Today we did both the White Salmon and the Hood River. There was a morning session with rafts that featured heroic runs of Husum Falls at 4 ft. Tomorrow Adam will be working his first commercial trip on the White Salmon for Wet Planet.

After work we did playboat run down the Hood River into town. This is quickly becoming a favorite for it’s easy shuttle (obviously), it’s play-a-bility, and the occasional glimpse of Mount Hood from the river. After doing both runs today, we decided the Hood River was more fun in a kayak.

We paddled the White Salmon today at 4.5 ft on the gauge below Husum Falls and 6.5 ft on the internet gauge. At put-in we were told about a new river wide tree in the first mile of the run.

There was a pretty nasty river wide tree below Sawtooth Rapid and above Grasshopper Rapid. At the flow we did it at you could carefully paddle over the log on the far right side, but it would be sketchy at lower flows. I won’t go back to do that run unless the water is higher or the log is removed.

Today we ran the Dee to Tucker section of the Hood River with a couple of rafts and our new friend Amy in a safety kayak. We put in on the East Fork of the Hood River and ran that for a mile or so down the confluence with the West Fork, which was beautiful.

The East Fork was pretty narrow and continuous which made it fun. Once we hit the West Fork, the action eased up for a while and Geoff was claiming that he could (and was going to) duckie this run. His attitude changed a bit after some of the more exciting rapids near the end. We took out at Tucker Bridge where the gauge read five feet which Amy said was a medium-high flow.

Today we drove to Washington for our first run on the White Salmon. We did the normal run that starts at a place called BZ Corner and takes out at a bridge below Husum Falls. The commercial companies do runs that put in above and take out below where we did, but we think we did the best part of the run.

We think we did the run at about 3 feet on the gauge. At this flow, whitewater starts off with fun, continuous rapids and some meaty drops. The tight gorge and beautiful forest make for some prettty nice scenery. We were most impressed by the fun roller coaster boat ramp down to put-in.

At the end, we decided to run Husum Falls. This isn’t like Tappan “Falls” on the Middle Fork or Black Bar “Falls” on the Rogue, it’s a legitimate 14 foot waterfall that is run by some commercial companies. Big fun.

This morning we woke up early and paddled the three miles below some dam on the Hood River and took out in town. We like to think that we did the post-flood first decent of this mighty stretch of river. We heard someone did the run later in the day, and we’re stoked to have beaten them. First D, baby!

The flow was about 2500 cfs and the river was a muddy brown. We were all impressed by the continuous nature of the run and the fun rapids. We thought the river was Class III, but very continuous at these flows so near Class IV.

There was a sketchy part near the end where the sediment had filled in the riverbed below a railroad bridge. Just above this railroad bridge is a rapid that runs up against a wall on the left bank. Below here, the river has a weird feel to it and it funnels down towards a railroad bridge. It was tough to eddy out above the bridge on the right and it would have been scary to run under it. Luckily we all were able to get out and portage on the right hand bank.

The drive from the take-out to Adam and Hata’s place was clocked at four minutes which made us all extremely happy.