Steelhead Falls

Date: May 12, 2007
By: Christina Russell

Today I headed out to Steelhead Falls with my good buddy Josh for some park and huck goodness. It's about thirty minutes North of Bend and sort of confusing to find. On the way out we stopped by the Aldercreek and picked up Josh's broken playboat. Still broken, he chose to fill the crack (fresh from 51) with wax...worked like a charm :D

Josh Mckeown discovering the many uses of paddle wax

With the crack all filled up, we put on and headed down to the falls. Steelhead is a nice 18 footer (some say twenty but I dunno...) with a soft landing. Since the canals were turned on a month or so ago, the flow was substantially lower than before. I had been thinking of freewheeling Steelhead for a while and today seemed like the perfect opportunity. The flow was great, landing zone was good, and there was a minimal chance of getting stuck behind the curtain. We fired it up.....

I wanted to make sure I got enough footage and photos so I shot while he did a few laps....

Josh droppin Steelhead Falls

josh hiking back to the top...twas a bit of a walk

Im so proud of this shot :D

Me freewheelin the falls too :) ...I apologize for the BAD quality photo...took it off the video

And landing......

Boofing...

At the bottom...

Now Im kind of bummed I cant provide more shots but....I do have a short video I put together of the day :) .
Check it out!

All in all, the day was fantabulous. It felt great to get out after a week of no paddling AHHHH!!! I've been sick with some cold but I couldnt take it any longer. Though I will probably be sick for a bit longer, I maintain that it was definitely worth it! Hope everyone else is getting out and staying healthy!

Happy Paddling,
Miss Chris