I’m sitting in the urgent care facility in Redmond taking care of the consequences of the most bonehead move of my kayaking career. But I get ahead of myself.

We ran the Grays River yesterday. Our crew consisted of separate contingents from Seattle and Portland. I rode down with Horner, Fish and Colorado Nick. The Oregon Rafting Team came up from Portland along with 5 other hardshells. Levels were medium low, about 700 on the Naselle gauge.

The Grays River is awesome. It’s a beautiful canyon on the southern Olympic Peninsula. The rapids are mainly ledge drops with a couple boulder gardens thrown in for variety – mainly pool drop. I won’t give you a blow-by-blow description of the rapids other than to say the guidebooks are no longer accurate about the rating. I’m calling this an easy V, not IV+. This is really one of those rivers that splits the difference between IV+ and V, and I suppose we could argue about it over beers. At medium flows solid class IV boaters will be fine, but this river will be huge at higher flows. Any hike out would be an epic undertaking. Also, there are a couple must-run rapids which were well outside my comfort zone I’m solid class IV, so draw your own conclusions.

As to my accident, the last major rapid (see Rackley’s site or the Holy Book for the name) is a very steep boulder garden funneling into a canyon. It’s one of those drops which falls away to fast to boat scout. Here’s a short synopsis of my road to the urgent care facility.

 

·         I’m paddling a new boat with slightly different performance characteristics than my CFS. It’s a bit faster, so in crux moves I tended to overshoot my target.

·         I didn’t scout the rapid. Hey, Fish was running it blind, what could go wrong?

·         I broach on a rock and flip, then freak out and pull my skirt as my head bounces along the bottom.

So far so good. I am, bar none, one of the best swimmers on the river. Practice makes perfect, right? I quickly get to shore and b

Thanks, James,

Edited by Otter Boy - 03 Feb 2008 at 10:44am

damn dude, that sounds painful

Photo's? Any one want to do up a river description?

Just wanted to add my 2 cents...

The Grays River at 700 was just as described earlier, a low /med flow with great rapids.  The difficulty i believe was sandbagged a bit, superbowl, was a class V- drop, even at a lower flow. (see Brian even i can say that) The rest of the major rapids were class 4.

The groups from Oregon took a while scouting some of the drops, so part of the group, Nick, myself, Scruggs and another guy opted to go out front.  Superbowl and Picnic were must run for the rafts and cats,  as the canyon walls go vertical as you enter the canyon, both are good to go.  Recovery pools wait below most drops, making this run a great run for solid class 4 boaters, just make sure you scout before you realize it's too late and your walled in.

I'll work on getting some of the footy from the OR boys  and post a real TR..


Edited by Fish - 05 Feb 2008 at 9:59am

I'm just back from the doctor. After applying leaches he determined it's just a bad sprain. Guess I lucked out.

Horner provided meds...imagine that.

I learned from the best!  Again, I'm glad I could help!  Maybe someday I'll be hurt and you guys could come through for me!  Safety first!

I am glad everything worked out...and, I can't think of anyone I'd rather have along on a trip to dispense meds than Horner.  He does know his stuff.

Hey, you're the expert. Maybe they've made some advances beyond leaches in the medical field.

Sorry to hear about the mishap on the Grays. I'm another idiot that jumped into a pool and landed on rock. Makes me cringe just to think about someone else doing the same thing. I wish more people would take these as an example of what not to do. I think there are a lot of people that get really lucky with this. I feel I was lucky with a broken kneecap. As you said of yours, it could've been worse.

On the rating of the Grays, both Bennett and Soggy Sneakers rate it the same IV-IV+ with several Class 5 (Super Bowl, Picnic). I think this is accurate. Super Bowl can be portaged without too much difficulty on the left. It's the same route you would take to scout it. There is also a far left line at Super Bowl at most water levels that misses the big hole at the bottom and is not a Class 5 move.

Picnic can be scouted from the left. I've seen it portaged on the left and the right. Basically involves a seal launch into the pool in the gorge.

Broken Paddle can be scouted and portaged on the right. Very easy.

I've seen folks portage all 3 of these drops.

Glad to hear nothing is broken. The Grays is a great run but definitely one to be taken seriously.

pete

Bryon, sorry about the accident.  Hope all heals well quickly.  Wondering... what was that boat you were testing on the Grays?

Yeah, the rocks on the Grays are hard, but not as hard as say Tumwater Canyon.