THE RAIN HAS COME!!!!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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!

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

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!

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

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