Take Me to the River

This post has no pictures to prove it really happened due to my thinking ahead that any electronics were gong to mix with water.  So you’ll have to take my word for it that this is all true, give or take……

 

It was the annual boy’s campout weekend at my friend’s property down the mountain from me. By boys, I mean fully grown adult men that don’t get out much. Never a good recipe for Rest and Relaxation. The recipe ingredients were Beer drinking, rum drinks and an artery clogging amount of grilled meat. 

There was a side effort of couch jousting on a zip line but luckily, we never got the second couch hooked up.

The main effort was a trip down the Yakima river. No one in the group had been on the chosen section of the river so we really had no idea what we were in for. 

The morning after a surprise and thoroughly soaking rain storm, we found ourselves at the launch site about 11 miles up the highway from town. The river winds through the valley so the actual distance was much further, MUCH further than anyone expected. This was evidenced by the fact that we brought only beer. No water, no food, or even enough float vests, just two full beer coolers and bungie cords to secure them to the 2 person ride on top kayaks. One of the more responsible floaters, not me, us stopped by a nearby Quick Stop and hauled back a gallon of water for each of the 4 boats.

I think the Forest ranger that stopped by at the launch site had an idea that this motley crew of would be adventure seekers would be best sent straight to the pub, high and dry rather than bob down the fast moving, almost overflowing river that day. But that would be a smart, sensible grown-up decision. Not really a boy’s campout weekend thing. The ranger kept us company while we waited. We tried to hide the fact that we had no idea what we were doing and shuffled around in the hopes he would lose count of kayakers versus available vests. I can tell he knew we were idiots but preventing stupid was not an effort he seemed to want to take on and left us to our own devices.

So we sat on the river bank waiting for the cars to be shuttled to the end. Two attractive women casually paddled by which buoyed our spirits for the day’s possibilities. Once the cars were all shuttled and everyone was at the launch pad, we had one last (ok, only) planning meeting and a few beers were cracked. The main goal was to not get separated. A plan that clearly lost relevance in the first 30 seconds.

The one guy who had never kayaked and no life vest got the single kayak. As soon as Frank got in, the river the current took him into a down tree and he was stuck and getting sucked under. The other kayaks were already in the fast current and couldn’t get back to him.

In the meantime, My co-kayaker, Tim (the responsible one) and I parked our kayak on a bend a few hundred yards down the and waited. By parked, I mean that the kayak flipped in a cross current and we fought our way to shore. 20 minutes later, the kayak floated by upside down. We tried to walk up the river but the water was too deep and fast to get more than a few feet off of shore before getting knocked over. Ultimately, I stealthily serpentined through the yards of the No Trespassing signed back yards in gun country. I got to a main road and walked back to a bridge where the others had beached their kayaks. It was someone’s backyard. The owners were having an anniversary party and were a bit uptight about the loitering kayakers until they learned that one was missing.

They ended up calling 911 to get help when they saw the kayak float by too. The ranger that we met earlier responded. It turns out, Frank was able to get out of the kayak before it got sucked under the log and drowned him. I wasn’t there so I can’t say how the conversation went but I assume it wasn’t a fun chat. In the end, Frank got a free ride back to town. I think he had the better day….

The rest of us, we were in it for the duration.

Once the others caught up with us, we stored the flipped kayak in the bushes, thinking we might come back for it and set out again.

The remote location mixed with all the water made for pretty limited cell phone usage. We were now 3 boats and there was one somewhere ahead.

We were working our way down the river, working hard to avoid getting into rapids that we couldn’t see past. We didn’t know the river and with the horror stories of the log jams, we did our best to avoid them. There was a fork in the river that we paddled hard to get to when we saw past the other option. Fast water running through what looked like a log jam. The fork we took got narrower and shallower as we progressed. I was happy with that since I had shoes. It seems that it was a flood creek to handle river overflow after rains like the previous night. Definitely not navigable. We paddled on until we saw the remains of the previous rafters in a log jam. Not their actual bodies, but ripped up rafts, busted coolers, single flip flops and other bits of a not so fun day on the river.

We couldn’t get past the log jam in the water. We had to portage the kayaks and of course the beer coolers over unstable rotting logs, and through a small forest before we caught up with the other fork of the river.

We hopped in again and were able to catch up with the 2 kayakers that got ahead.

The next few hours were relatively calm, still fast water and a lot of work to keep from tipping but the river was pretty wide. We paddled through some nice little riverfront cabin communities that I would have willingly called it a day at but no one invited so on we paddled.

 

We entered another remote stretch of river and the riversides started closing in, the water moving faster and more log jams. For whatever reason, it seemed like every fast current went straight in to a down tree. As hard as we paddled, we could avoid them. Sometimes we could lean waaaay back and float underneath, or just ram them and hope the bent or broke. That turned out to be even more of a bad idea than it sounds. More often than not, the boat would flip and we would get stuck under the log until the other could walk over ad pull us out. That is how hard the water is flowing, once your legs get under the log, there is not enough muscle and leverage to pull yourself out. You either have to go under and hope you don’t get stuck under or someone with leverage pulls you out. After about the 3^rd time of that, I was done. Except the river wasn’t. The pull out point was still hours away.

There were a few more tips due to fast cross currents, The water was strangely warm and that says something coming from the water temp pansy that I am. I was still getting hypothermic. Paddling helped to stay warm but Tim said he never saw someone’s teeth chattering on a 70 degree day.

We were all tired and getting grumpy, sounding like a bunch of annoying kids asking are we there yet every 30 seconds. It was a little concerning that it didn’t seem like our leader knew exactly where the pull out was.

Cheeriness returned when the final turn arrived as he pointed us to the boat ramp. It didn’t last long because there was a rush of water from an overflowing steam running right along the river bank. One of the boats made a fast run at it at just barely made ground but tip on landing and prevented the others from doing the same thing. We however were already committed and couldn’t stop. The cross current caught us and we flipped. The high bank was muddy and slippery. Tim’s first attempt was successful. I was able to grab a strongly rooted weed, but couldn’t pull myself out, I fell back in and continued to get sucked down the river. I grabbed a root again and hung on. That was my last option. I could see that the next stop was a log jam and there wasn’t going to be anyone to pull me out. This time the root held and after dangling there for 3 or 4 minutes, I pulled myself out.

We dragged the kayak back through the woods and a neighborhood to get to the launch pad. Scraped up, wet, cold and tired, the day was done.

Except for that lost kayak that was still sitting in the bushes somewhere it was a successful 23 miles and about 7 hours of effort. Assuming success is judged by low body count. 

Since I was the one that went for a stroll through the neighborhood earlier and the only one not drinking all day, I volunteered to go collect it. It took a while and it was dark before I found it. Good thing I am a non-threatening old white guy or there might have been another visit from the ranger or worse. I tied it to the roof and headed back to camp. Went straight to bed. The others pushed through the fatigue and partied on but I was happy to just shut down.