Today we did a section of the Santiam River That the LCCC (Lower Columbia Canoe Club) calls the Bruneau Mtn. run.
Today was an awesome day of paddling! I did really well, I held most of my lines and I didn't swim. I did one bad bash on a rock that I didn't see and one close swim when I bounced off of a root wad sticking out of the bank because I didn't get my boat moving fast enough, soon enough. (Pic to the left is me paddling up a wave after going over the drop.)
Michael gave me a run down of the harder drops just before we got to them. We didn't stop to scout anything. Michael would tell me things like, "enter in the center moving left, watch for the giant hole in center about half-way down, after the hole start moving right to avoid the rocks on the left and eddy out at the bottom on the right." Then he would go down and I would follow. I can't remember all the names of the drops but here two that I do remember: False Ricochet, and Ricochet. There were a lot more though!
False Ricochet and Ricochet are pretty steep, fairly long, rapids with lots of boulders and rocks to avoid along with some holes and pretty big waves. With Ricochet being steeper, and longer than False Ricochet. They were very splashy and very fun! A couple of other rapids were actual drops. Line your boat up for the best spot and drop two or three feet to the water below and then avoid things. These weren't waterfalls with water dropping a ninety degree angle to the bottom, more like forty-five or even thirty degrees. It gets you moving very fast and typically there is a wave train at the bottom. One very cool drop that I can't remember the name of, was a slide. The rock was smooth and the water looked like glass as it started down the slide. It was a little disconcerting because it didn't look very deep as it went down the slide and I was afraid that I might scrape the bottom off of the boat! It was actually several inches deep, plenty for our canoes and Michael's IK. It was just like going down a water slide.
This is Pat surfing backwards.
The water level on the Bruneau Mtn. run was somewhere between 800 cfs and 850 cfs. We also had a few more people join us on this trip: Murray, Carl Poston, and Alex. As always: Michael, Pat and I.
An absolutely splendid day!
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