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.

We arrived in Hood River last week in time to be a part of the biggest flood anyone can remember with the Hood River near it’s banks, with dark brown water, and huge trees floating down. By the afternoon, the Columbia had a huge debris field just below the confluence with the Hood River.

Adam and Hata went to go check out the White Salmon. Where they “got to watch 30 f*$&# foot longs surf Big Brother. [They] also got to watch the upstream dam spill.” We then joined kayak water polo at the pool.