Just another week in Hood River

Arriving a few days before the Little White Salmon race I was stoked to get on some new whitewater and rivers for once so that was my goal on this little viaje. Day 1; I met up with Ryan Lucas a good Kiwi buddy from last season and my boys the Wells, Mr. Zunders, Fry and Ollin from Bozeman. We hit Summit creek's skate park drop and got some good footage and pics from that day...I was pretty worked from arriving at 9am after the all night drive from Eastern BC.

Todd Well on another laps off his baby...he was the one who found this beast and showed the world that skate boarding and kayaking do have some things in common.

Ryan bombing off the Skate Park drop of Summit creek.

The next day I got the chance to get on a totally new creek...Little Goose Creek, or Kenobi Gorge as us kayakers know it. This run was an experience to say the least. We put in at a bridge which is always nice then entered about an hour or two of portaging and manking down some very low volume woody sections before the creek turned bedrock. Once it did Kenobi rewarded us with some excellent drops including a 40 foot slide, cool boofs, and a very committing and clean gorge. Overall a good option if the water is high and you have already done most of what there is to offer in the CRG.

Erik Johnson, Mr. Zunders, running the crux of Kenobi Gorge!

The next day was the LWS race. I was stoked to race one of the best and my favorite rivers in the world! The last time I was there for a L-dub race in 2008 I hurt my shoulder on Metlako and couldn't race. So this time I wanted to rage it! Unluckily I didn't do so well, it was team races and the teamwork wasn't quite on for me on this day. But Congrats to Lane and Louis for winning the race and going faster than everybody else...they got $200! Not too bad for a local 20 person race...

Ryan running Spirit Falls on the LWS...it is even stouter now due to new wood blocking the Chaos channel making a SYPHON!

Next up was Upper Lewis Falls. I have run this one quite a few times now and going back is always a bit of a push for me, but I do love it! The run starts off with one of the best 20 foot boofs ever...lots of volume and a big slide below makes for a good warm up. Then the double tiered 60 foot Upper Lewis is next. The hardest part of the drop is lining up and boofing off the right part of the lip...challenging if you are confronted with the task. 6 of us ran it and 6 of us had good lines, that is a lot of action for how big and gnarly this drop really is.

Todd Wells going for a good line off the uber stout Upper Lewis.

Some warm up laps on the Truss and LW buttered out sourdough for another run off Metlako falls. We had medium low flows but still went for it. Some of the best lines I have ever seen off of this beast. We killed shots and Sam browned the 80 footer giving him the world record biggest brown...ever.

Mr. Lucas the kiwi bombing off Metlako falls with his paddle high above his head.

Run # 7 if me...how many more times? Well..its just always so good.

This wrapped up our week in Hood River...the water levels were doing some funny things so we decided to bounce out and come back when some of the lower water options came back in. A quick call from Fred Norquist changed our plans and sent us on an overnighter north bound to Bellingham. More updates to come soon. To see all the footage stay tuned for the 2nd Monthly Episode of BFTV coming soon...

Later E.G.