Last Wednesday when the weather forecasters were calling for a torrential dumping of lowland snow around Seattle I was happy to hear that Dave Moroles was still game for trekking out to the Skykomish for a run – and Rob McKibbin said if we showed up he would have to go, of course.  It turned out to be a great paddle, with not as much snow as forecast but still around a foot at the put-in and around 34 degrees the whole time.

I have to say the gear we have access to these days is just incredible – with six layers stuffed into a Goretex dry suit, a skull cap underneath my helmet and some Glacier Gloves (my absolute favorite), I actually rolled early on just to cool off, and my hands stayed warm the whole time.  I would have a hard time believing that was possible if I didn’t actually experience it.

Anyway, I got a kick out of these pictures of Dave and Rob – pretty classic.  As usual I was reminded of why this is such an incredible area to whitewater kayak in, not just because of the rivers but also because of the amazingly good boaters like these guys who are a blast to paddle with and always encouraging, even if you do completely miss your boof and nosedive directly into Ned’s Needle and then miss your first roll, in a creekboat, for heaven’s sakes, like I did a few days before this.

Speaking of which, Samson Kim, I followed your advice about keeping the blade in the water as you approach the lip of the drop and actually got a decent boof this time around, so thanks!

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.

But a back deck roll seems pretty handy, and even though I know it leaves your face more exposed I think Ken Whiting makes a lot of sense when he says you’re in the water for far less time so overall you can be better off.  Dave Bowman sent me a few good video links, and Samson was nice enough to try to do one in slow motion at the pool.

Here’s the homegrown version:

And here’s a really nice instructional video by Ken Whiting of Paddling.net:

And here’s another really good video, helpful because it shows how you can guide someone through it without a paddle so they get the feel for the move (which is totally strange if you’ve only done regular rolls – I couldn’t even get close to what I was supposed to be doing.)

Paddling.net also has this nice article on the back deck roll.  Let me just say again (as I sit here with a sore shoulder) that Ken Whiting makes a good point about how most kayakers hurt themselves with forward arm movements because paddling tends to build up strength in the back of the arms, not the front – so practicing paddling backwards to offset that is a really good idea.

Recently I got some video there of two really good kayakers, Brad and Samson, practicing their playboating moves.

Here’s Brad, with paddle:

And here’s Brad doing tricks just hand-paddling – this involves putting some extra flotation in his boat.

And here’s Samson, tearing it up:

Both of these guys make it look so easy it’s ridiculous, don’t you think?