This spring has been a cold/rainy/snowy one for us all up here in the PNW. It never really warmed up until about a week ago, but that isn’t to say that the rivers havent been running. Luckily the rain has kept flows up pretty well, and finally we are getting some snowmelt. The PNW never has disappointed me.. there is something about this climate and the rivers around here that allows for something really good to be in… pretty much all the time. If it isn’t local, then its usually only a couple hours away and is probably incredibly high quality. This spring has re-affirmed my thinking that the PNW is easily one of the best places to live as a kayaker. Even during school there is usually class4-5 that is running and possible to rally after classes are
done for the day.
A good crew before a fun couple games of bowling.
Early spring is all about runs like Robe Canyon. With so many good class 4/5 rapids in a bigger volume feel, this river is up there with the best. The Robe Canyon race was a great time and Robe offered some awesome early season entertainment.
Jure Poberaj and myself took 6th, While Tao claimed the title.
Finally my classes ended for the summer, and I couldn’t have been more stoked to get some kayaking in. So stoked we motivated to paddle a small rapid right in downtown bham on Whatcom Creek.
Luckily, Bellingham has some incredibly good whitewater just outside of town. The Middle Fork of the Nooksack offers an amazing class 5 run with great boulder garden rapids, then continuing into a beautiful gorge and some great bedrock drops. It is probably one of my top 5 favorite rivers in the world.
Dropping into the first big rapid of the gorge “leap of faith”
Looking back up the rapid.
I then spent a weekend with the local bham crew. Ryan Bradley clued me in to a waterfall (35ft or so) about 2 hours from bham that nobody had run. Leif Embertson, Ryan and myself headed up there and found it to be at perfect flows. Kindey Creek is a small trib to Cascade creek(more of a river actually), and is located up the Skagit river drainage.
The falls! BROWTOWN!
Coming into the lip…. treats time. I went first, and good buddy Leif followed right behind with a sick De-la style boof-stomp.
Leif laying some mad treats… Kindey Creek style.
As spring continued, I made a short trip down to Hood River area to race on the little white and hopefully run a stout on my birthday(june 5th). Yup 22 years old now. I met Up with Evan Garcia, Todd Wells, Sam Friehofer, Erick Johns, Olin and kiwi Ryan Lucas for some good times. Evan and I raced together on the LW race… unfortunately the last couple weeks of school diminished my fitness level and as Evan pulled away from me in the front, i fell behind wheezing and coughing. Any day on the little white is a great day however.
LW race… coming hot into boulder sluice.
Evan in front going quite a bit faster than myself after claiming two titles at the gran prix! He’s killing it.
Sam Freihofer gettin steezy on boulder slucie!
Todd Wells showing that the LW is his home river and he isn’t afraid to throw some downriver freestyle in there.
Evan doing what he does best…. true treat layin on spirit.
After a fun day on the LW, we proceeded to have a fun little gathering at the beaver lodge. We woke up only slightly hungover on my birthday, and got motivated to go fire off a stout. We drove up to the Lewis river, with one thing on our minds, the Upper Lewis Falls. This thing is a stout 25 footer into about 20… with a tricky scrapy lead-in. Evan and Todd ran it and styled it, followed by Erik, then myself and Ryan and Sam. We all had good lines and it couldnt have been a better birthday present to be stoked at the bottom of a super fun drop with all my friends. Pura vida.
Layin treats on the perfect juicy 15 footer above the drop. this was a super fun little waterfall.
Myself boofing the top drop big! I landed so hard my skirt exploded, and i ended up running the next 20ftr with no sprayskirt. Luckily i was able to hang on and didnt fill up too much.
Flying off the top drop…. weeee! if you look closely you can see Todd and Erik down in the pool below.
Here is a short teaser from the day.
After a great birthday I headed back up to bellingham to find that one of the local creeks was in at a good flow. Clearwater creek is a tributary to the Middle Fork Nooksack and offers some really fun sandstone bedrock boofs.
Any rapid named “boofs per minute” is fine in my book. Here is a short video of Clearwater, or as we call it… C-DUB.
Then I went to scout a drop that has been on my mind for sometime… Racehorse Creek Falls. After being first D’d by Erik Boomer a couple of years ago, i figured it was time that we went and checked it out. I scouted it, and found it to be at perfect flows. I sent Evan a picture and they flipped a U-turn on their way to MT, and made their way up to Bham once again!
Ryan and Evan ended up being the ones with the balls to step up to this drop, and trust me… its really stout.
Evan on the top drop, a sweet sliding thing to a good 25 or so footer. Treats! Evan went first on the big one, a crazy 15-20ft drop onto a slide that ends in a tiny pool. He had a good line turning sideways at the end and “hockey stopping”
Ryan went next, and immediately convinced me that I wasn’t going to run it. He entered only about 6 inches to a foot to the right of where Evan went, and lets just say it didn’t end right.
Ryan rag-dolling down this slide. It will be a great carnage of the year shot indeed. Luckily he was fine and we went back to Bham to celebrate everyone being ok.
A photo by local Photographer Rhys Logan
The next day after a fun-filled night we headed to the best that Bellingham has to offer…. The middle fork at a perfect flow. Below is a clip that Evan Garcia put together from the voyage.
As a matter of fact, the MF is running right now and I must go get my boof on. Signing off here, until next time-
Fred
