Location: Wenatchee (after the dam)
CFS: 7,000
Who was there? Me, Forrest, Rick, Pam
The story:

Friday, 7:30pm: My voicemail
Craig: Howard. We're doing the Wenatchee tomorrow. Go out tonight and buy a tent. Meet us at the normal campsite. We'll have enough light to help you stake it when you get here.

And so began a very odd weekend.

Apparently, my behavior last week had worried my boating buddies (Craig, Brad and Wendy, or at the minimum, Craig). From what I understand, the decision was made on Tuesday that they'd be doing the Wenatchee this weekend, but they decided not to include me (the bastards). But on Friday at 7:30pm, Craig had changed his mind.

I tossed the idea about getting a tent; I'd just sleep in my car. It was going to be pretty damn dark by the time I got to the campsite, and I had a long drive ahead of me and I don't want to waste more time than I needed to. So, off I went to home from work, in the middle of massive 520 traffic.

I finally got home around 8pm. I packed up all of the stuff that I needed (like sleeping bag and drysuit) and then headed on over to Craig's place to get my boat and other gear. Finally left his place with everything around 9 and began the long and arduous 1.5 hour drive to the campsite.

Finally at 10:30, I arrive at the turnoff for the campsite. Everything was pitch black. As I started driving up the hill, I stopped in front of the pile of rocks that has perpetually been on that road and that everyone has always had to be careful about driving over. It's always pissed me off. So, I stopped, got out of the car, and moved all of the rocks off of the road so that it would be a clear drive. There there. Much better. Now, up the road and onto the campsite ...

...that other people are camping in. When I pulled up to the campsite, those people were as surprised to see me as I was to see them. After a brief conversation with them, I learned that Craig had driven his car with both his and Brad's kayak (but no Brad in the car) up further past the first camp site, and then later turned around and travelled back down again. That's all they could tell me. I thanked them, and went on my way back down the road.

There's no cellphone reception anywhere in that area, so I started driving to the next campsite that was 1/4 mile away. I drove through the whole campground, but never found a site with Craig and Wendy. So, I made an executive decision (with myself) that I'd finish the remaining hour drive all the way to Cashmere at the take-out; I would sleep in my car in the parking lot and be waiting for Craig, Brad and Wendy there in the morning when they arrived. A perfect plan.

So, at 11:30pm, I was almost to Cashmere when I got cellphone reception. I left a message on everyone's cellphone letting them know what I was doing and to meet me at the take-out in the morning.

Well, when I finally arrived in Cashmere around 11:40 and I proceeded straight to the take-out parking lot, where I then saw what appeared to be a police car and two policemen parked outside. As I went to go into the parking lot to park and go to sleep, I did notice the sign that specifically prohibited overnight parking and camping. Soooo, I turned the car around and decided to go to Plan B.

What was Plan B?

I drove around town looking for a quiet street where I could just park my car on the side of the road and have myself a peaceful sleep. Finding such a street in such a small town took me about 20 minutes. I navigated around the whole town probably about 5 times until I found a quiet looking street with a spot I could park in that wasn't directly in front of any houses (I didn't want the townsfolk who woke up early to be startled by a kayaker sleeping in their car outside of their house. I wasn't exactly sure how they'd take to that.)

And then it was off to slumberland. I had a rough start getting into a comfortable position and getting the earplugs in to block out all of the crickets, but when I finally lied down that night, I was out like a log. I finally woke up at 7:30am and headed off to the take-out.

The Wait
So, it's 7:30am and I'm at the takeout. I called all three cellphones and left voicemail that I was indeed waiting for them, and that I'd wait until 9:30 or so. The parking lot stayed surprisingly empty for quite a long time. I then decided to get some breakfast, as I was rather hungry and had no food on me. I remembered seeing a bakery while mindlessly driving around last night, so I wondered over to the bakery and got a bunch of really good smelling treats. I've got to hand it to bakery's. I've yet to find a bad one on all of my kayak trips (of course, I've only been to two, this one being the second). This marked the second time in my life I ate a Snickerdoodle. I have no idea what they are exactly, but I do know that they taste damn good.

Normally it gets pretty full of kayakers by about 9am. It turns out that there was a Whitewater Rodeo going on at that very time down by Granny's, but I was completely oblivious. Around 9:10, a guy named Dave who I'd seen in the lot for the past half hour asked if I was planning to go down to the take out soon. I told him I just wanted to wait until 9:30 for my friends, and if they didn't show, we could just go. The plan sounded good to him, and so I continued to wait. Well, ten minutes later, he came back to inform me that he was going to go down with a bunch of guys who were leaving right away, so I wished him a good paddle and away he went.

I called everyone's cellphone and left messages again. I told them I would wait until 10:30. I actually ended up reaching Brad, whom I apparently woke up. It turns out, plans changed and he never even went to the campsite; he decided to pass on the day. So, I told him to go back to bed, and I continued to wait.

And wait.

And wait.

Let not someone say I'm impatient.

I called again at 11:00am and told them that I'd go with the next group that I could unless I heard back from them. I made a sign (Need a ride to dam put-in) and put it on my kayak and continued to wait. Around 12:00, four and a half hours after I started my wait for the day, I had a group to paddle with: Forrest, Rick and Pam.

Forrest had been kayaking for about 20 years and is definitely a "paddler," in all aspects of life, take that as you will. Very nice, cool guy. I assured him I had my roll down. Rick and Pam are a very cool married couple who run the Trailhead Cafe, right off of Highway 2 in Goldbar (429 Croft Ave W, Gold Bar, WA, 98251). I'll have to make it a point to go there for dinner after my next Skykomish run. They've been kayaking for about a year, and Forrest was taking them down the dam run on the Wenatchee for the first time today. We left Forrest's car at the put-in, and he hopped into my car (with his half-empty Corona -- I believe it was his fourth or fifth) and Rick and Pam followed me to the put-in.

Once there, we all got ready to go and headed off for the day's run. Now, Forrest was definitely a playboater. He had a squirt boat; the least volume kayak had ever seen -- I have no idea how the hell he fit in that boat. He was paddling with a very old paddle with one end that was broken in half (apparently from a Class V run he had done last month). Rick and Pam were in playboats as well. I prepared myself for a long paddle. Craig and I had done the whole run in under 90 minutes when doing straight paddling. Forrest made it clear he was planning to play, so this was going to be a 3 hour paddle.

The waves were just plain awesome. Nice and big. I sidesurfed a bunch, and one massive one decided to flip me. So, in under two minutes I got to demonstrate the solid roll I had earlier assured Forrest about. That was just the first of many flips that would happen to me today. Man I hate my new gloves. I get no grip on my paddle and I just never get a good brace anymore with them.

My new gloves (Salamander Fleece Lined Otter Paws) that give me no fucking grip.

And on we paddled. I warned everyone about the whole in the center of the bridge (Gorilla Hole) and about the log right after it. Rick, Pam and I steered right of the hole and immediately cut left to avoid the log. Forrest was saying he wanted to get up close and personal to the log so he headed straight at it in the wave train and cut left towards the end of the train, narrowly avoiding the log, but in complete control the whole time. He paddled up to us with a smile on his face.

You missed a good wave train.

I guess I can kind of see how my regular boating buddies might actually see me as Forrest; a plain old crazy kayaker. I think I need to shed that image.

So, on we paddled. We hit another great wave train. I guess it's easier to just say right now that every wave on the river today was big and awesome. Forrest wanted to take Rick and Pam into the cave, but they were having none of that, so on we went. It was rather interesting seeing all of these landmarks in my kayak, when just two weeks ago I was floating by them with my just my paddle in hand and a mission ahead of me.

Now's also a great time to talk to you about rafts.

Holy hell there were a lot of rafts on the river. We must have crossed paths with at least 30 rafts during the day, and I'm sure that I'm actually underestimating.

Okay, I'm done talking about the rafts.

Well, one more thing about them. After I flipped in a different minor wave train (damn you gloves), it took me three roll attempts to get up, as the successive waves kept shoving me back down. When I finally came up, there was a raft full of women towards river right who gave me a grand round of applause. I smiled and nodded and then caught back up with my boating buddies.

Now I'm done talking about the damn rafts.

No, seriously, I am.

So, we pretty much paddled a lot, and eddied out a lot wherever Forrest saw an eddy near something that looked fun to play in. He was the only one who played in most of them (Pam never touched any of the stuff while Rick eventually tried surfing at some of the later spots after Drunkard's).

Well, before we got to Rodeo Hole, we eddy'd to the left for a little break. During that time, Pam mentioned that she had once kayaked with Tao, as had some of her other friends ("Little D" I think she said, and Robert). Robert and Tao apparently ran Boulder Drop at 15,000 and Robert ended up swimming. Tao got Robert and the boat, but the paddle was lost to the river gods. Robert is still apparently quite thankful.

Once Rick, Pam and Forrest were done, off we headed for Rodeo hole. Rick and Pam waited at the end of the wave train while I waited at the bottom of the line and Forrest did a couple runs. One paddler convinced me to give it a go, so I got in line and waited until I got to the top. Once I was next to go, I noticed that my buddies had started paddling on, so I left the line and headed down to meet them. Drunkard's was next.

The order was Forrest with Pam close behind, then Rick, then me. Forrest actually went into Drunkards backwards because he was planning to play in it (holy shit) and he was doing great for one second until Pam was heading straight towards him. He turned around and rode out the wave train while Pam skirted it just shy on the right. Next was Rick who went into the heart of it which I then happily followed. The next couple waves (especially that mystery wave coming in from three different sides all at once) was awesome. I ran that whole section clean (no thanks to those damn gloves though).

Then we came up to "I Love You Dave!" hole. We ended up partying there for about 25 minutes or so, when (thankfully) Pam and Rick expressed their desire to continue (bless their souls) and Forrest ceded the hole and allowed us to continue down the river. I did have one surf attempt though, but I miserably missed the reversal due to a bad starting angle for my ferry and ended up too far river right.

Next up was SnapDragon. It's just a huge wavetrain leading up to Snowblind and it was a complete blast to paddle. When we got to snowblind, Forrest instructed us to take it left as the holes would be too dangerous for us at this level. Not having much faith in my grid today (for good reason), we took the advice and had a nice easy run. I have to say that it actually wasn't as exciting at 7000 as it had been at 5520. We all ran it clean (while Forrest ran it dead center (crazy bastard)).

Well, next up was Granny's. This is where it got confusing. I was pretty sure that Forrest would want to stop and surf Granny's for a while. Hell, he had stopped everywhere else on the river, and Granny's was the best place. So I figured we'd eddy out after the run. But as I was preparing to run the wave train starting river right, into the heart of Granny's, I saw Rick and Pam paddling straight towards the island. I thought that they were paddling to eddy out so then I started paddling over to the left. But then I realized that they were just avoiding Granny's altogether, so back river right I went. I managed to catch onto the beginning of the wave train just in time, and had a great ride. I hit the first main Granny wave head on and it was awesome.

And then it spun me backwards.

I then ran the rest of Granny's backwards.

When i realized what happened, I actually considered trying to surf it. For a very brief moment. Then I realized that was probably a bad idea given my recent lack of success with surfing and my well-known grip issue with my new gloves (damn them). This was further compounded knowing that Suffocator was right up ahead. Realize that all of this thinking happened in about 2 seconds. By the third seconds I was spinning myself around and getting ready for Suffocator. Rick and Pam were running it far left. I headed right into the heart of it.

Wall

of

water.

I smacked into a huge wall of water and it brought my momentum to a complete stop. I thought that for sure I was getting stuck in Suffocator. I was there for a good 2 seconds and then I finally floated out of it, upright. Damn that was cool.

So, to summarize, none of the major rapids flipped me. It was only the stupid eddy lines and smaller wave trains. ugh. DAMN YOU GLOVES.

Well, that was it. We got out and then went on the car run. It was 3:15pm. We had indeed turned the 90 minute run into a nice and short 180 minute run. Ugh, I don't want to go with playboaters again unless I'm in a playboat. Forrest had actually offered to get me a playboat to use for the run today (he apparently knew pretty much everyone there), but I didn't really feel comfortable running the Wenatchee in a boat I had never used before and wasn't comfortable with...especially a boat that would have the propensity to do undesirable things, like flip.

I later called up Craig to get the rundown of what happened. Apparently, he and Wendy found a campsite across the street and had gone back and hung a sign near the start of the other road telling me about it. Well, I never saw the sign as it was pitch black when I got there, and I was just keeping my eyes on the road. They stayed up until 4am or so waiting for me and then finally went to bed. They woke up around 1pm, but didn't really like the way the weather looked. When they finally got in cellphone range and got my voicemail, they decided that I was probably on the water already and they decided to head home. As it turns out, the weather was absolutely beautiful with the exception of a short 10 minute sunshower around 10am and another short one around 2pm.

And that's it folks. Another short visit to the bakery for some "ride-home" food, a visit to the picture place to find that they'd snapped no photos of me, and I was on the road again, for the long, arduous 2.5 hour drive.

I would definitely boat with Forrest, Pam and Rick again. Pam and Rick live about 10 minutes from the Boulder Drop put-in and apparently run the river about three times a week. They told me that I should stop by their restaurant next time I'm out there and they'd definitely be up for a run after 2pm.

I think it's safe to say that I'll be purchasing these NRS Navigator gloves VERY soon. Notice the "Sharkskin raw neoprene palms." These are the type of gloves I used to have and they were wonderfully reliable (until I lost one -- twice).

Photos:

No pictures from today.

Videos:

Last trip destroyed the camcorder and caused me to send back the helmetcam.