I've only done the Lower as a run twice prior. First was my first time down the Wind. Resulting in 8 stitches in the Flume. Flow was much lower that this run with the Flume having the channeled character it has in the summer. The second run was in the spring of two years with Michael and Shannon Williams and Devin. Devin was heading off to the Jr Olympics the next few days so I didn't let him run it. Didn't want to take any chances!
High Bridge rapid is a great class IV long rapid that is easily boat scouted and has a few quality rock boofs to flair off. The Flume we didn't scout and it went Michael, myself, Jon then Dave. Everyone stayed upright though the blur of whitewater. Michael had a great comment of the flume when I got down to him. "Close your eyes, it's black. Open your eyes, it's all white." That pretty much sums it up. Once you hit the first wave, your vision is blurred until to gt near the bottom left boulder to make the move center. I love this drop. Only when it has water in it! The summer flows suck ass.
Below that we come to a unnamed rapid that has a good hole at the bottom after a 30 yard lead in. Jon headed down first and working center right came out of the hole with a vertical stern squirt, Dave was next and slipped being a little more left. My turn, I went a little right of Jon's squirting through and ending up near the right wall to pull my way out without problem. Michael finished it off but I didn't see his line.
Next stop, Beyond Limits. I caught the eddy between the fish ladder and the drop in the right channel. Michael opted to run it down the tongue in the center keeping his hair dry though the main drop and the next big hole. I had safety in my boat and Jon and Dave had safety ready.
Approaching Shepherds Falls there is a class III lead in with a must catch eddy on the left above the huge concrete ladder and the falls awaiting around the corner. Not usually ran at these flows for a few reasons. Mostly because of the man made weir below the third slide and the burly nature of the falls as the flows pick up. I quickly caught a eddy above the class III to portage. Michael ran the III and missed the eddy that wasn't really easy thing to catch. He opted to catch a eddy above the first falls on river right. Jon and Dave followed my route oddly enough.
Michael spent some time running the line on the first falls though his head while me and Jon got ropes ready for safety. Michael had this most slow motion, graceful line sneaking around the far right bank till reaching the lip and nailed a chill left boof stroke landing on the big boil against the right wall. Perfect.
Michael paddled around the s-turn to the next falls and eddied out on the left. After some scouting he was gonna give er and ran the far right side with good results. All three of us had ropes ready for that one. Michael portaged the slide getting up on the fish ladder with us and now comes the fun or scary part depending on how you look at it!
To portage the weir there are three options: Play the goat and climb up using the game trail that the hot spring users use to get down to the river level tubs. With a kayak, it's scary and exposed way to much for most. Next is to climb up 30' off the water around the outcropping and throw and go into a eddy. This is the most popular it seems cause it has the least risks. The last is what I did my first time. From the bottom of the fish ladder structure to throw and go. The catch is you have to run and leap off the lip to avoid ending up against the left wall that is part of the eddy that could feed you into the weir! Jon went leaping first and we quickly saw you were gonna be crawling along the last few feet of the wall to get around. Michael was in charge and tossed our boats with paddles in em after we cleared the wall. I went third, ran full speed getting a good launch and entry into the pool. Got against the last few feet of the wall and crawled around with no problem. Michael launched my boat and we all collected ourselves in the eddy/beach below.
We found the upper hot spring tub to be at water level but the lower one was still a few feet up and Jon was in it before any of us had gotten in sight of it. Once he through helmets full of hot water on us, we all quickly hopped in and spent a few minutes taking in the run... a quick paddle out and we were on our ways.
It's a long day but highly underrated in my mind. You just have to get through the run out of the Upper stretch to continue on!
