April in Washington State

The snowpack in Colorado wasn't looking super awesome, so Evan and I decided to get in an early season trip to Washington. My brother Adrian just moved to Leavenworth, and we wanted to pay a visit to all of our old friends who are Colorado to Washington transplants. When we looked online and found tickets to seattle for only $130 round trip, the decision was made, we were going to Washington. We booked our flights and started studying the amazing new guidebook to Pacific Northwest whitewater. I love seeing all of the great photos in this book.

We flew in on a thursday night, and stayed with the legendary Joe Keck in West Seattle. His place is very convenient for arriving at the airport, but it turns out it's not the easiest place when you are driving out of seattle on a weekday morning. We met up with Mike Nash and Nick Hinds at a park and ride, then headed south to Canyon Creek of the Lewis. This was a great warmup run for Evan and I, given that we had not paddled since last summer. Nick Hinds has this creek dialed, and he knew all the lines. He was able to route us on verbals for the whole run, which is always a fun way to do a new run that isn't too scary. The drops all had a V- feel at the 800cfs flow we had. It definitely goes up a notch at high water. The rapids are all super clean and have great moves, good boofs, and excellent eddies.

Evan and I spent every flat water minute possible admiring the wet mossy cliffs and old growth forests that line the banks of this river. The pacific northwest is such an amazing place. When you are in one of these canyons, you feel like you are in another world. There is nothing like it. As we continued downriver, we got to run lots of drops until we reached the 20-foot waterfall. We hopped out to scout this one and get some photos. 

This waterfall is so good. If it were easy to hike back up, this would be a great one to lap. We all had decent lines, but I definitely went pretty deep and resurfaced in the pool. I'm glad I didn't get deflected over to the left side. Evan was onshore and was able to get some great shots of everyone. He's such a good photographer. Paddlers always look better than they really are in his photos. Somehow he knows how to snap the shot at the right moment. 

The last rapid on this run is also really cool, and photogenic. It's a double drop consisting of two 8-10 foot drops. Evan and Nick Hinds ran it first and Evan set up at the bottom to get some shots of me and the Kiwi. The plan was to try and space out enough so that Mike was dropping the second drop while I was dropping the top drop, but we didn't quite nail the timing. 

After Canyon Creek we made our way back to Joe's house in Seattle. The next day we made the trip up north to run Clearwater Creek in the Nooksack drainage. We met up with our great friends who moved from Colorado a few years back, Sean Lee and Leif Embertson. Clearwater was a fun creek with lot's of drops, boulder gardens, and boofs, boofs, and more boofs. Leif lives in Bellingham, so he knows this run like the back of his hand. We made it down incident free, then headed east for Leavenworth to check out my brother's new house and get some laps on Tumwater Canyon. We also got a lap on the Skykomish at 8k on the way. 

After three tummy laps, we headed to Deer Creek, which is Mike Nash's favorite run. This one is hard to get at the right flow, and Nash told us it was now or never. So we went. It turns out that in the early season, the forest service gate on the road to the put in is locked. So that meant a 2-mile hike to the river. The hike was mellow until the last part where we had to push through a thick clear-cut-and-re-grown impenetrable Christmas tree forest. All of us ended up with thorn holes in our drysuits by the time we made it through the forrest and finally got to the old growth that bordered the river. Once in the old growth traveling is much easier and the forest is incredible.

After Deer Creek we went north to the Cascade River, which is a gorgeous run in a deep canyon on the edge of Cascade national park. The next day we had to fly out to Denver, so we ran the green river gorge in the morning and then went straight to the airport, spent from 6 days of straight paddling. I got the privilege of trying out one of Mike Nash's handmade paddles, which was awesome. Hardcore paddles have a great paddle stroke with lot's of power and they are super tough. Breaking one would be hard. I've got one on the way to me now!

Thanks to all of the boys in Washington that took time off of work and their daily lives to show us some great whitewater. We had a blast! Thanks to Evan Stafford for all these photos. You the man.