ORT recently took some off-season fun runs down Breitenbush, the upper North Santiam, and Opal Creek in Oregon’s Willamette Valley. With our GoPro filming and editing skills on the rise, more videos are on the way!

I have driven past the Upper East Fork of the Hood at least a hundred times. On each occassion my first thought was always, “It would be fun to take a raft down that”.  Well darn tootin it sure was!  While many naysayers said it was too low (3.8 feet at Tucker) we headed out anyway and enjoyed a technical class IV run in the sunshine.  We put in just below Sherwood Campground and took out just above the quaint little orchard “town” of Mt. Hood.  Cool little pub there with happy hour every day by the way.  I didn’t partake as my hands were full with the 12 mile bike shuttle back up what was more fun coming down.

 

 

 

Cruisin the last 4 miles

Big ups to Aire for building the Puma, the best raft creeker in the biz, and to Jacob for essentially running solo in a pinny-bangy cascade of goodness.

The Pan American Championships are being held in Foz do Aguassu, Brazil August 20 – 23, 2010! Check out the event website here. The race is on the Itaipu Canal, an awesome WW park. If your organization/team is interested in representing the USRA and USA in these games, please contact the USRA here or the Pan American Championship event organizers.

Do not fail

To learn from

The pure voice of an

Ever-flowing mountain stream

Splashing over the rocks.        - Ueshiba

Our day on the Little North Santiam at 1050 cfs began with the short hike in. A van with racks was unable to provide assistance for “liability reasons” and it would “detract from the wilderness experience”…:)

She waved and encouraged us to have a nice day. We did. Thanks van lady.

A Big Ugly raft run down Big Ugly

Drops of water fall from the sky as if to acknowledge all that is good.

Rivers allow us to escape from certain realities while enabling the replenishment of goodness within. This became most evident at the Taco Bell in Woodburn when we walked into an episode of COPS. Just 30 feet from our rig, 7 law enforcement vehicles had clustered upon a vehicle with their guns drawn and laser sights honed in. No pictures of this episode. We only wished to keep evidence of positive things on this day. Of course a debriefing was held-

Boaters must have interesting weather discussions at work.  While others are complaining about the rain, we simply smile and sneak back into the office to check flows.  Personally I have quit trying to explain the benefits of rain to those who have chosen to reside in a traditionally wet climate. Take your glass that is half full and watch golf on TV in your shelter, were goin boatin!

The Bruno Mountain run of the North Santiam was free of wood and full of big surf.  After completing this jolly session of splashing around, the take-out conversation turned to a nearby run of a treacherous nature. No one had been down the notorious for wood Breitenbush River since this last, or, current high water event much less a solo raft…

It was about 5:30pm when we put in at Cleator Bend with the level at about 1800cfs.  The flows were on the way down as evidenced by the water turning back to blue and no longer being brown as it was when we passed earlier in the day.  I was the only paddler in our R5 who had ever seen this run and that was 4 years ago in a kayak at 300cfs.  One of the benefits of training racing teams is that when you try something like this everyone is strong, dialed in, and will not hesitate when given commands.

Minus the 3 mandatory portages and 2 tight moves to miss wood, the run was Class IV.  However, throw in the unknown status of a twisty, narrow, woody river in addition to the 2 must make small portage eddies and it was game on!  We obviously made it with the only incidents being losing a paddle during the 1st portage (we should have known better!) and me getting blasted out of the boat by what had to be a hole as I’m fairly certain there were no linebackers in the river.  My paddle even stayed in the boat, ever seen those macabre pictures of someone that got hit by a train and their shoes are still on the ground where they were standing?

At any rate, all the major drops were clean “at this time”.  The wood was at the bottom of (3) Class III drops and appeared as though when the level does drop a kayak can likely limbo underneath of them. We don’t care if it is June, rain=water=life.

View the article and ads we’ve been in on our Exposures page here.

Check out action from this years USRA National Cup at the 2010 Upper Clackamas Whitewater Festival outside of Portland, OR on our homepage and on ORTv