Hello,

Myself and a friend from the northeast will be coming up to Washington (from portland) and would love to run something in the class III-IV+ range. We're looking at lower icicle, skykomish, sauk, NF Nooksack, Sultan, or any other suggestions. If you've got a trip planned or wouldnt mind showing some out of towners down some of these we'd really appreciate it.

Thanks,
Andrew (231-357-3406)
awskitc@gmail.com

Yup. All natural runoff, so most of the water is gone.

Make sure you swing through the White Salmon zone from Portland. It tends to retain options later than most stuff and the main stretch that gets rafted commercially should still be good fun. Run Hussum Falls.

The Skykomish is reliably boatable almost every day out of every year, even if it is low as Irene pointed out.

Tumwater Canyon on the Wenatchee is holding great water. But even at its lowest flows it is on the stout end of "Class IV", and for the most part more widely regarded as a class V run until it gets below 1000 cfs. The last two rapids are class V at any flow.

Other than that, not really sure anything else has water in it. Absolutely hit the White Salmon tho. It is simply a treasure trove as far as a river running experience. Very, very beautiful.

Generally speaking the S. Fork Sky holds more water, and thus is used as a put in this time of year. Put in above Cable Drop. You take the dirt road right next to the HWY 2 bridge that crosses the Sky at the confluence. You can also put in at the confluence itself right there at the bridge but that will shorten your run. People start to do that more as the water drops below 1000cfs.

All details are on the rivers page for the sky...

Glad you are gettin your white salmon on. It is a must-paddle if visiting Washington. In fact, I'm always surprised to find out about Seattle boaters who've been living here for years and yet still have never run this incredible river

Edited by jP - 25 Jul 2013 at 10:03am

Definitely do the Sky. It's easily one of the most fun III-IV runs I've done west of the Mississippi. Even at last weekend's low(they were fine) flows, there were tons of super sweet slalom moves, dynamic eddys, attainments, rock spins on smooth boulders, and ferries. Plus, Boulder drop is awesome. Multiple lines with tons of edds to catch, boofs to make, and you can even practice your portaging technique will heading upstream to run laps on it. It's short, but it's seriously beautiful and fun and is at a great level for training for harder runs.

Was great running the Nooksak with you guys! It was fun watching you both totally style SAT. My other crew showed up at 4 so the timing was perfect. It was a lot less terrifying the second time down. Hope to see you on the river again!