet, by our reckoning. It was a good day.

Here is my ill-fated line on BZ Falls. I started too far left, got too far left, and caught my bow on the raspy rock face, which turned me sideways. I knew I was in for a ride when I landed in a side surf. Enjoy:

Gorge Games on the White Salmon: safety, Truss, and Middle

Arriving at BZ Corner at 8:05 a.m., I found that I was the only safety boater there, so I chatted with Nate, Heather, and Austin for a while until more folks arrived. Our celebrity safety coordinator Sam showed up at 8:35 or so, and we soon had a critical mass of safety boaters, so we made ready to head up. On the way up to the put-in, one of the many unsecured kayaks in the trailer of the shuttle rig blew out and onto the road, bouncing and skidding to a halt. Luckily, it was a rental, demo, or somesuch.

This marked the first time I didn't use a rope to put on the Truss (and my second time ever on the Truss), which was a good experience. Takes more effort per paddler, but is so much more time-efficient. My safety assignment was Big Brother, and I ended up serving as secondary cave roper for the day, behind the big cannon rope-launching machine known as Luke Spencer. Ryan Youngs and Turin were on river left at the top of the falls with me most of the day, along with a videographer for Fox Sports News. Luckily, Garreth had volunteered to be the dope-on-a-rope, so he got to hang out in the shivering mist at the base of the falls all day, and spare us the suffering.

About half the racers went into the cave at the base of the falls, surprisingly, including local favorite Todd Anderson, who showed clear frustration at his less-than-optimal line. Luckily, there were no swimmers out of the cave. In fact, we had only one swimmer all day -- Dr. Greg had the best line of the day on the drop itself, but got worked against the right wall soon after. After a couple of attempts at rolling on either side, he punched. It was then that we realized there was no one in a boat at the bottom of Big Brother, which we rapidly remedied. Fortunately, his gear was gathered at Double Drop, though we really should have had a better plan to begin with, Sam. After the race was done, we packed up and fired up the rest of the run, after helping folks ferry equipment back across the river. It takes balls of steel to kayak a $10,000 video camera across the river without a sprayskirt, I should think.

Luke fired up the center flake and styled it, airing out at an angle and lightly touching down on the downflow on the face of the manky left side of the falls. He pulled his bow up a bit at the last second and greased across the pile, marking the fastest line I saw all day, and plenty of reason for the other racers to be glad he was on safety and not stealing their thunder. For my part, I caught both the flake and the boof stroke, and aired it good into the pile, landing with 10-15 degrees of upward bow angle. It felt really solid, and I think it was an improvement over my first line down this drop last year. The rest of the run was great. Only Johnny Ott had the cajones to fire up BZ Falls on this day, and he had to fight the tractor beam on the left for a bit before it mercifully let him go.

After we took out at BZ, we enjoyed watching the boatercross competition. Gorge Games staff stopped people from walking down the the shore to spectate after some arbitrary number had already gone down, so it was none too crowded. I only wish that dog would not have licked the scab on my leg quite so much. Here's a brief clip of Tao winning one of his heats:



After the boatercross, as the awards ceremony was starting, I got propositioned for a quick run down the middle section (BZ to Husum), and happily accepted, as they needed another safety boater for the crew. The six (?) of us had an uneventful run, with just one brief and painless swim. Luckily, Miss Adams had been saying at last week's Carnage Run that she was fully qualified to drink booty beers, having solidified her combat roll. I was happy to hold her to it:



She did us proud. If you're wondering -- yes, the booty beer is one of my favorite traditions in kayaking.

I ended up camping out up at Trout Lake with a bunch of PDX Kayakers and new friends, shutting down the campfire with Drs. Dey and Boyok. It was a good day.

You can read Luke's Gorge Games reports here and here.

White Salmon: the Farmlands

Hit the Farmlands at just below 4ft on the Husum gauge with Tony Bizone, Joe Stumpfel, and Allen Satcher. This was my first time down, but I can see why they say this is the perfect level for the Farmlands.

Sidewinder is the first big drop on this section:



After some generic Class III-IV rapids, paddlers come to Lava Falls:



Joe Stumpfel making Lava Falls pay (he was a hair right of where he wanted to be, forward to 0:48 for the action, I was too lazy to edit):



Tony Bizone killing it on Lava Falls (he was two hairs left of where he wanted to be):


Off Ramp is the last of the major drops on this section:



I boated well this day, with a flip and snap roll near the undercut on Sidewinder being the lowlight. The more I boat the Riot Magnum 80, the more I like it.

higher-resolution Truss video

I've uploaded my Green Truss videos to Vimeo, which means they're much higher quality.

better footage from sunday's truss run

Erik Weiseth was kind enough to bring CDs to Pint Night with high-resolution video of the Truss from weekend before last. I uploaded them to Google video, before I saw how much better they look on Vimeo:

me on Big Brother (the goods start at 00:24, when I leave the eddy):


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me on Double Drop (should have paddled forward right instead of back left after the first drop):


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with no further ado...

Well...it's been 7.5 months, 125 river days, and a no-portage personal first descent of the Green Truss since I started kayaking, and I have finally created a paddling journal (this blog). Here's video of that Truss run, with me (red boat, blue top, black helmet) appearing at 0:17 and 2:07:


I'll be trying to document my exploits here for the benefit of friends, family, and my ego. ;)