Weekend Goodness :)

This weekend I headed on up to Hood River on a solo mission. I was going to visit my good friend Brandon and some new blood- Jesse Becker. I left Friday evening- allowing for a full day of boating on Saturday and Sunday.

Saturday:
I was planning to paddle with Brandon and after several attempts, discovered that he was STILL SLEEPING! ARG! it was 9:30...time to paddle! Jesse and the rest of the crew I thought had already gone up to the run so I headed up to the Orletta with a friend I met at the parking lot, crazy Dave. He paddles an inflatable kayak down EVERYTHING- I swear the guy is fearless. Orletta had more water than the rest of the sections did. Good call Dave.

After finishing the run, I went back to the house and discovered that the guys were not yet back from their run down the Truss. I hopped in my car and headed back to the Hood River side of the border for some food and phonecalls. I wasnt sure when they would actually be getting back. I got back to the house around 1:30 and everyone didnt seem like they were in the paddling mood. Oh well....we had all day Sunday.

Sunday:

Around 11:00, the crew of Ryan Scott, Lana Young, Nate Herbeck, Jesse Becker, and myself were ready to run and we headed up to the upper upper Cispus for a sweet class five run. It runs through a deep gorge that is definitely the most beautiful river I have been on in the states. Amazing. We got to the put in around 12:30 and then we decided to check out a drop that we thought would be a first descent. oh boy oh boy. I will wait for Nate to publish photos first as I dont want to mess this one up....you have to wait for the shots. All I can say is that things went great after lots and lots of safety preparations.
Ha ha I did the filming so check out Nate's next movie for the video :)



















After the descent was completed we drove to the put in for the upper upper Cispus....we decided to run just the first drop on the run as we were running out of time and day light-it was around 4:30.....POOP! That was a bummer but next time next time- the river's not going anywhere right? :) I sure hope not! Check back for pics of the drop!

Happy Paddling,
Christina Russell