"At Higher Water..."

For over a year, I've been hearing everything about the Wenatchee River described in relation to the phrase "At higher water." This is because last season, the river was only a tiny trickle compared to its normal flow. We had no snow, therefore, no river. This winter, however, we had 124% of the normal snow pack, meaning there will be 124% river.

This weekend, I finally got to see a bit of "At higher water" myself. I saw the river run at 7500 cfs (cubic feet per second) compared to last weekend's 3200 cfs. Meaning, that at any given point in the river, twice as much water was flowing past that point this weekend as there was last weekend. This results, obviously, in a much bigger, faster river.

I held my own on the rapids, finding them fun and easy to navigate with my crew...certainly much more exciting to hit than the mini-waves I've been working on for the last year.

Probably the most ridiculous of all possible moments for me was on a rapid called "Rock and Roll." It's a rather long Class III, with two very-important-to-avoid boat-eating waves called "Holes." (The most menacing of which is called "The Devil's Eyeball." Not a very friendly wave, eh?) I was coming through Rock and Roll not in a raft, but in a one-man inflatable kayak...meaning...I had lots of maneuverability but very little momentum...also meaning that there was very little cushion between me and the 10 foot swells I was tackling in such a small boat.

I managed to make my first turn well and clearly avoided "The Devil's Eyeball," only to watch another trainee head straight towards it. To his dismay and mine, I watched as his kayak overturned and he swam the eyeball and then headed 500 feet downstream towards the second man-eating wave. By this time, I was preoccupied with maneuvering myself safely downstream, so I could do nothing but watch my friend swim. I plowed over and across the series of waves leading me downstream and successfully avoided the second big hole, which, from my vantage point on the left side of it, looked to be several stories tall with the power to immerse entire archipelegos. I suppose it was only 6-10 feet tall, but it felt enormous as I watched it from my little kayak. My friend was not so fortunate and went straight through it! Gah! I was in shock! He bobbed under for a second, and before I could reach to blow my whistle, he popped out downstream, a bit cold, wet, and unharmed.

So. At higher water is a remarkably interesting thing...fortunately maneuvering the rapids in a kayak was only a training exercise, and it was overall much less intimidating to tackle the big rapids with a hefty crew and a big boat.

Later in the day, I successfully flipped a boat back over during "Boat Flip Practice," and was really most excited about the fact that I somehow pulled myself back into the righted boat after I flipped it over.

In two weeks, I will be paddling a boat down full of Arlington junior highers down the river. It will certainly be an experience... Wenatchee Season, here we come! Woo woo!