Trip Report: Cispus and Hood Rivers

[liveonearth]

Excellent weekend. Met T up at the Cispus in Washington and we paddled a 6ish mile section. It was a new river for both of us, but we both love to paddle new stuff and have no need of a guide. The water level was a little bony but still good fun. The river was mostly rompin' class III with a couple of fourish sections. The scenery up there is amazing, with snowy crags all around and a mature evergreen forest. The river looks like it has carried much greater flows; there are a lot of gigantic trees laying around. There was one that bridged the entire river. I was able to limbo under it on the left and scrape through a cobble pile back to the river. After that run we drove over to Hood River and paddled the Hood the next day.

At the Hood we bumped into an LCCC group at the Dee putin, unloading their boats beside a no trespassing sign. There are tons of no trespassing signs at that access point, which is why I'd never put in there before. Down at the river we saw that somebody has installed a fish trap made of pvc pipes, and that's probably why they don't want us down there. The main channel was open and we floated right over the pvc that was laid flat on the riverbottom.

We had left a car down near the Columbia and intended to run both the Upper and Lower sections. They hadn't run a shuttle yet. After some back and forth they decided to run their own shuttle instead of relying on ours, and it turned out to be a very good thing. T and I had an uneventful and blissful run. I had never put in at Dee before, had always used the Iowa St putin. There's a good rapid up there. It was the lowest I've run the Hood yet, at 4.375 by my guesstimation on the gage. There's quite a bit of metal in this river, both sheet and rod. At this low flow stuff was sticking up out of the water, but at higher flows it would be under water where it could snag a swimmer and not even be seen. Very dangerous.

The day was turning colder and we moved at a steady pace, even up to a brisk pace for the last little section. A snow was supposed to be blowing in. When we ran our shuttle we noticed that the LCCC crowd had not reached the Tucker takeout yet, and they were not in the home stretch of river, either. We went ahead and ran our shuttle, and hung out for a few at the takeout hoping to see them. Finally we headed into town for food. After food I called D to make sure they were OK. One of the canoes had cracked (there were lots of rocks out there) and they had a 2 hour delay repairing the canoe. I wonder what kind of repair they were able to do on such a cold day. Whatever the case, I was glad to hear that no one was injured and they were off the river.

Comments

[neptunia67.livejournal.com]

Sounds like a great weekend. Truth be told, I'd rather do a river run than backpacing trip with you if I make it up there this year... in a duckie. Can you camp riverside up there?

[liveonearth.livejournal.com]

Oh yes, then we'll do a river. Would you like to do a multi-day float like we did on the Verde? I have lots of ideas. It's easier here because there's good water everywhere. I've been working on my schedule for spring (April to July) and I should have the ability to take Thurs-Sat off any time I like, with just a wee bit of planning. How much prior planning can you make?