The Chelan Gorge is Neat-O

I learned to boat in Colorado, and spent the majority of my first decade kayaking in there, so that's my main point of reference in this activity we call "kyaking" [sic]. That's also where I met Todd. We often reminisce about, and occasionally poke fun at the Colorado boating scene - perhaps even on this blog from time to time. Recently, the PacNW's latest Colorado transplant chimed in on the comparisons of the two regions with this post. It got Todd and I talking about Colorado boating again on our latest trip over to the East side of the Cascades, which happens to be very Colo-esque in climate. One conclusion we settled on was that, by comparison, photography is extra challenging over here in the deep, dark, well-forested runs of Western WA. Such would not be the case last weekend, however, as the Chelan Gorge has nary a tree nor a shrub in its bedrock crack, and nothing but crystal clear blue skies above. It also possesses plenty-o-sol allowing - practically requiring - shorties to replace the standard issue drysuit.

Prior to last weekend the Chelan gorge had only been run on one other occasion - during a flow study almost ten years ago as part of its Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) re-licensing process. Yet, this may be one of the most well documented rivers in the nation. This stretch is now in a three year review process with many stakeholder groups evaluating our actions on and off the river, which means even more documentation (such as here and here). And now, I guess, adding my own two centavos, and Todd's photos, makes it that much more documented. Hopefully all this will help future boaters determine if this is a run they are interested in and qualified for, as safety is the number one concern for boating this run, but it would also be good to show as much interest as possible over the course of these next three years.

A final note on the nature of this run during the review process. The agencies involved in these releases have been particularly concerned about liability issues surrounding our recreational activities. Participants must register on the Chelan PUD site, sign waivers, and check-in the day of boating. Realize that this is one of the more difficult sections of water to boat on FERC releases, and it is located in an area with no other class V boating options, so the community is not accustomed to the likes of us waterfall-loving types. However, you wouldn't know this by the welcome you will receive. The waitress at the Apple Cup Cafe asked about our adventure, a crowd of thirty or more spectators gathered on the bridge spanning the canyon, and the PUD folks were very excited to facilitate the process, working over the weekend and even baking us brownies. So, play by the rules, be patient with the paperwork, and come out to support this decade-long effort by AW!

I don't have a ton to add to the previously mentioned commentary. The run is fun. It's probably not destined for the fame of Tatlow or the fanfare of Robe canyon, but it is a truly unique gorge with amazingly beautiful water ... and did I mention that its hot and sunny over there. Time for the photos! (all photos by Todd Gillman)






Sequence of Bellingham-by-way-of-CO resident Leif Embertson in the 3-part first rapid.




Jonathan Ehlinger in the middle of the entrance rapid.


Tretwold




The bottom of the first rapid is formed by a tight constriction with plenty of funny water in front of it. The hole, at 350 cfs, is small in size, but curiously strong .. and difficult to hit with the proper combination of speed and angle, which produced some interesting results. Above is Scherdle on the approach.


There was one really nice cross-current boof..


... and a drop that was eerily similar to Monkey Cage on the Top Tye...


Chris on the Monkey Cage doppelganger.


The water spilling off the top of Lake Chelan was around 60 degrees, which, with the 95-degree air temp, was almost too warm. In fact, the excessive heat at one point had me feeling lethargic and lazy. On a day like we had you could easily get away with paddling in just a PFD.






The Chelan's stunning color and clarity is something more commonly associated with "butt-ass-cold," not "my-skin-is-melting-off-hot."




Directly below the Monkey Cage look-a-like rapid, there's a not-so-bueno big rapid that leads into a portage around a sieve. I think everyone portages both rapids all the time.


Some locals told us of the old days, before the dam, when as kids they'd hike into the gorge and play in the swimming holes. A member of our group discovered at least one "swimming hole" designed, it seems, just for kayakers.


The Chelan Gorge with water in it is indeed a "Chelan Beauty", but be advised if you're contemplating a long drive to take advantage of one of the scheduled releases: the run is short, like only 5 rapids short; there's a bit of mank to contend with on the way into the gorge; and there are 2 advised portages, one of which takes some time to move a group through. None of this is meant to dissuade anybody, just being clear about it.

On Relevance, Style, Semantics & Carnage-Filled Attempts

I like when friends come to visit me here in Seattle. Whether it's for a specific purpose like kayaking or surfing or snowboarding -- or for no real purpose at all -- I can almost always find us something fun &/or troublesome to get into. And with the always entertaining cast of characters I run with, I can usually guarantee that my boring demeanor will be more than made up for by the likes of people like "Utah", "Shrtl", & "B-Rock".

Such was to be the case last week when my pal Evan, from the dry, brown, state of Colorado, came out to immerse himself in the essence of life, which flows in such abundance here in the Promised Land. From the git-go, the plan was focused on our annual Spring pilgrimage to that great Island of Fantasy to our north, which has provided reliable adventure, discovery, & story fodder in years past .. so it seemed a logical destination for early May, but with the caveat that the ever-wonky NW weather would almost certainly keep us on our toes up til the very last second. Heading over to the Island can be a bit of a financial investment & time-suck, so best we make certain them rivers is full before committing. And besides, mainland options would abound, so at least Evan was assured some good BC kayaking no matter what. From the git-go this was the plan, & a team of 8 was on board.

As luck would have it, neither rain nor sunshiny heat would hit the Island in time to justify our intended departure .. so the Mainland would have to suffice in the meantime. We could always just blast over to the Island for a quickie if flows cooperated.

Our 5-day trip began as a leisurely afternoon on the local favorite Robe Canyon. Prior to our trip, I'd only been kayaking like 3 times since Fall, so Robe's a good way to clean out the cobwebs & great introduction for our desert-livin', low-water mank-lovin' friend to the watery ways of the NW. From there we'd blast north to B'ham to drop off the Corey-dog at the dogsitters. It was there that we learned from our non-kayaking dogsitter friend that our trip -- before it had even begun -- was already being called a skunk fest. I was kind of shocked at her ability to see so clearly into the future & so I asked her if I would ever make enough money to buy a nice 3 BR craftsman in Seattle. Turns out, she didn't have the clairvoyance superpower, just a direct line of communication to one of the naysayers who had apparently decided early on along with 2 others to opt out of the plans.

No matter. In reality the exclusion of those guys almost certainly simplified things in a lot of ways. Coming to consensus on anything amongst the existing group of 5 was difficult enough without the addition of 3 more equally opinionated dudes:

"Where are we going today?"

"I dunno, I'll do whatever, as long as it's not this or that .."

"Can we stop & get some coffee?"

"No, seriously, it's almost noon, where are we going today?"

"I dunno. What's even running anyway? Maybe we should go into town & get online & look at the levels.."

"And get coffee!"

So at this point, the crew would be set at Schertzl, Tretwold, Evan & me .. & so onward we pushed, headed for Bryan & Lise-Anne's place in Squamish, with the promise of sunny skies & boring Elaho/Ashlu stuff in the a.m.


Just for fun, here's Sherdle cozying up with the unpredictable Stein Weasel

Just before our trip, I picked up a copy of the recent "whitewater issue" of Canoe & Kayak magazine, & was pleasantly surprised to find that The Range Life was mentioned by writer Joe Carberry in a list of "best whitewater blogs". Since TRL’s inception, we've invested lots of time & energy into building this site. But obviously, in the last year our bloggage has been a lot less prolific. One reason for that is cuz I work full time. Another reason is because we are, collectively, kayaking less; there's a lot of other fun/exciting/adventurous stuff to do other than just kayaking. And yet another reason is that the proliferation of kayaking blogs has kind of turned me off to polluting the airwaves with more of my own mediocre drivel.

Seems the only way to get a leg up in the blogosphere these days is to either point it off a really tall waterfall (preferably with a minimum of 3 Hood River photogs/filmers/bloggers on hand to document it), or more importantly, by loudly proclaiming how "sick", "hella big", "extreme", "dope", "next level" "gnar", "core", etc you & your friends are when you “give ‘er” & “fire that shit” & "get it done".

For every decent, humility-infused story that Darrin or Kirk posts, there’s like 25 other chest-poundin’, fist-pumpin’, “next level” bloggers cloggin’ up the Intertubes like cholesterol. That TRL is even considered relevant in this environment is very flattering, but definitely a little puzzling -- not only have we not been posting regularly, we haven't kept up with conventional WW blogging techniques.

And apparently we created an unintended outcome: Joe’s comment about our “carnage-filled first-descent attempts” gave us some laughs. And a little bout of indignance, like, "Dang! Really?? People read us for the carnage? What carnage??" Hmmm... first off, our trips are rarely carn-fests. No, really, they're not. Seriously, guys, they're not, I swear. Stop laughing.

Also because we rarely label our exploratory missions as "first descents", so how would you even know we're doing 1D attempts when we carn out? How did this happen in spite of all my efforts to the contrary? Shit.

Anyway, getting back to the point .. driving up to Squampton with the crew, comments about our impending "carnage-filled thousandth-descent attempts" were being tossed around liberally. As well as comments about carnage-filled "most-complete descents", "most-successful descents", "first complete-descents", "possible first-descents", "highest-water descents" & "second-descents".

You've spotted this trend, right?

If you're a sponsored kayaker, or even one of the top pros, it's not enough to go explore a river & document it for public consumption; you apparently must brand the experience so the reader makes no mistake as to exactly how "hella sick" you are & how important your kayaking trip will be to the future generations of kayakers. Sometimes it's also important to point out that you're just doing it for the love of the sport & that you're just trying to "progress" the sport. A "second-descent" of any river or big drop, while not as earth shatteringly “killin’ it” as a 1D, apparently serves to bolster the credibility of what would otherwise be a totally pointless day of kayaking .. so you gotta claim that shit! Claiming "highest-water descent" will surely earn you a spot on the Badass List, when you run something that has been paddled more than once or twice before. I was impressed recently to learn about the "most complete-descent to date" of an exotic river .. which is just like saying, "We weren't the first to try this run & we didn't run everything, but we're pretty sure we ran more drops than those last guys who tried it, so, clearly, we're more awesome."

Publicly qualifying your carnage-filled attempt of a river in any of the ways described above (& if you could invite a minimum of 3 Hood River photogs/filmers/bloggers, that would work best) will ensure that your trip to Tibet or Sumatra or Bolivia or Yakima is justified in the eyes of your sponsors, ingrained in the collective conscience, and that you are legendary on the World Wide Web. Just lay down some hella tight beatz on yo film footy & you got a next level trailer to drop on all those headz in the forumz.


“Good morning, Viet-Squam!” Irony is when the UV-addicted Rocky Mountain kayaker comes to the PNW looking for “hella sick” rain-fed rivers & all he gets is dry & sunny, just like back home ..

But that ain’t so bad, really .. is it?

Shrtl ain’t skeert.


Is this “the brown”?? I dunno. And where the hell is Mt. Zion, anyway?



Tret getting squirrelly on Fear


Evan splatty in the funny water


Shrtl lookin’ good in the run-out after stompin’ out the portage. Quote of the day: “My lady loves it when I style the portage line on the big drops!”


Chris in the pinch


Evan, with what we think might be Mt. Zion in the background .. For all you Ras Trent’s out there, stay true to the path ..




Pretty nice little afternoon we had .. but we weren’t done yet. Bryan was doing some carpentry work out the Squamish valley & wanted to meet us for an evening blazer down the Ashlu Box. We got to the bridge & the level looked good enough. I mean, we were hoping for “highest-water descent” material, but that wasn’t the case, it was just a boring old “medium-perfect”. We’d have to go for some other monumental distinction on this run.

Turns out, we nailed it! I successfully logged my “most incomplete-descent” of the Commitment Canyon of the Ashlu when, after blowing it at Kernage, I ended up in a hungry hole & became permanently separated from my vessel. Complacency is a crime. ”Running the brine”, it turns out, is not. The upper canyon of the Box is not an easy solo egress. I made it up a little crack in the wall a couple hundred feet to a ledge where my hopes of “walking” out would be dashed. I’d have to hunker down & wait for my pals to return on foot, with ropes. I ended up ascending the last little bit of slimy vertical wall with the aid of a pair of Tiblocs.

So there’s the “carnage-filled” epic our loyal readers have come to expect from us! Now where’s my effin’ boat? Count that as my first-ever real sacrifice to the river in many years of whitewater paddleboating, cuz that Everest was never seen again. And I hate littering.

Next day was more Ashlu Box. Here are some “hella sick” angles.. these angles are definitely “next level shit” only available to the hardcore pro photog on foot who isn’t encumbered by a heavy plastic boat.


Kato


Tretwold finishing up Triple Drop


Dang! This angle on Kernage definitely illustrates how a fella might free himself inadvertently from his vessel, right? Is it “the brown”?? I think it could be ..


Man Chris, this is some "extreme brine"


Evan Dotcom, guide book author, “fired that shit” whether it was “the brown” or "the brine" or not.


So did Schartel.

First drop of Twin 10’s as illustrated in-sequence by several different paddlers.






Looking up the lower canyon at what could be Mt. Zion in the background


Interestingly, Shertyl logged his own “most complete descent” of the Box just a day after I logged my “most INcomplete descent”.




Last thing on the Box..

*********************************
Oh man oh man! I was really hoping to get to say “huck” a whole bunch! That’s another one that’s a guaranteed winner for bloggers. I’m in luck with huck, cuz we spent an afternoon conducting a “huckfest” at Britannia.


Huck!


Huck!!


Huck!!! Even though I love this shot, this is actually kind of embarrassing. Media Frenzies ‘R Us! This isn’t even kayaking. Next time, let’s go kayaking eh?

Bonus: Furry goes un-hucked

Try as I might, couldn’t convince anyone to "give 'er" or "fire that shit". Guess it was too “brown” to huck.

******************************

The last day of Evan’s little vacay would be a bit more exploratory. I think we can safely call this one a “possible 5th descent” of Ruby Creek, which is pretty rad because the “possible” implies that we could actually be farther up the chain than #5. Maybe we were #3, which is only one slot down from the coveted “second-descent”. And since no one really knows much about this creek, I might as well go ahead & claim the “possible 2nd descent” & throw that out to the forums, cuz no one will argue. Booya!


Shrtl.


Ev


Tret

We knew there would be a nice waterfall series in here. It was kind of hard to scout from above, but what we could see looked pretty great. I volunteered to go first, mainly cuz I wanted to take photos from downstream, but also cuz I hate dilly-dallyin’ above big rapids & I wanted to just get it over with. I got pretty nervous while I was trying to scout, but that’s exactly when I realized that someone had just survived a 186-foot waterfall & that it was totally ridiculous for me to kook-out about a 30-footer. Seriously, think about that the next time you’re in your boat above that 15-footer that’s giving you the willies – 186 feet. Thanks for that Tyler.




Ev in sequence.


Shrtl.


Chris

After this thing, we had to portage a ginormous cascading mess. Chris was expedient in setting up the rappel. I went down first & received 3 out of 4 boats before requesting another man. Again, I wanted to take pics. The next hour was spent getting hypothermic in the mist zone while god knows what was taking so much time up on top of that cliff. I never got the real story on what the hold-up was, but I have a suspicion it might have been the result of a fierce Stein Weasel attack, but maybe we’ll just never know..




Evan finishing the rappel


View of zone from downstream


You can barely make out Chris rapping down in the upper-left of the shot


Nice little thing to exit the waterfall series.

***********************************

So that was pretty much our skunk-fest of a weekend.

One week later, *everything* is running at primo levels, it's sunny & warm ... but all I can think about is going surfing. Why is that? Maybe that's what is causing my blogger-relevance-insecurity complex, Joe Carberry. The swell sucked this weekend so i should've gone boating with my friends .. but I ended up riding my bike a lot, eating too much food, & drinking too much beer. I think I can honestly claim a "most successful run to date" of the Ballard Farmer's Market today. Seriously, when you factor in the out-of-season organic beets I magically scored, & that I sat next to & ate pizza with that hot, tattooed, Uma Thurman lookalike girl that I see around sometimes, man, it was a pretty successful & relatively carnage-free attempt. And to you folks who doubt the intensity level or "brown-ness" of it, try riding fixed, fast & brakeless through the hordes of Fremont gapers on a sunny Farmers Market day, with a bag full of fresh organic produce & farm-fresh cheese, & a beer in hand. Hey, move it, man! There's a beverage here!

So sick.

PSA: Robe Race Details

Happy Spring everyone. We're targeting Saturday May 16 for the 2nd (possibly) Annual Robe Canyon Downriver Race.

Here are some relevant details:

* Teams of two

* Staggered start above Tunnel; finish at the beach below "Conversation"; +/- 5 mi.

* "Landslide" = mandatory portage

* Actual race date may be pushed out at 11th-hour due to flow considerations. Range = 4.9 - 6.5'ish (or however high racers are willing to go).

* This is an unsponsored, grassroots, non-event

* 1st Place team gets to take home the sweet winners' robes; Last Place team gets to take home & take care of The Robe Gnome for the next year

Interested in racing? Cool, please register your team asap by posting a comment below or emailing me your team members names & email addresses.

Interested in volunteering? Excellent, we need finish line timekeepers, shore support, & a couple safety kayakers.

Last year's race day was muy divertido! Here are a couple links to stories & lots of pics from last year:
Our own;
Owen's
EJ's

Also .. huge appreciation to my brother Tim for providing the artwork for the race announcement. This piece will also be embroidered on the backs of the winners' robes.

Feel free to post/email any questions, comments or shit-talking.

Updater Jan. '09 | Happy New Year/Era

We're already a couple weeks into the new year, but tonight it really feels like we're on the eve of a new era. And that feels good.

Know what else feels good? Squeezing every last bit of fun out of a weekend. This past weekend's a great example. All last week, a beautiful head-high swell taunted any worker bee who dared peek at the charts or webcams. At the same time, Seattle's best local class V run had leveled off & stalled at perfect flows, after a very major flood event. By Thursday night, the weekend forecasts for both options looked to be holding somewhere in the realm of "super awesome". Plans were made. And then executed. Those who participated were rewarded with juicy overhead swell at Westport on Saturday .. & juicy extra-medium flow on The Robe on Sunday.


Lots of "stars" on the swell forecast!


Holdin' steady in the High 5's!

That was, as Schertzl says, a "proper weekend".

Okay, since we don't really blog all that much any more, there's a backlog of stuff to post .. so here's an Updater .. let's roll.

I. Robe Race 2009

II. Photo Dump
a. Ashlu kayaking
b. random stuff

********************

I. Robe Race 2009

Wayrad MacGnarly at Lil' Miss Sunshine 2009 v.1
Photo: Leif Embertson

The Robe Race Committee gathered yesterday to inspect the changes to the course, as put forth by Ma Nature in early January '09, and after not much deliberation, voted unanimously in favor of going forward with the planning of Robe Race 2009.

Notable changes to the race course include the following:

1. The house-sized rock just upstream of the lead-in to Little Miss Sunshine (the one in the center of the river in the flatwater adjacent to the river-left staging eddy; the one we would eddy out behind before running the "center boof" line) has been pushed or rolled about 15 feet downstream, right to the lip of the ledge. The river-left slide-to-kicker thing is still good to go & may have even cleaned up a bit. The center boof is still there, but there's currently wood in the channel making it not that appealing. There may be a far-right line available if you like dealing with junk in your face.

2. Over the last 4 years, Garbage had gone from bad to awesome to okay to bad to worse .. & now back to AWESOME. There is now a ridiculously lofty, clean ledge boof on the right. 8 feet if it's an inch. Best boof on the run? Perhaps ..

3. The river-left eddy water between the 2 ledges of 20-foot Waterfall now bleeds quickly downstream into the ugly pile of rocks on the left. Best to nail the top boof & then move quickly to the center line on the 2nd ledge.

4. Off Broadway has had a similar recent history as Garbage, & same as that rapid, it is now much better than recent manky versions. The first ledge has lost a lot of its gradient during '08 high water events, but it's now pretty much wide open from far left (great 4-foot slot boof) to far right (water boof or tongue option). The unstable second part of the rapid has changed again, and for the better -- there is now a superhighway-to-kicker-boof that, if you nail it right off the peak, sends you flying at high speed beyond the hole at the bottom. So good..

Other than that, most all major rapids are more or less the same. Lots of subtle & not-so-subtle changes to the 'tweener rapids .. holes or rocks that used to exist have disappeared, old fast lines are now squirly eddy water .. The deck has been reshuffled & everyone will have to relearn the canyon to be competitive this year.

Also, one last point .. we will pick a tentative date for the race based on snowpack & flow forecasts in the coming months .. hopefully in April again. And if on that date it turns out that we have 6 ft. on the gauge, the race is ON. So get comfy in the canyon & get out there when it's extra-medium, cuz it's extra-fun.

********************

II/a. Ashlu Kayaking Photos | Fall '08

Mine Run
Photo: Todd Gillman




Chris Tretwold
Photos: TG


B. Smith
Photo: TG


Portage on the Mine
Photo: TG



Shane Robinson, Fifty-fifty
Photos: TG


Commitment Canyon .. The Box
Photo: TG


Photo: TG


JP
Photo: TG


The Box Teacup
Photos: TG



Bryan getting Engaged
Photos: TG


Robinson
Photo: TG

II/b. Random Photo Dump | Friends & Places & Stuff

I shot a series of b/w images of Shane making Biodiesel at the local Bio CoOp. I like how they turned out.


Friends from the East Coast & CO on their first trip to BC .. peering into the Box
Photo: TG


Andy G. checking surf
Photo: TG


County Line
Photo: TG


Liv, Tret & Hillary canoeing/crabbing in Chuckanut Bay
Photo: TG


Dinner!
Photo: TG


w/ Matty G.
Photo: TG


Shrtlvision .. cold day at the Cove
Photo: Ryan Terry



Same cold day at the Cove
Photos: Ryan Terry


Liv on the Strait
Photo: TG


Jonaven serving breakfast in the Airstream
Photo: TG


Downtime in the Airstream
Photo: TG


That's all I gots. Here's to a fun-filled & safe new era y'all .. keep in touch!

Dipper Creek: The Lower Canyon

((Be warned, this is a long report.))

Recall from our first Dipper Creek post that we encountered significant hesitation & resistance on our exploration of the Lower Canyon. Here's how it played out.

After hiking out of the Upper Canyon, we bid farewell to our land support team & headed to Dipper Camp, where Chris whipped up a Thai green curry masterpiece (suggestion: include a backcountry chef jedi in your crew). In the morning, Bryan & Shane jogged in for one last peek at Vertigo Gorge to make sure the flow was appropriate, while Chris & I cleaned up camp & set shuttle. Upon our return from setting shuttle we got the radio call from the boys saying, "It's pretty iffy. It definitely goes, buuuut .... You guys should come down here & look at it & decide for yourselves."

Not the report we were hoping to come back to.

Spent the rest of the day bushwhacking, rapping into the gorge, & just trying to get enough of a vantage into the gorge -- to simply see what was going on in there. We hemmed & hawed, ultimately deciding to pack it up & leave Dipper Creek defeated & demoralized.

In a high risk environment such as this, it's fascinating how the group dynamic can swing so swiftly from total confidence to total concession. When it comes to backcountry exploratory missions, we, as a team, are generally pretty gung-ho for a challenge & some adversity. And we are at home in difficult whitewater & box canyons. We'll run some shit. But at the same time, we tend to err on the side of preparedness & caution. All of us are over 30 -- way past college, so to speak -- so we're not as loose in our approach as we may have once been. And I'd attribute our longevity in the exploratory side of the sport, along with our relative lack of "episodes" (epic injuries in the backcountry, multi-person blowouts, near-death experiences, gnarly evac's .. you know, just general stupidity) to that conservative approach. And so, if that leads to more "hardcore" crews sometimes calling us pansies, or if it means the occasional trail-of-tears slog out of some ridiculous canyon, then so be it, at least we gave it a shot ...

I'm reminded of when we were in Peru last year. After we conceded defeat & hiked out of the Rio Huallaga, we headed to Cusco for more adventures. I ended up stuck in town by myself, sick as hell, while the rest of the crew was out paddling the Abysmo del Apurimac. After a couple days just hanging around our friend Piero's empty house sleeping, I got restless & decided to catch a taxi to another part of the city. I visited Piero's sister who owns a little restaurant/lounge & drank tea & tried to eat some food. I thumbed thru a coffee table book about mountaineering in the Andes & came across a quote that really resonated at the time, & still does now:

As mountaineers we look for challenges that make us feel alive, because we love life & challenges. These challenges allow us to decide when to continue or when to go back. After all, the mountain will always be there. The decision to stop is an opportunity to return again.

Renzo Uccelli

So there we were. At the take-out. But not because we successfully navigated our way down Dipper Creek, but because we were in fact being pansies. And what a lame feeling that was. The seeds of doubt had rooted into the collective consciousness & grown into a show-stopping lack of confidence. This is common in kayaking. An internal battle between that which you know you're capable of doing & that which is unknown. Part of you wants to push on, while the other half is wracked with uncertainty. We all knew in our hearts that we were more than capable of dealing with whatever the gorge put in front of us, but in our heads we were experiencing a blockage that kept the whole team from executing on that.

Turns out, sometimes the "easy" way out can prove to be even more stressful than the alternative.

Thankfully, Chris was not content to let us just leave the valley so hastily. At least not without a couple beers & some further discussion. We had another day to work with. So as the story goes, we turned right back around & went back up to camp. Chris had a strategy in mind for dealing with scouting, setting safety, running &/or portaging the 30-footer that drops into the gorge. It was already starting to get late in the afternoon, but once we got back up to camp, the plan was to run down the Cougar Trail as fast as they could to Vertigo Gorge to inspect Chris's plan & to drop some ropes from anchor points on the upstream & downstream ends of the gorge.

Suddenly we were reinvigorated. We had beer, we had food, we had a plan & we were sticking to it!


Weeee're baaaaaack! Oh man, I love the look on Bryan's face here, which foretells the trouble he's gonna be in with his wife upon his eventual return home!
Photo: Chris Tretwold


Chris prepping for his racing-daylight rope-setting mission.
Photo: Todd Gillman


Chris explaining to Bryan just WTF is goin' on here.
Photo: Todd G

Bryan & I got dinner rolling while those guys did their duty. We were relieved when they returned with the news that Chris's idea for dealing with the waterfall would likely work out. In the a.m., we hiked straight out of the back of camp, down into the canyon at one of the only places throughout the length of the creek where river-level access is relatively easy.


Chris admiring one of the huge Doug firs at camp.
Photo: Todd G.


Photo: Todd G.


Heading in!
Photo: Chris T.


Lower Canyon scenery
Photo: Chris T.


The first significant rapid in the Lower Canyon .. a tight, twisty s-turn thing.
Photo: Chris T.

After the 1st rapid there's a handful of fun slides & ledges in the 10-ft range .. then almost before you know it, you're at the cusp of the main event, Vertigo Gorge.


You'll need one of these (ascenders) ..
Photo: Todd G.


Photo: Todd G.

We anchored to a tree that hangs into the gorge on a rocky outcropping upstream of the entry falls ... then rapped down into the LZ on the right, where there was a tiny slimy ledge adjacent to a tiny eddy at the base of the falls. From here, I'd be able to scout the LZ of the falls & set safety, as well as figure out whether or not we'd be able to drop into the gorge without running the falls.


From this angle you can get a feel for how bowled-out the LZ of the falls is.
Photo: Todd G.


The eddy room backed up by a huge boil against the wall downstream. You can also see the limited view we had into the gorge.
Photo: Todd G.

So what's up with the falls anyway? Well it's 25-30 feet tall with a very narrow channel of water on far river-left that slides/rolls off the lip before going vertical about 15 feet off the pool. The falls is almost entirely river-left, with a big granite block that keeps you from being able to go right .. so it falls into a room backed up by a huge caved-out wall. The exit of this room is via a tiny opening on far river-right. A tall boil forms along the downstream (river-left) wall, & it feeds fiercely either back into the eddy room, or directly into a nasty undercut pocket on the river-right wall.

I gave it the double-thumbs up!

Bryan was fired up to run it, thinking that he could either air it out directly into the outflow (threading the needle between the boil/eddy room combo and the undercut right wall), or just plug it into the tiny river-right eddy. We decided to run the whole gorge in pairs, so I stayed down in the landing to set safety while Shane ascended all the way up to the Cat Perch to run the cameras, & Chris hung on the lip of the falls manning ropes. There was lots of mist & although I was on belay, I felt very unstable on the slippery ledge .. so I left my camera in its drybag.

Bryan exploded unexpectedly into my peripheral vision, looking to be angled a little more vertically than we'd imagined, then he disappeared beneath the boil. He resurfaced upright but in the left eddy-room .. dang.


Bryan penciling-in on Vertigo Falls
Photo: Chris T.

I watched as Bryan battled unsuccessfully to traverse the boil & impact zone. Exhausted, he signaled he was ready to get bagged outta there. As he was being pulled thru the impact zone, being drilled by the falls, he lost his paddle, but I got him into my little eddy, which was the important part. The eddy room was unbelievably powerful for such a low-volume stream. His paddle would have remained in the room for an eternity, but we were able to fish it out. There was not room for the both of us & two full boats on the tiny ledge. It took a tense couple minutes to sort everything out without ending up in the water or losing our gear downstream.


Fishing for Bryan's paddle
Photo: Chris T.

Now Bryan & I were faced with the decision of whether or not to proceed. From where I was at, I could see down into one of the most beautiful & intimidating gorge views imaginable. Once Bryan caught his breath, he asked how it looked downstream & I told him not to look, he wouldn't like it. The double-drop at the exit of the falls room lands in a much bigger, cavernous, bowled-out room, then disappears into a steep, narrow, dark crack in the earth. We didn't know much of anything about this drop from previous scouts high on the rim of the gorge. It looked bigger & more vertical than we had imagined. We did know that if we dropped into the rapid directly below us, the only way out of Vertigo Gorge would be to run it & everything else below it .. none of which we really seen. I was sure that I could squeeze past the boil/undercut & from what I could see, I thought I'd be able to scramble out onto the left wall to scout the next falls. Problem was, if we didn't like what we saw, it didn't matter, we'd have to run it. This was a nerve-wracking but almost giddy experience.

We decided that we had to trust ourselves & trust that it was good-to-go. I dropped in first, battled against the boil & slid past the undercut & into the fun double-boof into the calm green pool. We were surrounded by waterfalls, but it was eerily quiet in this incredible sanctuary-like room. The view downstream was unreal -- nothing but dark polished rock with a tiny portal disappearing out the bottom of it all. Our scout of the drop was quite obscured, but it looked okay. We could see downstream the corridor to the next blind corner, which appeared to be a crisp right-hand turn waterfall. There would be zero safety & zero egress. Bryan went first. I could hear the hull of his boat make that hollow, throaty sound as it impacted water, but the drop was so overhung, I couldn't see him until he came into view downstream under the roof of the right wall. He howled in approval, then disappeared out of sight as he cranked a big cross-current boof off the corner falls.


Bryan in the double drop below the entrance falls .. this lands you in the heart of Vertigo Gorge.
Photo: Chris T


Bryan scouting a super-tight falls in Vertigo Gorge.
Photo: Todd G






Bryan running the super-tight falls in the middle of Vertigo Gorge.
Photos: Todd G


At this point, Bryan had disappeared around the corner. I had no idea what was going on beyond what I could see. He was on his own, I was on my own, & I was nervous & wanted to record the heaviness of the moment ..
Photo: Todd G

Turns out the falls I was standing on top of was great -- maybe 10 or 12 feet, slide-to-vert & very tight .. the landing moves fast to the right & resurfaces under the roof on the right. The corner falls is exactly what it looks like from upstream -- a super-crisp vertical cross-fader, maybe 15-20 feet or so. The surprise bonus was yet another mandatory falls of maybe 12 feet to exit Vertigo Gorge.


Bryan on Vertigo's exit falls, with the corner falls visible just upstream..
Photo: Todd G.

We were ecstatic! We ran down to our pre-set egress point above an unscouted huge falls .. and then gave the good news to Shane & Chris, who then made quick work of the gorge.


Overlooking the breadth of Vertigo Gorge .. Chris & Shane about to rap-in.
Photo: Todd G



Shane running the double & celebrating in the cathedral room
Photos: Todd G


Shane & Chris in the heart of Vertigo .. from waaaay up above. The corner falls is clearly visible on the left.
Photo: Todd G



Chris T.
Photos: Todd G.



Shane R.
Photos: Todd G.


Vertigo exit falls
Photo: Chris T.


Overhead look at the pool just downstream of Vertigo Gorge.
Photo: Todd G.


Fun slide below Vertigo Gorge
Photo: Chris T.

Shortly below Vertigo there is a very large waterfall that is impossible to scout without dangling into the gorge. We were racing daylight at this point & decided to expedite the completion of our mission -- we portaged the big falls & headed down to the next available river-level access, which happens to be just upstream of the two confluence waterfalls.





Shane running the confluence falls
Photos: Todd G.


Chris, with motion-blur, running the confluence falls
Photo: Todd G.


Me ..
Photo: Chris T.


And Bryan ..
Photo: Todd G.


At the Squamish confluence
Photo: Todd G


Shane & me running out to the Squamish ..
Photo: Chris T.

From here you just have to figure out how/where to climb out of the Squamish R. Downstream there's a significant gorge that we ran a couple years ago. The climb out wasn't too bad there, but we opted to hike out at the confluence .. bad call, don't do that.

We'll work on a wrap-up with all the vital details about the creek .. put-in, take-out, rapid count, etc. In short, we ran all but several individual rapids & one short section at the end of the Upper Canyon. Bryan sez there's one mandatory portage falls in that section, but apart from that, I didn't see a single rapid on Dipper Creek that wasn't runnable -- this includes both huge falls & Rowdy Flatwater. We left some serious scraps on the table, but we did what we had to do in order to get down the creek. I guess you could say Dipper Creek is like an amped-up version of Tatlow. So if that's your style then go get it!

Dipper Creek: The Upper Canyon

Shane & I got out of Seattle at a reasonable hour after work. The plan was to meet Chris in B'ham, slam some dinner real quick & then finish the drive up to Squamish. The three of us were giddy with excitement, having resigned ourselves to our fate. We had done about as much prep work as was possible & even had a semi-complete list of all the known rapids on the creek. Comes a time when you just gotta step up & take what you got coming to ya, and in the morning we would do just that.

Morning came quickly. A high pressure system brought clear bright skies and cold temps, making for the first time this season I'd have to chip frost off my windshield. We were at sea level in Squamish, & we knew it would be even colder up in the mountains. Bryan was stoked to have coerced a land support team, including his wife Lise-Anne & our buddy Jonaven, into bushwhacking along the rim of the gorge with ropes in case we got ourselves into a pickle & needed a haul outta there. Stopping along the way at Jonaven's, we were surprised to find out that he'd also talked 3 of his gung-ho buddies into joining them on the land crew.

On the drive up, we were still unsure on the actual plan. Would be be starting with the Lower Canyon, since it seemed at the time like less of a chunk to bite off? And since, with our foot soldiers in mind, the hiking along the rim of the Lower Canyon was much easier. Or would we put our support crew through some pain & suffering, & just fire into the super-steep Upper Canyon without the benefit of a recent scout of the bottom part of that gorge? We debated the merits of each & ultimately decided to head upstream to attempt the Upper Canyon .. again.

The hike in wasn't hard by BC standards, but definitely got the blood & sweat flowing. And compared to our slog UP the very same canyon wall a year prior, it was remarkably easy. .


Big Dipper.
Photo: Todd G.

BD Falls is every bit of 70 feet & not nearly as "slidy" as it would appear in the photo above (blame that on a bit of distortion from my superwide lens). It is totally runnable, and I'd probably run it the next time I'm up there .. but I can't help thinking that the landing's equivalent to being a quarterback getting sacked by a really big lineman who came in hot on your blindside. Keep in mind this rapid drops immediately out of the pool that Double Dip, the 2-tiered 50-footer, lands in. Our goal was to actually figure out & run Dipper Creek to the bottom, not invest a ton of time in safely stunt-boating two big falls. We also couldn't risk blowing our long-awaited opportunity on a trip-ending explosion/evac scenario on the first rapid. So with that in mind, we admired the awe-inspiring view of Double-Dip-into-Big-Dipper on the way to our chosen put-in at the base of BD ..


Tret in the BD exit drop .. a fun, low-stress way to start this mission!
Photo: Todd G.


Photo: Todd G.


Shane very stoked to be committed to the gorge.
Photo: Todd G.

Upper Dipper is quite stacked. Just around the bend from the spectacular entrance series is Dipstick, an S-shaped rapid that involves boofing a small horseshoe ledge while limbo'ing some wood, then driving left & back to center for the main part of the rapid -- a silly 25-foot slide.


Photo: Todd G.

Shane sez: While this drop wasn't all that difficult, it felt good to actually have to make some moves to stick this drop. Dipper is such a low volume creek, it would be easy to get lazy and just drift and boof ... it ain't no Robe Canyon.

Chris on Dipstick
Photo: Todd G.


Dipper is all bedrock all the way .. pretty much.
Photo: Todd G.


Photo: Todd G.

Bedrock constrictions form most of the Dipper's rapids, which included lots of little ledges & long twisting slides. From Dipstick, a few mellow slide features leads you to Little Dipper Falls, a drop that we'd gotten a glimpse of on our first aborted mission, & ever since, had been calling "The 50-Footer", for the sole purpose of descriptive naming.


River-level scout of the drop formerly known as The 50-footer.
Photo: Todd G.

On one of Bryan's later scouts of the creek, he deemed it in the neighborhood of 35 ft. Scale & proportion tend to get skewed one way or the other when scouting from so high above the features. At any rate, this must-run slide-to-vert falls is very good to go, & was the standout rapid of the day.


Bryan "Kato" Smith calling dibs on this one.
Photo: Todd G.

Shane sez: ^^^ I love this shot. The vantage downstream almost steals the focus from Bryan, and it really captures what it looks like in there - the canyon is every bit as tight as is looks downstream!

Now for some perspective, here's Chris running it with Bryan in the pool below.
Photo: Todd G.


Chris's view of me running Little Dipper.
Photo: Chris T.



Shane rolling in ..
Photos: Todd G.

And we haven't even gotten to the crux yet ..



Shane probing a super-tight, un-portageable constriction below a sizable ledge. Maybe we should call it Skinny Dip .. I dunno. This rapid is visible in some of the Little Dipper shots above.
Photo: Chris T.

At this point we were getting hemmed-in. I mean, we were "in the gorge" from the put-in, but at this point it gets really deep & really tight .. which leads us to Rowdy Flatwater.


Los Dudes eddying out at the lip of Rowdy Flatwater.
Photo: Todd G.


Looking back up at Skinny Dip & Little Dipper from the lip of Rowdy Flatwater. It's a big steep drop into the slidey bit of RF, & it's this part that falls onto a ridge of rock extending from river-left that is scary.
Photo: Todd G.

RF is a looooong twisty, very constricted, very steep rapid formed by a vertical right wall that goes to the sky .. & a sloping, moss-covered left wall. The main issues with the rapid are: (1) the seemingly unavoidable piton in the entrance, which would slow you down enough (or stop you dead in yr tracks, or destroy your boat) making the violently recirculating hole behind it a real hazard; and (2) if, by the grace of the buddha, you make it thru that mess, you still have a couple more bad holes to negotiate. It's only a boat-width wide, so how bad could it be right? But that just means the holes are really long upstream to downstream & that moving left to right to get outta the holes isn't an option.


Looking downstream from the entrance. You see the line, right?
Photo: Todd G.

In spite of the very slick bedrock, moving around on the river-left side of RF is surprisingly easy .. but with higher water, that option would shut down. Since there was no way to walk "around" the bottom of the rapid, we put our land team to work for the first time here. The portage was very involved, & it probably would've been easier to just roll the dice on running the rapid. We set up a rope-assisted traverse with elevation-control from a line running up to an anchor manned by a couple of those dudes up the canyon wall. This worked for boats & paddlers. I think you could still make it work w/o the land team, but it would be a much more wet experience .. & I think in the future at least the bottom half of the rapid will just get run via a sketchy seal-launch .. hate to be the last guy, though.


Our portage circus.
Photo: Todd G.

Below the debacle that is Rowdy Flatwater, a little bit of boogie water & more jaw-dropping gorge scenery leads to some very fun stuff. It was here that Bryan said to me, "Now we're in the gorge!" .. I got a chuckle out of that. I knew what he meant though -- now we're in the deepest, most constricted, least portageable, & least known part of the gorge. Yeeha!


Photo: Todd G.


Photo: Todd G.

The creek is small, so the eddies are tiny. At one point, we each occupied our own respective eddy while Chris had a scout from a boulder on river-right. He then waved Bryan, then me, thru a steep slot. Bryan got out below on river-left in the midst of the continuous rapid, while I awaited instruction. He gave the "so-so" look, but I was eager to move. It was blind, fast & very fun .. & I was under-prepared for how long the rapid was. I bombed over a slide-to-boof into a very tight pinch, into a fast jet approaching an obvious boulder boof, into ... it just kept going! finally subsiding in a narrow corridor of perfectly polished granite with a towering waterfall cascading down upon my head. Excellent.


Photo: Todd G.

Shane sez: This drop was such a bonus. I'd never scouted this section of the river, so this drop was a surprise and so much fun. It had an entry boof that looked tricky, but once I landed that, it was just splashy and fast all the way through. It just kept dropping, and I didn't know what to expect so I just kept throwing in boof strokes. Then you come around the corner and there is the amazing waterfall cascading in off the right wall. Wow!

Bryan
Photo: Todd G.


Photo: Todd G.


Photo: Todd G.


Photo: Todd G.


Appreciating the amazing place we landed in.
Photo: Todd G.

At this point, the creek continues to fall away thru a series of slides & small falls. Unfortunately, our progress was stopped by wood at a point in the gorge where portage was impossible. For a tense moment, it was questionable whether or not egress from the gorge itself was even an option .. but we were fortunate to have stopped in a place where the left wall mellowed just enough to allow us to rope up & out. We radioed-in our support crew to meet us with ropes. We hauled 7 or 8 pitches with their help & did a bit of a bushwhack mission in the typical BC fashion before reaching the road no worse for wear.


Photo: Todd G.


Decision time .. where do we go from here?
Photo: Chris T.


Up & out is where we went from there! Our ground support crew assisting in the get-out. Huge thanks to all those guys!
Photo: Chris T.