The funny part about this day is that the point was for me, Dave Moroles and Charles Graves to run Upper Icicle down to Ricochet or the Sieve with Rob and Sam, and then somehow we decided that after watching these guys run the Wall we would run the in-between sections of Tumwater first (skipping Chaos and POW), kind of as an afterthought.

Note to self:  Running anything in Tumwater at 4900 cfs is not in the ‘afterthought’ category, at least not for me.   It’s a good example of how sometimes things just escalate.

Anyway, not long after this video was taken Dave, Charles and I were putting in below the Dam.  Rob, Sam and Darren were a few minutes ahead of us, and Dave was looking a bit grim, understandably – he was in a playboat, and the highest I’ve done Tumwater is 1850 cfs.  Not surprisingly, about 7 seconds after getting on the water (and maybe 12 seconds after telling Dave in a chirpy little voice, ‘Everything’s going to be fine!’), I was upside down in Dam rapid taking what felt like mallet hits to my helmet.  I think I could have rolled up anyway because I’ve rolled up after some pretty massive hits before, but suddenly my paddle hit a rock and the next thing I know it was in two pieces in my hands.  It was a bit like, ‘Hmmm, never done this before’.

I didn’t try rolling up with half a paddle (although I realize now that’s a great thing to practice), so I got to swim pretty much all of Dam rapid – not recommended!  I was really fortunate to walk away with just some major leg bruises because the water is really fast and super shallow at the top – it turns out Darren had flipped there too and taken some major clonks before rolling up.

Anyway, once all the excitement was over (thanks to Dave for retrieving my boat, and Charles for making a solo run down part of Tumwater looking for my paddle that he didn’t know was broken) we ran Icicle from RV down to Ricochet (I walked Limbo, being pretty much topped out on adrenaline for the day) and Charles got this cool video of me, Sam, Dave and Rob running Roadside Attraction rapid.

This drop is rated a V on the Professor Paddle page, Charles says it’s actually less than that (depending on flow, of course) because the lead-in is not complicated and it’s not a super-technical drop.  What I know for sure is, really good Class V boaters like Marco and Darren make everything look easy, and given the right circumstances I could make this look like a Class VI.   But I’d still love to try it.

Thanks to Charles Graves for filming this!  (Due to having to skip the paddle after tweaking his back out getting stuck in a hole for 30 seconds on Tumwater that morning looking for my paddle that broke in half and resulted in my swim through Dam rapid – ouch! But that’s another blog post….)

Anyway, Sam’s in the lead, I’m in the blue and white boat that flips (huge surprise) followed by Rob in the red playboat and then Dave.  Notice how I completely don’t paddle going into that drop that flips me, and then you can hardly see it but after I roll up I do the next drop backwards.  Which surprisingly often works out pretty well – I’ve done it enough times that I’m telling Rob my goal is to eventually do all of Tumwater backwards.  And now maybe Icicle too.   Anyway, first time on Icicle and it was definitely a stretch for my skill level but it was a blast and I would love to do it again, as scary as it was.  (If you haven’t done it yet, it’s definitely a lesson in the ‘it’s bigger than it looks from the road’ department.)

P.S. I should mention that we put in at RV and I walked Limbo and took out at Ricochet.  Then Sam broke HIS paddle on Son of Ricochet.  It was just one of those days when things break, I guess!  Also, this was 875 cfs on the Professor Paddle virtual Icicle gauge.

This one talks about boofing in general:

Here’s one that talks about how to boof into an eddy:

There’s more on their Vimeo page, here’s a link to all of the Whitewater Instruction videos on Vimeo.

If anyone’s planning on heading out there to watch it should be fun, the race will probably start around 10:30-ish 1 pm-ish (pushed back because flows were too high in the morning, if in doubt check Professor Paddle) and a good viewing point is supposed to be just after the first railroad tunnel on the Robe Historical Trail, about a 1.5 mile hike in I think.

I’ll take the opportunity here to also give Dave credit for being an all-around great guy to boat with - super-competent kayaker, and “We’re in no hurry here” is the typical response to me scrabbling around last minute in my gear bag for gloves or dog food when a lot of people are getting into their boats and getting ready to paddle.

I can’t say someone like me can pick a whole lot of actual how-tos out of here, but there are some pretty amazing moves that are worth watching, (plus, not to mention, of the type that can keep you alive when you’re creeking) - and, of course, the obligatory decent song.

Full-screen mode might give a better view since it’s not zoomed in (long story involving a stolen laptop – aargh) but either way you get the drift.  Another great day on the river!

Here’s me and Jason Conlon going through:

Here’s Samson going through the Needle, not Ned’s.  At 2000 cfs it’s really sticky but the more right-to-left line that he takes appears to work well, Charles has said the same thing but a lot of people seem to go left-to-right (I’ve seen good boaters flailing paddles when levels are sticky):

And here’s Adrian going through Ned’s Needle:

Thanks Dave, for taking the videos!  It was an awesome day on the Skykomish, we are so fortunate to have such an interesting Class IV rapid less than an hour from Seattle.

Here’s the link to the Nantahala water boof blog post and video.

Update:  After I posted this Claire told me that not only is this the video that taught her the boof, but when she does this boof now the song from the video actually plays in her head.  Too funny.