Upper Wind, Washington, Trip Report
July 31, 2010

Trip Report by Brent Davis.

Bruce Reed (hardshell), Doug Smith and I (IKs) paddled the Upper Wind yesterday @ 2.77 ft. (phone gauge). The hydraulics were mellow and we had to pick our way down the entire run, criss-crossing the channel to find boatwide slots, but we managed to run, scoot, and bounce through the entire section without a portage. We've got plenty of new scratches on the bottoms and sides of our boats. There were lots of fun, fast strings of 2-3 ft. drops, demanding continuous technical paddling, broken by eddys and small pools to re-group and pick the line through the next drop. Rams Horn and Climax were still serious business, but we all hit clean lines. It took 5 hrs to finish the run with about 5 scouts and a lunch stop.

My newer Lynx seemed to have a bit of a deeper draft than Doug's older Lynx (which has bigger tubes), so I was stuck more often (including a few good wraps), but if a bounce or a scoot couldn't get the boat free, it was safe to just climb out, stand in the river and sort things out.

All in all it was a great day in a beautiful canyon. I'd do it again (next year) but maybe try to hit it at 3 ft.

We pulled 2 intact oars off the bottom of the river. We left a blue Carslile with a 6" red blade with the name "Doug Green" written on it on the right bank below Balls to the Wall Right (Doug dove down about 7 ft. to bring that one up) and a blue cataract with a magnum blade and a Posi-Locker sleave on the left bank below Balls to the Wall left.

Eventually I'll get a video together, but for now here's a couple of photos...

Canyon Full of Rocks

Doug Paddling