WHITE BUFFALO!!!!

HAGEN GORGE,

LACAMAS CREEK

AND

5-0 WAVE

Last week, Christina and I decided we needed to get out of Bend to do some creeking. It had rained almost everyday during the week, and the rivers were going off! Most were too high (read: lots of water and lots of wood- bad combo). Since this was the case, we settled on going
North to Hood River where things were good to go!

Friday:

We left Friday after my Economics class (b- o -r- i -n- g: only my professor talks like
Ben Stiller from Dodgeball so that is always slightly entertaining-hahah), and drove 55 mph exactly to the Hood. Yeah... we are going for gas mileage lately, and surprisingly, with four boats on the top of the car, we got about 17 mpg! Not bad for the Cruiser!

We arrived in the super good smelling Hood River (tons of rain=most awesome smell in the world besides green apple shampoo- yes they do make this kind of shampoo, and it rocks-- pretty much everyone should be usin' it). Anywhoo, we grabbed a pizza slice and set off to find a place to stay. We had kind of figured we could crash at a friend’s place, but one was out of town, and the other had family over, and everyone else we couldn’t get a hold of. Sweet. We decided to crash in the car in a parking lot, but decided hell, let’s get a motel room… let’s go plush for a night. So we did… or at least tried to.

We went to Riverview Motel, got Room 24, walked in, and…….. TOTAL sex bed. Cigarette butts on the floor, gnarliness everywhere. So we got our $$ back, and proceeded down the road to the next joint.

Directions: "Take exit 62, we are on the right." Sweet. Sounds good. So we take exit 62, and there is a beautiful hotel and its grounds COVERED in Christmas lights on our right. For some reason we thought this gorgeous hotel might be ours, the one where rooms are $20 a night or something. Yeah, it wasn’t. It was the Hood River Gorge Hotel or something like that… rooms are about $200 a night I think? Yea, we were wrong.

So while laughing hilariously that we thought this hotel was ours….we started laughing even harder as we pulled up to the Vagabond Inn (our next stop),which turned out to be a two room abandoned building with a life-size white buffalo figure out front. Now, who can pass up the opportunity to climb a buffalo in the dark while it’s raining and lots of traffic is going by? NO-ONE! So we set to trying to climb it only to find ourselves sliding off the thing twenty times! Maybe not twenty, but we tried hard man! And just FYI, if you ever are in Hood River and try and climb this buffalo, don't use the left horn... it's been glued back on and isn't so strong anymore.

After being unsuccessful in our efforts to climb the only Buffalo in Hood River, we got a phone call from our out of town friend saying we could crash at their casa. YES! Haha. No more wandering around aimlessly! WOHOO!

So, now we had a place to stay. As we were driving "home," however, we got side tracked. Wee noticed that there is a creek running through the Christmas-light hotel grounds next door. Yup… we pulled over and scouted it out. We had grand elaborate plans to sneak on it and go boating, but it turned out to be only about 2 inches deep and we decided to abort the mission. Apparently two inches is deep enough for rabid ducks to swim in and chase after you though!!

(don't ask)

Did I mention Christina is sick?

Saturday: Woke up early, went bageling, and checked out Mosier Creek Falls.

Mosier Falls

Photo By: Kim Russell

This Falls was run for the first time last year by Boomer (1st descent), and Nate Herbeck (2nd descent) via the left channel. This year, logs moved and are now blocking the entrance to the Left Channel. It was run again this year by Boomer and Josh Bechtel (First and Second Descents) via the right channel.

9:15: Met up with Lana Young, Ryan Scott, Keel Brightman and crew to go creeking on Hagen Gorge, Wa and Lacamas Creek, Wa.

Hagen Gorge is a Class IV/V run with 4 main rapids of which 3 are low-volume slides and the last is a 20-ftr into a narrow boily undercut slot.

Check it out:

Drop #1
Photo by: Kim Russell

Keel Brightman running the top of Slide #1

Photo by: Kim Russell

Ryan Scott running the falls on Slide #1
Photo by: Kim Russell

Drop #4
Photo by: Kim Russell


Looking upstream at the slot towards the falls of Drop #4
Photo by: Kim Russell

Next, we headed to Lacamas Creek, down the road in the town of Camas, Washington. This is a class V creek with some awesome waterfalls and slides.

The put-in that no one except Ryan Scott cleaned. It is very deceiving....
Photo By: Kim Russell

Drop #2
Photo by: Kim Russell

After a few drops, Christina and I ended up walking back to the car… We were both not feeling good or “on it” and didn’t want to take the risk or put anyone else in a bad position by being there when we felt we shouldn’t since it was getting dark. We went and got warm! Sweet! The rest of the run was awesome though for everyone else who kept going! We're Planning to go back in a few weeks and finish er’ up! Yee-haw!

Sunday: We woke up to a sunny gorgeous day. Okay, so maybe it wasn't a super clear bluebird day, but it was kind of sunny and raining slightly, but that was good enough!

Photo by: Christina Russell

This morning, we had to go across the bridge to Lyle, Washington (about 15 miles away), to pick up a paddle at Luke’s Winery. We didn’t really have directions, and couldn’t get a hold of him, so we decided to wing it. We got to the general area, found about 3 wineries on the left side of the road and decided to be smart, make a phone call to a local and figure out which one was which. Eventually, we got the right one and prayed Luke was home...Keep in mind it’s about 8:30, and it looks like no one is awake. Now, we hate being rude and we hate waking people up but this was the only time to get the paddle and Luke said he would be down for us to drop by in the morning. Long-story short, we didn’t wake Luke up, we got the paddle and saw a beautiful sunrise!

9:00: Breakfast at Keel’s: awesome eggs.

11:00: Decided to go surfing at the Hawaii 5-0 Wave on the Lower Deschutes River about 45 minutes away.

Sherar's Falls: Designated unrunnable. Super gnarly, wicked, sticky hole at the base and super aerated water. If you look closely, you can see a fishing platform that is used in summer when flows aren't so high.

Photo by: Kim Russell

Lana Young dropping in to the 5-0 Wave

Photo by: Christina Russell

Turns out, the wave wasn’t quite in, but the one behind it was! YEA baby! Tons of work getting to it and getting up the eddy against the cliff wall, but def. worth it.

Photo by: Kim Russell

After about an hour, we walked across the island to Trestle Hole for some more play. This hole is super wide with awesome eddy access.

Lana Young playing in Trestle Hole
Photo by: Kim Russell

We made it back to Bend just in time for an awesome dinner.... yumm. Did I mention I am sick now? YES!

Looks like we are scheduled for a ton of snow here in Central Oregon. We're supposed to be getting snow everyday for the next 19 days! wohoo!

Cheers!

Kim Russell