Flows From the Northwest

THE RAIN HAS COME!!!!

2008-11-08T14:52:00.000-08:00

Salmon Creek Falls "takeout"

Ben running the right side

Fall Creek non action shot :(

We organized a trip friday because the it had been raining all week and the clubs nemisis Fall Creek was supposed to be running. When we got to the creek it was running but maybe not at the best of flows. We being Me, Rob, Ben and Brendan bashed and pitoned our way down the creek to reveal several very good drops and lots of flatwater. For me Ben and Brennan this was just not enough so we took off to Salmon Creek to run the falls. We put on at dusk and took off at dark we each got one or two runs in. Salmon creek was at around 270 cfs which made the left side of the falls kinda beefy. Ben and Brendan almost got worked over there.
Paxton

A New Year

2008-09-19T16:18:00.000-07:00

The whitewater club will be continuing this year, thanks to ben maren our new advisor. We would like to give him a warm welcome to the club and are looking forward to an exciting year! We will also be taking in new members soon and are looking forward to helping them to get into the wonderful sport of kayaking.

Over the summer some of the members of the club went to the Ottawa River with a program called keeners. The Ottawa was a great experience and the club members got to surf one of the worlds legendary waves, mini bus, they also paddled some of the amazing whitewater on the Gatineau river.

Brice Creek

2008-05-06T21:56:00.000-07:00

This past weekend Tom rounded up volunteers Ben and Josh to come run Brice Creek with Ben(younger)and myself. The flows were great and we put in just below Hop,Skip Splat on Upper Brice, limboed under a log, and were on our way. The first part was fairly uneventful boulder garden fun with a fun drop at the end, right before the bridge. After the bridge Lower Brice Starts and the river takes on a more pool drop nature. As this was my first time down, we stopped and scouted most of the major rapids before we ran them, setting safety after each one. All in all it was a fairly uneventful day ending with a Laura's Thighs run fest, where everyone ran Laura's at least once and a couple of us running it twice. It was around seventy degrees when we took out, making it a rare day on Brice Creek indeed.

Ben(older) dropping Pogo

Tom coming off of Cheese-grater

Ben at the base of Laura's

Hometown Throwdown Fun

2008-04-28T21:41:00.000-07:00

The first Hometown Throwdown was this past Thursday and was super fun. About twenty people with about fifteen boaters overall came to compete and watch three different kayaking comptetitions at echo hollow pool. There was the "flatwater rodeo", " the rolling competition" and the " Big Trick" contest. The flatwater rodeo was basically a competition to see who could throw the most ends in thirty seconds, but Sam Humphrey mixed it up with a flatwater loop and there were lots of style points given liberally to each competitor who did something goofy. After this there was a short break where some shwag was given out and the winners were announced( i got second, sam humphrey got first, and i dont remember who got third-sorry). Then came the rolling competition with points given for quantity, quality and style of roll. Lots of people through down a bunch of great rolls again, some good shwag was given away. Finally, the big trick competition was held and people went out there and threw their best. Sam did another loop and Ed Fredette did a fancy paddle-twirl to swim and my brother and I did sort of group roll, which ended up winning. All in all it was a fun night with a pair of Mion shoes and some sweet Smith shades being given away at the end.
Rob

The Coast

2008-04-20T08:56:00.000-07:00

Last Sunday the club went to the south jetty on the Oregon coast. the surf was pretty good and Quinn manage some great tricks on the waves. the other members of the club were also ripping it up. the weather was not great but the enthusiastic atmosphere made up for it and overall it was a great day. this last Friday members of the club also attended the banff mountain film festival and said the the films were great.

Kayak Film Double Feature

2008-02-19T20:22:00.001-08:00

Next Wednesday (the 27th) the Whitewater Club will be attending and holding a bake sale at the Kayak Film Double Feature here at the U of O. The two films showing are Night of the Living Donkey and The Green Race Movie. It starts at 7 and is in 180 PLC. Hopefully I will have the poster for the event up soon

Neil's session

2008-02-12T19:31:00.001-08:00

Quinn helix on Neil's at 2.8 feet

Hey,
I ran across some photos of us at neil's wave on the McKenzie from last november, thought I'd post them. All photos are courtesy of EJ Etherington, a cool guy and great boater from around corvallis who we keep running into on the water. You can check out his blog at thisriverlife.blogspot.com if you'd like, and check out the photos here: Neil's Pics
The paddlers are: Rob in the orange specialist, Ben in the shooting star, Quinn in the yellow project 52, althea in the 45 with a pink helmet, Solly in the yellow fun, and James in the red all star, who is another great boater out of corvallis.

Peace,
Quinn

Snowyaking

2008-02-12T06:58:00.000-08:00

This past Aunday Quinn,Ben and I headed down into the Umpqua looking for a couple waterfalls that were rumored to be runnable and fun. Unfortunately, we ran into about six feet of snow before we got to the waterfalls, making our waterfalls a bust. We did however manage to get in some snowyaking at Diamond Lake, so the day wasn't a total waste.

Club Elections!

2008-02-05T19:23:00.000-08:00

Today in club we had elections for new positions! Here are the results:

President: Rob
Vice-President: Althea
Transportation Guru: Paxton (He has like three trucks. Why wouldn't we elect him?!?)
Co-Web Masters: Geoffrey and Solly

Web Master is a new position. Basically we make sure the blog is being updated regularly and emails are being sent out to everyone.

~Geoffrey

Winberry Creek

2008-02-05T19:15:00.000-08:00

On Sunday everyone packed up and headed out for a sweet day on Winberry Creek. When we got there, snow was everywhere! On the way up to the put in, we ran into a couple of Tom's friends right below Bloody Elbow, and they warned us of some logs, however they caused us no problems. Before putting in, there was a little pit of snow sledding. Only one minor portage was done around a nasty looking drop, but other than that, it was a great day!

lake creek!

2008-02-02T16:52:00.000-08:00

so today paxton, ben,quinn and i headed up to lake creek. as we were driving over it was snowing but once we went through the tunnel it turned to slushi rain. even thought it was not snowing it was still a cold day. we put on just above ledges anded headed down towards tide. the horn was at a fun level, but the playboating was mildly dissapointing because only grass was in and it was not that good. but there was some good catch on the fly and all in all it was a good day. also a big thanks to julie for driving!!!!!
~althea

More Lake Creek-11.00ft

2008-01-13T20:35:00.000-08:00

Today, Quinn, Ben, Paxton, Althea and myself all headed out to Lake Creek courtesy of Julie, Paxtons mom( thanks!) Lake Creek was in rare form as not only were all three of the eddy-served features in( okay, grassy lawn wasn't great), but it was sunny all day as well. After a warm up on Ledges we ran the horn and caught a few surfs on the end wave before heading down to grassy lawn. For those of you who don't know, grassy is a sweet wave-hole at a bit higher flows, and was a pretty decent hole today. The left shoulder hadn't quite com in but Quinn was stil able to hit some loops in the pile and it was just fun to front surf. Once a large crowd a people came down and started to clog up the eddy we decided to bag it and head down to Mill Wave. Mill Wave is a powerful bowl-shaped wave with a big pile and a nice shoulder(sometimes). I threw a bunch of blunts and Ben and Althea both got huge air and spun it up. Quinn however, wins the prize for best move with an epic pistol flip on surfers right of the wave. AFter about an hour and a half and eight more people in the eddy later, we decided to head on down and see what Redhill had to offer. Redhill turned out to be a great, steep and dynamic v-shaped wave that let me pull off some good blunts, while Quinn pulled off a couple nice pan-ams. Ben got his first blunt and both Paxton and Althea surfed it up, each getting huge air.
Rob
PS-Pics can be found here

Rob(me), going up on mill wave

Quinn, sticking a nice blunt(clean?) on mill wave

Ben,in the middel of a big bounce on Redhill

Lake Creek

2007-12-29T22:05:00.000-08:00

today solly, rob, ben and i headed up to lake creek. aaron, who came to our club first aid day, joined us and took some video. lake creek was at a lower flow ( 10.4ft) so some of the more notable rapids were less ominous than rumored. but the horn was still very notable and i ended up going through part of it upside down, while ben got surfed in one of the wave holes in the horn. grassy was not in but mill wave was at an excelent level and rob was getting some great blunts. there were many other boaters on the river, and we encountered Tom at the put in and on the river. all in all it was a fun day.
~althea

A great day at neils

2007-12-23T18:17:00.000-08:00

Today Paxton and I went up to neils for some surfing. It was raining when we got there and the rain did not let up the whole day. We put in at mom's pies and headed down to neils. There was no one else at neils so we did not have to wait for a turn to surf. Early on it was at an incredibly good level(2.9) and as the day continued the water rose (3.2) and neils became bigger and more dynamic. Paxton ended up getting verticle of the top of the wave (some strange form of a stern squirt) and towards the end he was getting a good deal of bounce. Sadly the blunt still eludes me but I was getting some sick spins and a lot of bounce, so much that a couple of times I ended up spinning in the air!
~althea

Some Cotton Candy Action

2007-12-20T19:22:00.001-08:00

This weekend, Althea, Quinn, Ben and I all headed over to cotton candy for a good morning session. The level was about 10.5(i think), a great level for staying on the wave; it wasn't quite as steep, but there was much more of a retentive pile. Both Quinn and I were getting roundhouses( maybe a blunt or two?) and, although Althea was having trouble at the beginning, by the end she was carving it up. Ben's hands got really cold, so he borrowed my pogies and warmed up on the bank. After while we headed over to 24/7, thinking that it would in, but unfortunately the intake was clogged with leaves and twigs, making 24/7 pretty shallow. Oh well, we still had fun, and both Quinn and Ben took some great pics.......http://www.flickr.com/photos/21995069@N05/page4/.
Rob

Logo-Go Power Rangers

2007-12-18T20:18:00.001-08:00

this is the logo so far. too crazy? think he's enjoying that paddle a little TOO much?

that song is just too much stupid for words.

great video btw rob.

Old footage thrown together

2007-12-17T07:13:00.000-08:00

So, this video is one i made a while back and just recently found, so its going to be a little outdated. Most of it is comprised of my mexico trip and some lake creek sessions.
Rob

Cold but fun day on the Siletz

2007-12-12T21:32:00.000-08:00

This weekends trip was an interesting one. Earlier on in the week, it had been decided that, since we had three volunteers we could split up, one group could go run some solid class four, and the other group could decide on something a bit easier. As the week wore on however, our volunteers quickly disappeared until the morning of, when Dove( Thanks dove!) was the only volunteer who could make it. Still, we managed to salvage a great trip to the Siletz, a coastal river with some fun class two-three and one great class four. It ended up being a long day(sorry Quinn) and we had a few swims( way to stick with it maxgnarr!), but overall it turned out to be a great, more challenging, trip.
rob

PS-Enjoy the vid!(props to barry)

Craft Day at the Whitewater Club

2007-12-05T13:48:00.000-08:00

We had a great time at Craft Day at the weekly meeting this week. I showed how to make a temporary repair to a cracked boat (check out Fix a cracked boat... ), we put together small 1st Aid kits for the backs of our boats, and everyone made themselves a pair of hand paddles cut from broken boats in my yard.

Here is the list of suggested items for a small first aid kit. I got almost all of them into a 1 liter nalgene bottle. Solly then duct-taped a small carabiner to the top of the bottle making an ideal "back-of-the-boat" kit.

5-10 pairs gloves (keeps all that icky stuff off you)
Scissors or multi-tool
10-20 Band-Aids
~ 4 Gauze Pads
Double Antibiotic Ointment (my dog is allergic to the Triple Antibiotic Cream)
2+ cravats (I just cut up our oldest sheet into triangles ~ 4 ft across, then folded and ironned them very small)
Possible Medications: Ibuprofen/Acetaminophen/Aspirin, Benedril or another antihistamine,Any personal meds
** Please check w/a doctor before including ANY medications!
Emergency shelter (I put in 2 garbage bags: 1 for my top and 1 for my bottom)
Zip-ties (between these, the safety pins, and the duct tape you can fix anything)
4+ safety pins
Gorilla tape, wrapped around...
Permanent marker + paper
2+ ziplocks (can be used to irrigate wounds)
Emergen-C or other drink packs
Extra Food (I pick the gnarliest-tasting energy bar possible so you won't eat it in a non-emergency; e.g. peanut PowR Bar)
Lighter + matches (both in a small ziplock)
Firestarter (I use short lengths of bicycle tires)
Headlamp or flashlight (w/extra batteries)

Next week I'll demonstrate how to repair a wrist gasket on a drytop (pretty easy). Hopefully, I'll be able to post step-by-step pictures on how to make your own hand paddles from that broken boat - once he gets a digital camera for Christmas (hint, hint).
- Tom

Salmon Falls!!!

2007-11-12T18:26:00.000-08:00

Today we got to our meeting place at south Eugene high school and realized that we only had two cars that were able to take people and their gear. after some fancy tie-down work from our rob and Aron we crawled into the cars and headed up to fall creek with the intention of running the bedrock section. unfortunately when we got there we realized that there was not nearly enough water to run that section. we discussed other possibilities and eventually decided to head to Salmon Falls. when we got to the falls we put our gear on and began to run laps on the falls. the falls had a nice shut down the left and on the right there was a nice boof. after awhile the cold water and constant drizzle began to wear us down so we headed to oakrige in search of grub. we stopped at a pizza place where Solly and rob managed to make it to the final level of a video game before we had to head back to Eugene. overall the day was another fun trip for the whitewater club!

Logo

2007-11-05T13:34:00.000-08:00

logo thus far.it will look like this, only darker and not pixelated. sorry bout that.
not inked yet, this is just an update.

Vid of the Santiam

2007-11-05T07:07:00.000-08:00

So here's a great video courtesy of Jason.

Club Schedule

2007-11-01T16:58:00.000-07:00

This is the current schedule for the club we plane to have trips on the days listed below

November:

6 water polo!

12 club trip,

13 water polo!

14 parent night

20 water polo!

25 club trip

December:
9 our annual polar bear paddle!
January:
6 club trip
19-24 proposed over night trip to the smith river.
February:
3 club trip
16 club trip
March:
2 club trip
TBA for a spring break trip.
April:
6 club trip
20 club trip
May:
4 safety day
15 club trip

2007-10-30T22:29:00.000-07:00

So, this video is some old footage that was really easy to throw up, its not edited or anything, its really just meant as a test to see of to see if it works.

Club YouTube Account

2007-10-30T18:48:00.000-07:00

At the club meeting today (Tuesday, October 30th) we discussed having a club YouTube account so we could post our videos if we wanted to. I went ahead and made one. Here is the information if you want to post a kayaking video on it.

Account Name: Sehswhitewater
Password: whitewater

I used the sehswhitewater@gmail.com email address when making it. Have fun with that.

Geoff

A Good Fall Day on the Santiam

2007-10-29T17:31:00.000-07:00

Normally I get depressed every time fall comes around; sure it's pretty, but flows in around Eugene slow to a trickle. Fortunately, the WW club was able to start off the year with a great run down the packsaddle section of the Santiam at 3900. None of us had ever run it at this level, but Soggy Sneakers said it was class three at this level so we decided to give it a go. Unlike in the summer when you have to rock dodge and scrape your way down, 3600cfs provides a nice flow through class 2-3 rapids with the occasional surf wave, and one great one( sorry, no picture) that you could walk back to if you really wanted to. The highlight was Spencer's, which, at low water, is a nice hole for looping. That was all covered on Sunday, but a trashy but bouncy wave/hole with great eddy service took its place.
We played there for a while and then headed downstream to Mill City Falls which was a great boof or fun hole to punch, depending what line you took. Overall it was a fun fall trip and good way to start off the year, especially with the low water levels.
Rob