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.

Leavenworth Multisport Weekend-Part 1

After a busy week at work Gloria and I decided to head over to the cabin on Friday evening in anticipation of a weekend of fun.

We woke up early Saturday morning and drove down to Icicle Canyon for a bit of climbing. We had not been on the rock in a while so our objective would involve some fairly easy single pitch climbs at a small crag know as Sam Hill.

After a half hour approach we were at the base of the fisr climb on the agenda, Sam's and Cam's, a 75 ft. traditional climb rated 5.7. I led the route first with Gloria toproping it soon after.

Gloria near the base (top) and nearing the top (above).

After one more climb we headed back down to the car to meet Dan Ruiz for some afternoon paddling.

While Gloria went back to the cabin to see her brother and make some dinner (Thanks G), Dan and I headed to the town of Plain to put in on the Wenatchee River.
This stretch of the Wenatchee is very mellow (nothing harder than class II) but offered some great scenery through an undeveloped area.
Near the end of the run we came across two sandstone shelves that created a fun little surf wave. While the wave is small at this level it might be worth checking out again when the river is a bit higher.

Dan surfing the wave.

Nice scenery.

A short time after leaving the wave we passed under the highway 2 bridge at the entrance to Tumwater Canyon. From here down the river starts to pick up with a few miles of class III paddling (so we thought) before things get really difficult. Our plan was to take out just before the notoriously difficult class V lower section.

-continued in part 2