I think the Upper Wind Race is the 24th, so if you make that your first stop you won't have to do a bike shuttle. And I hear that there is free beer...

Y'all stay away!  All this powder, beautiful whitewater and beer is "ours"! 

Liquidguy told me you guys were coming out here. We may still try to rally and boat with you guys if we can swing it. I'm gonna remind him again. Maybe we can help with shuttle for some stuff. Josh, I've met you in Crested Butte before I believe.

Dood! you're going to love the PNW! Sounds like you are designating Portland as your trip epicenter.

-Canyon creek is pretty good, though it is short and the rapids are fairly simple. However, it would be a great into to PNW boating- beautiful canyons, usually a good crowd, easy access, lots of info. There is actually a good right-side line on toby's. You enter the far-right slot and fade off the left side of the big boulder that all the water is pilling onto. Make sure you land flat though! Best/Hardest line on the river.

-EF Lewis will be a cakewalk for you; beautiful though. You could probably do this and CC in a day. Alternatively, you could do this one and copper in a day as well if the levels are right. Personally, I think Copper is one of the coolest, most beautiful basalt canyons around, and the drops on it are WAY better than ANY of the drops on Canyon, despite what anyone says. However, the access issues are real and serious. This one is going to be very level-dependent, since the last drop of the committing final five gorge has a stomping hole at any flow. I would say a good flow to combine EF and copper would be something like 2100-2200 on the EF gauge, dropping after a storm without any spikes or anything. I went into Copper one time at around 3000 EF gauge and while I didn't scratch down it, we portaged the final five. pointless.

-Upper wind is a great run, and a good columbia gorge class IV run. It starts out awesome and then the rapids disappear, but it is still quite scenic. It should be in almost certainly. I would say 5-6 feet on the gauge would be class IV flow, while 7.5 feet on the gauge is a class-V-whatever-you-do-don't-swim flow.

-Pharmlands is supposedly good with caution, and I would highly recommend it if you can't get on the Truss, which is quite probable. Beautiful canyons, cool Truss-like rapids, a couple of good harder drops, and a lot of flatwater. I haven't been in since the storm, but supposedly it is managable with caution.

-Opal is the awesome, Oregon class IV version of the Ohanepecosh. Supposedly the takeout road at 3 pools is washed out, so you may have to hike up that which would be athletic, but doable I think. Check the snow level before you go, as the access road could be snowed out, though it will likely be open. Basically, you drive to a trailhead on the only road up the canyon and then hike 0.5 miles in on the only trail and take a right. You will see a small, defunct gold mine on your right, and this is where you put in. Be careful until you are past the class V drop. I don't think this one is wooded out, but be careful anyway. going in about 1200 on the gauge is going to make the canyon a lot more pleasant, though the class V waterfall will have a big hole. About 1500 on the gauge and you can run an upper, harder 1.5 mile section above the normal put-in. I haven't run the canyon, but supposedly it is good lower.

-As for the little white, sounds like you may want to stay off of it. Since you said you are a IV/V boater, I think it may be more than you want to bite off, especially since it will likely be relatively high while you are here (3.6 ' or greater). You can hike into part of getting busy and see for yourself, though.

-Hagen /NF Washougal is a great run for a competent class IV-V boater. The hagen part is short, but it has a great mini-OBJ slide on it. The NF part is cool too. T After hagen dumps into the NF there will be lots of IV boogie and two bigger drops. Teakettle (which comes up IMMEDIATELY after the confluence) is fun, and the crack is one of my favorite drops in the PNW, although you will want to be sure you don't blunder into it; you can eddy out on the left and scout the obvious horizon line. If you run it, I recommend floating down below the normal takeout, as it is gorgeous and has some cool rapids. There is a mandatory portage early on though, maybe within the first quarter of a mile. Eddy out on the left and space out. This entire run will probably be good when everything else is too high.

-I would also suggest doing Panther creek if the wind gets high (~7.5+). It is an awesome continuous creek that drops at ~250 ft/mile and has the exact same geology of gettin' busy on the little white, only it is continuous class IV/V. I don't know if it is free of logs, but I suspect it is since the Wind is so clean. but Oregon Kayaking has a good writeup of this one as well. Steep creek + big water + throw and go portage. It also has a gauge on https://fortress.wa.gov/ecy/wrx/wrx/flows/station.asp?sta=29G060   .

-DEFINTELY do the Greys. Actually, I sort of prefer this one to CC lewis. Good boulder gardens with three bigger rapids set in a canyon, only 1.5 hours from Portland. There is a direct gauge here https://fortress.wa.gov/ecy/wrx/wrx/flows/station.asp?sta=25B060#block2) though some people use the Naselle gauge as a proxy. On the direct gauge, I think between 1200-1500 should be alright. The section of the Greys that you run is a bit upstream of this, and a significant portion of this flow comes from another sizeable trib.

Anyway, that's my $0.02 on the Portland area. Clearly, there is a TON of stuff to run in the NW. I paddle quite a bit in CO back in the day, and loved it! Hope y'all have a good time here.
Shoot me an email (w.matt.horton@gmail.com) if you want any more info.

for whatever thats worth, maybe nothing!