Horseshoe Bend to Gravel Bin, also known as the Pinball section after the one class IV rapid that is just about in the middle of the run.
We started the day with breakfast at the Steamboat Lodge which had great food. The restaurant was very nice with beautiful wood interior and windows looking out over a gorgeous garden and the river. Apparently it is a pretty pricey place to stay but the breakfast menu was very reasonable. The North Umpqua is well known for fly fishing for trout, steelhead, and salmon as well as for the whitewater. There is a whole section of the river that recreational boaters are asked to stay off of from July 15 through October 31 so that we don't bother the fishermen and the fish.
Our next stop of the morning was the post office in Glide, Oregon which is about 15 miles down the road from the lodge. Pat had ordered another paddle and had it shipped general delivery to the post office in Glide. We were a little worried that it wouldn't come before we left on Saturday but the company Pat ordered it from assured us it should arrive in two days. Sure enough, the paddle was there waiting for us Friday morning.
We headed back up the road to Gravel Bin, our take-out of the day, where we were scheduled to meet Carl and Dan. Carl and Joanne would have dropped their boat at the put-in and Joanne would stay there and wait for everyone to come back. We got to Gravel Bin, a large, gravel parking lot and found two women with IK's who told us that Dan couldn't come but they came instead. We had no idea what their skill level was but it sounded like they had both run this section several times at lower water levels. Neither Tomoko or her daughter Aiya had helmets and we were pretty worried about them, rightly so since they both swam several times. They made it down okay and we made it down okay and it was a beautiful sunny, hot day!
The Pinball section is a great run! Lots of fun drops that require more technical moves and there are nice big pools of water at the end of each rapid. There are eight class III rapids and one class IV rapid. This would be the hardest water that I had seen yet and the most hard rapids to run in a single day. Carl, Joann, and Michael assured me that we would stop at the top of each big drop and either walk down and scout or discuss the route before we ran it. I only remember stopping at four of the rapids, Toilet Bowl, Eiffel Tower, Headknocker, and Pinball the class IV.
Toilet Bowl is the first major rapid of the day and I came pretty close to bashing a big giant boulder sideways. I managed to get up on the pillow and ride it around the boulder and downstream into an eddy.
Three rapids later we came to Eiffel Tower. "Eiffel Tower," I was told, "is pretty washed out with this higher than normal water flow." This usually means that the drops and holes are filled in with water and the run should be easier than normal and it wasn't too bad, in fact it was a ton of fun! The river narrows down a bit so there are lots of big waves and frothy water. The key is to avoid the big rock at the top, keep the boat pointed downstream through the waves and blast through the hole at the bottom. I had a great run, totally swamped my boat in the hole and limped into an eddy to bail with my heart still racing.
Pinball is next with Headknocker coming right on its heels. We actually scouted this drop from the top. The others we just discussed the route before going through. Planning a couple of maneuvers during the scout made Pinball a whole lot of fun! This was my route: slide between the big rock and the big hole at the entry, moving left go for the eddy behind the second giant boulder (bail), peel out and moving right, power through the diagonal wave off of the boulder on the other side of the channel, change angle and power back to the left avoiding several exposed rocks, ride the waves to the bottom and start bailing again. This worked perfectly for me! Michael who entered the drop just before me, caught the eddy behind the first big boulder near the top. While I was bailing in the eddy below him, he swam by holding on to his boat! At this point all nervousness about the class IV water fled and I peeled out to follow Michael downstream. After the diagonal wave there are three channels through the boulders that you can choose from. My original plan in the scout was to continue moving to the right after going through the diagonal since I wouldn't have to make a move back to the left; however, Michael swam into the right channel and since I didn't want to run into him I made the move to go to the left. Michael swam all the way to the bottom where Carl, Joanne and Beth pulled him and his boat to shore. Still at the top of the rapid were Pat and Tomoko (Aiya had run right after I did but she didn't catch any eddies on the way down). It took a pretty long time for Tomoko to decide what she was going to do and then the diagonal wave that I powered through caught her and flipped her upside down. Her boat went right and she went down the middle channel. Michael, Carl and Joanne got her boat to shore and Beth tried to tow Tomoko in but she let go of the kayak. This is where I came to the rescue! I threw my rope bag out to Tomoko and pulled her in.
The last three big rapids of the day had a little bit of a pucker factor but we all made it through. After these there is a fairly long stretch of class I and II rapids before the take-out. After all of the excitement at Pinball a nice easy ending to the day was made to order!
The river is running just under 1600 cfs. Paddlers today: Beth in a kayak, Carl and Joanne in a tandem canoe (Blast), Tomoko in an IK, Aiya in an IK, and as always, Michael, Pat, and I.
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