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 Has anyone seen the borrowed paddle I lost on Rock Creek, Washington? New
- Forum: BoaterTalk
Date: May 26 2008, 20:26 GMT
From: JimWarlick
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You'll love this...
I was in there with a buddy last week. Group of two. Anyway, the rapids on the river are pretty much continuous with no pools to speak of. Note: no place for a solo paddler to recover gear as he chases it.
Well, we were walking around a downed tree. I was going to use my flip line to lower my boat down some rocks to the river's edge. So, I pushed my boat off the edge and saw it drop into the water, skim out, and blow right down stream. I didn't clip my boat to the flip line. My partner got in and chased my boat down to a blind bend in the river with class III cliffed in on both sides. He pulled over and let the boat go so he didn't drop through the cliffed area without me. With my boat gone, I was also cliffed in. The only way to get to a place to get up out of the river was to swim. The line I had to swim had some eddies and ferries I would have to make to not get all chunked through rubble. The only way I could do it was to let go of my paddle. I chucked my paddle into the main current and jumped in. As I got down to my buddie, he had not seen the paddle go by and we had to call it lost. Too bad since it was a loaner.
We decided to not split up and hike out together. We were cliffed into the canyon and had to lead climb clipping saplings up the classic 90 deg steep intermittent cliffs/mank/moss/rubble to get out. Pretty sketch, but on belay. So, now I see what that loop on the front of the astral rescue vest is for. That was the most brutal river escape I think I've seen, it took us a few hours to climb about 1000 vert to the canyon rim. This made us late for my partner's girlfriend's birthday party. Ouch. She was really nice about it though.
The subsequent gear retrieval of getting his boat out, finding and getting my boat out, and looking for the paddle took three afternoons of hiking. Best kayaking exercise I've had yet.
The northwest has a level of ruggedness, isolation, and depth combined with high flow volumes that I have never seen. I liken every trip to being more isolated like red creek or otter creek in WV. Even roadside means cliffs and long climbs to get out and the continuous nature of the water combined with high volumes makes gear chasing pretty hard.
If anyone has been in rock creek and found the loaner paddle, a yellow bladed lightning, I'd like to get it.
Take it easy....Jim Warlick
warlickone@hotmail.com
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- oh, dear, what a day. Maybe you'll get it back. BLUEEZ New
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