Leavenworth Multisport Weekend-part 2

Shortly after passing beneath the Tumwater Bridge Dan I arrived at the first rapid. We pulled over on river right, and got out of our boats for a quick scout. It only took one look to determine that it was no longer class III. A huge mud and rockslide that occured during the peak of spring meltoff had pinched the river off to half it's previous width. Where there was once a fairly mellow river wide ledge, there was now a significant drop with a huge reversal.

Dan standing on the debris from the slide and pondering the consequenses of missing his line in the now class IV? rapid.

Looking upstream at the rapid.

While the reversal (big white pile right of center) doesen't look that big here, you can't see the trough in front of it. I estimated it's height to be 6-7 ft. Ouch! To give some scale, the guardrail in the background is nearly 20ft above the river.

Had we been in creekboats (instead of tiny playboats) and had a few extra people around to set safety, we may have given it a go. Given the situation however, we decided to portage. Perhaps we will come back when the level is a bit lower and check things out again.

The rest of the run consisted of some fun class II-III+ wave trains and boulder dodging. Nothing too difficult but at this flow (3000cfs) the river really pushed our little boats around.





The bottom half of the last rapid.