New TOYS!

Creek Boats!


So I know mi hermana (sister), Christina, already wrote on this, but I thought I would write something on it too as it was a special moment for us:)

Brandon Backman and Kim Russell gearing up
Photo by: Christina Russell

Christina and I have never had creek boats before. We never really even paddled one, (unless you count the super low water rock scraping “demo” on class II we did a about three years ago.) That is not to say the demo wasn’t wickedly fun and hilarious though.. hehe. I remember we couldn’t get over the fact that the boats were super long, we were super small (we could lay down in them almost), and whenever we went through wave trains, the waves would hit the underside of the bow and splash our faces. That was entertainment right there! Ha, it was funny. We couldn’t get over it. Anywhoo…. Over the summer, after subbing out way too much, the time came when we thought it would be smart to invest in new toys. CREEK BOATS!!!! YAY! After lots of demo-ing, Christina and I each ordered a Liquidlogic Huck. WOHOO!

The night before another trip to Hood River, we were anxiously awaiting a phone call regarding los creek boats. It didn’t come, so we called the freight company in Portland instead :) They said the boats were there at the shipping yard and were being shipped to Redmond, Oregon (15 miles North of us) the next morning to be delivered to Alder Creek Kayak and Canoe!!!!! They said that we could pick them up ourselves in Portland at the yard or in Redmond in the morning. We were so excited at this point, we got to thinking we should drive to Portland, pick them up, and head to Hood River instead of waiting till tomorrow. We were pretty stoked to be getting CREEK BOATS :) WHOA! Only we decided to stay home, get a good night sleep and get the boat in the mornin’.… YEA!!!!!

We left our house around 6:30 am and booked it up to the freight place and on the way saw this…..


It may look like a normal road sign, but its not. While waiting for the light to turn green and jamming to our sicky awesome music, we noticed they are both the same word, one is just spelt backwards, “ODEM MEDO.” Ha. At the moment it was very amusing:) !


Photo by: Kim Russell

Anywhoo… we arrived at the Freight Place and picked up our Hucks. As the boat wrappings flew wildly into the air, workers asked us questions, “What are those? Oh, they’re kayaks, What do you do with them?” Pretty cool. I think they were mesmerized how we were so excited over KAYAKS. HOW COULD WE NOT BE!? They are shiny and bright, and one is green and one is blue and they do cool things! Some place should make little barbie/GI JOE kayaks for kids… Just a thought. We’ll save that for another time.. :)

Christina unwrapping her Huck she has recently dubbed, “Lilu”
Photo by: Kim Russell


My boat is really Green! :)
Photo by: Christina Russell

After noticing how little our truck looked compared to the 18-wheelers we were surrounded by, we decided it was time to head out and get on the road to Hood River!

Photo by: Kim Russell

Our friend Brandon Backman from Hood River was at work as River Ranger that morning, but was going to meet us around 11:00 am when we got there for some scrumptious lunch at the taco stand and some boatin’. Couldn’t keep him waiting!

We are DORKS

Photo by: Kim Russell

After being on the road for about an hour and a half, we noticed a sign that said Highway 35 closed. We drove past it, not really thinking about, while at the same time wondering what that meant.

We had driven to Hood River so many times over the summer, we kind of forgot/were not overly concerned of the name of our highway. After about thirty more minutes, we came across another Closed sign and we checked the map. HA HA HA. Highway 35 is the highway we take. OOPs. Good side trip though huh? We took a funky cut-off East to Maupin, Oregon and made our way up 97 to the Dalles. It’s was a sweet drive. We also noticed that despite normal highway signage where the DOT marks corners way slower than they really need to be taken (at least in Oregon it seems this way), that on this road, “35 mph Corners” really meant 35 mph corners.
On this trip, we did a little bit of Trussing too J. Check out my next blog for details! YAY!!!!!

When gas is now $3.50 a gallon……

-Kim Russell-

A. K. A. Kiddo

A McKenzie River Birthday

August 15-17, 2006:





After a week’s worth of super warm weather and lots jumping in the river to cool off at work, Christina and I decided we needed to go kayaking before we went crazy. The river gods were calling and we couldn’t very well make them mad! We had to go… it was simple. We needed to please the river gods right? Ah… either way, it was a good excuse.
Photo by: Kim Russell

We decided to hit the road early Friday morning and spend the night over on the Mckenzie River with our parents for a few days since Dad’s birthday was coming up.

Photo by: Christina Russell

Located about two hours from home, the McKenzie has multiple play spots with names such as "Clover" and "Neil's." At winter time flows, around 10,000 cfs (compared to the normal 2,500 cfs). Clover is epic. It is a series of waves about 12 feet tall with huge piles on them. LOTS and LOTS and LOTS of air time!! Next up, Neil's is a steep wave/hole with crazy cartwheel potential. These play spots make the McKenzie a big attraction in the winter for Northwest kayakers.

Kim looping at Redsides

Photo by: Christina Russell

But… It was August, so the water was LOW. Lower than LOW. Epically LOW. BUT a good low. :) After a thumb-wrestling match to determine where we would play, Christina’s thumb overpowered mine, and we decided to park it at Redsides, a wave/hole combo. Redsides has two holes: an upper and a lower. The upper hole was a wave, and looked good, but the kayaking on rocks part to get up to the wave and the death ferry in shallow water over rock to get ON the wave didn’t look all that fun! We tried to get up though, and after multiple face-plants onto rock, decided to call it quits, save our faces, and play at the lower hole instead.

Here we worked on blunts, loops, and cartwheels until we were so dizzy it was hard to walk when we got out of our boats (picture random people on the side of the highway walking/crawling around laughing, and that was us) haha. Christina was in her teeny boat and every time she would cartwheel, her boat would almost completely submerge! Kind of scary sometimes, but it got to be rather amusing for everyone, including herself. This is when we came up with some pretty sweet “Magnum” and “Blue Steel” faces.

Christina getting submerged

Photo by: Kim Russell

(In the movie Zoolander, Derek, played by Ben Stiller is a male model who has two signature faces, Magnum and Blue Steel. The rest of the movie kind of revolves around them) Anywhoo… somehow we got so every time Christina went into the hole, I would yell, “Blue Steel!”, and she would make a face then throw down. Every time I would go in the hole, she would yell, “Magnum,” I would make a face, and so on. Towards the end, when we both got super tired, and would flush fast, or just flip getting on the wave, it sounded something like, “Magnum! Blue Steel! Magnum!, Blue Steel!” all in ten seconds. It was pretty hilarious and after about 4 hours of hard play and laughing, we called it a day and went back to camp to celebrate Dad’s birthday. I’m not sure how it happened, but somewhere in the excitement that evening, dad caught a broom on fire, the family had a “cheese-it” war, and our dog Pepper, tried to eat our watermelon. SWEET!

Photo by: Sharon Russell

Photo by: Sharon Russell

Photo by: Kim Russell

The next day, we took our parents down the lower class three section in inflatable kayaks. Over the course of the day, Dad’s inflatable became known as "The Rhino." It is this fatty inflatable so wide he could barely get his paddle in the water, and the ends are turned up so much that from the front it looks like a Rhino. Go figure. It's a pretty cool inflatable I might add though! Bullet-proof in the rapids too!

Christina and Dad “inflatabling” (it’s our new verb)
Photo by: Kim Russell

Mom’s inflatable never really got a name, but it did get in some good surfing! There is this rapid called Mom’s Pies, where a good sized surf wave is, and Mom dropped in sideways to the runout waves and flipped her inflatable. She got back on super fast and shredded up a surf wave a little farther down like no inflatable has ever done before! YEAH MOM! After more shredding by the inflatablers (our new name for people who inflatable kayak), we took out around 3:30 pm and made our way home to even more cupcakes in the refrigerator! YUM! It was an awesome trip!

Mom and her sicky inflatable!!!

Photo by: Kim Russell

This is Kim Russell reporting from the comforts of my duct tape covered chair :) ! Over and out!!

Huckin' it on the Wind River

Graduation to Big- Kid Kayaks…Hucks
By: Christina Russell
November 2,2006

Photos copyrighted by: Christina Russell, Kim Russell


As the sun rose over Bend, Kim and I pulled into the freight station to pick up some valuable cargo- our brand spankin’ new Liquidlogic Hucks. We had officially graduated to “big-kid kayaks” as our friends had declared. Our plan was to run the Green Truss on this trip but we first needed creek boats…we hear kayaks are an important element in the sport of whitewater kayaking (but we could be wrong).

We hopped out of the car and ran to the open cargo bay to retrieve the boats from two confused employees. They couldn’t figure out what the fuss was about…even after we had unwrapped them.

“Are those kayaks? Where do you go with them?” They asked.

“Yes they are. Brand spankin’ new!!! Um…you take them on the rivers….”
(Sometimes we wonder about people and their knowledge of kayaking.)

Kim unwrapped her “mighty green” Huck first as I watched.



Apparently Liquidlogic got the memo that the lime green color isn’t just sweet- it’s MIGHTY!




As Kim was enjoying her new creek boat, I attacked the wrap job on my kayak….




With our big kid boats in hand, and strapped to the roof of the truck, we began our journey up to the Hood!


That’s a lot of watermelons….



“Kim pull up next to it and I’ll make like Spiderman onto the truck and grab a melon for us…mwhahahahha!”



We arrived to the Hood in the early afternoon and decided to head over to the Wind River once more before the Truss- which unfortunately we have no photos of. Our first run down the Green Truss was a “business run”…the camera stayed locked up in the back of my kayak…as did the video camera. So for this blog, I will post photos from our run down the Wind.  We will be following up with some photos from the Green Truss this winter!

On the Wind



Kim Russell on the first drop of Shiphards’ Falls
Photo by Christina Russell


Christina Russell testing the boofability of the Huck on Shiphards’ Falls
Photo by Kim Russell


Our good friend Brandon Backman
Photos by Kim Russell



Christina Russell dropping the second tier
Photo by Brandon Backman


Who’s the Jefe?!
Photo by Christina Russell


Brandon Backman on the first tier
Photo by Christina Russell

After a mellow run on the Wind River, the three of us headed for Mexican food back in Hood River before heading out for an evening run on the Green Truss….


That afternoon we headed out for the Green Truss…but that story is best saved for another time…Kim will be posting an article on our run down the Truss…..
Until then, this is Christina Russell, over and out for lunch!!! More coffeeeee!