Silver Falls: Ohanapecosh river

Silver falls has always been a cool drop to talk about and reflect on Tao's classic quote in Twich V. Something along the lines of how he doesn't like pool to pool falls, which is what he built he career off of. Tomata, Johnstone, etc... Enough of that talk. I really wanted to get up there before the water dropped out so I rallied a crew after a day of Rafting and we all drove North to the Cispus for a camping adventure.

My good Kiwi buddy Sam Sutton had run this falls a week before us and reported a hurt back and a sick drop to huck. I knew that this meant the rapid was stout cuz Sammy can stout with the best of um'. With that in mind 5 of us spent a night in the rain below Mt. Adams, only to wake up, and drive to Packwood still in the rain. Breakfast fired us up for a drive to the Falls we came for.

The view of the falls after 2 hours of driving to get up to Mt. Rainier national park.

A good view of the Silver Falls.

After scouting hard at the long tech. rapid leading hot off this big falls we ran back to the car and through our gear on to go Stouting. Austin who had run this drop years ago at much lower flows knew he could stick it so he fired it up first.

Austin ran the last hole above the 40 well right and ended up far right on the lip almost stopping on the seem curl.

Boofing out off the biggen'.

Pretty flat ready for the impact that took his helmet off his head.

After watching Austin get pushed right at the lip, and get beat down in the room on the right. I knew I was going to run the hole above the drop left and stay center as possible for the freefall. So I ran up top gave a big thumbs up focused hard on the 4stage beast I was about to drop into. Wam!!! I came through the whole rapid with some good lines and stopped everything for a good last stroke off the lip. Perfect... and nice locked up tuck brought me a soft hit as I resurfaced away from the bad room on the right.

Me stomping the line about to take a very soft and awaited hit.

Me staying wide of the nasty river right wall that looked ugly.

Then it was my boy Cheese.

Cheese on the 20 foot sliding seem drop that creates one of the best entrances I have ever run.

"Queso" 40-45 feet up. Sick picture!!!

Boofing right into the room, his line was sick then a slight curler on the unpredictable lip shot him right. Sick picture!!!

Cheese had a solid line through the rapid, got a little stalled up but came off the falls left and got a bit boofed back right. Upon impact he took his paddle to the face/nose. He was all good just blood and some swelling. All of us were fired up on sick lines and one of the best park and hucks out there. This drop was super big and stout but went well for us. I was expecting a lower flow but the rain had the Packwood gauge on a spike that we must have caught for a medium descent of the silver falls.

Later E.G.