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| Just Downstream of Santiam Confluence |
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| Good Food |
I think they almost decided to just retire the entire idea, but I am glad they didn't because this year the whole thing was clicking again. They made some changes that I think are great. They reduced the length of the trip and put it half over a weekend, to try and get more working age people to join in. I just got back and must admit that I don't miss that 5th day of paddling one bit. My, I am tired. And the food service and such was prime, delicious, and copious. Little things like making sure there were lunches available that travel well on the river (sandwiches and cold drinks to keep the lunch bags cool) were once again in play.
Paige and I had trained and signed up as Pod Leaders for this year. We were joined by veteran Pod Leader Jennifer and we three co-lead the Agate Pod (which Paige and I got to name).
Here is how it worked. The total group is divided into pods. Each pod has 3 leader boats and 12 participant boats. I say boats because, though most boats (kayaks) have just 1 paddler, some boats (like canoes or tandems) have 2 paddlers. So the Pod size might vary from 15 to 18 or so paddlers. There were 5 pods on this trip: Agate, Gravel Bar, Oceanos, Flamingo, and Sometimes Pokey. The Pokey pod is the traditional slow pod and the Flamingo's are the traditional fast pod. The Agate pod was listed as one of the faster pods (Medium Speed. Evidently Medium was the fastest anyone would sign up for) but we ended up being at the end of the line for most of the trip. I think this is because we were having the most fun.
The trip starts for most people by meeting at the Take-out. That is right; you start at the finish. This is because you want to leave your car there. We all loaded our boats onto a few big kayak carrier trailers and then we loaded a couple of big passenger busses with our camping and kayak gear and rode the busses to our paddle starting point. This year we started the paddle at a little town about 8 miles upstream from Corvallis called Peoria.
The Peoria boat ramp is a bit funky and small but we had a lot of time so there wasn't that much problem getting everyone into the water. Everyone in our pod had pretty good Kayak experience, many of the people were members of OOPS (The Oregon Ocean Paddling Society). The pods travel separately and take breaks along the river where they will, so you often find yourself leapfrogging past pods that are sitting at a prime gravel bar having a snack or taking a Green Door break. Sometimes they even have the temerity to hunt for My agates!!
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| Staging at Peoria |
In addition to the 3 rescue trained leaders in each Pod, there is also a team of safety boats that go out, more challenging river sections. The safety team does a great job and they have the little walk-a-bout walkie-talkies that allow them to talk to each other or to a nearby pod. (That is right, I got to use a Walkie Talkie!!! It made me feel like I was 12 again !!).
The Willamette river, in general, is not a 'white water' river. But it is the largest River in the USA that is completely inside of a single state. It is also the second largest North Flowing river (by volume) in continental US (no, there is not a larger one in Hawaii). My point here is that there is a lot of water flowing, though usually sedately along the large valley that is the Willamette. This large volume of water will occasionally meet up with some constrictions, rock or wood or turn induced sandbank, and that will cause a stretch of fast moving water. Water moving fast enough that if you tried to stand, it would knock you off your feet. Water moving fast enough that you can't really paddle back up the stretch once you come down it. There are not too many of these sections. Perhaps a dozen over the 4 days we paddled, but they do lend some excitement. They often also lead to some unintentional swimming, which is what we call it when someone flips over in the river.
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| Evening Eco Presentation |
The first day paddle was an abbreviated paddle due to the necessary late start of the whole shebang. This was another of the changes enacted to make the event more accessible. Instead of meeting for the shuttle at 7:00am, we met at 8:00am. Another hour of sleep. This makes a big difference especially to people that may have to drive a couple of hours to get to the shuttle. It did make for a late start time on the river. There is a lot to do in getting on the river that first time. You need to meet your Pod. You need to get your boat and all of your gear together. The logistics team was pretty smart this year, they put the pod names on the boats when the boats were loaded up such that when they were unloaded, they could arrange them by Pod next to signs with the Pod names. This naturally put people in a good location to meet their pod, get their first "meet and safety" talk, and then help each other launch as a pod. The boat launch we were using in Peoria was a little small and funky but all of the pods entered quickly and with little incident. Paige was particularly adept at getting Agate Pod to stage the boats up the bottom of the ramp. This was good as I was the line leader the first day and so had to launch before other members of the pod.
I think most of the members of the Agate Pod had the skills that one might want in a Pod Leader. Most of them would have been competent to safely lead the pod down the river. But would they actually want to? I found that leading was not very relaxing. I may have been a little more hyper-vigilant than is strictly necessary and I would probably get a little more chill after a few more times leading. Time will tell. I do sort of like the feeling of being out on point, though it does wear you down.
On other days, I was sweep. The last paddler. This is a much more casual position where all you need to do is try and keep the pod together enough that the tail can communicate with the head. Well, you also have the job of rescuing anyone that falls in the water ahead of you, but that is a very rare thing. I liked being in the back and watching Paige lead the pod through a fast moving confined area. She is a good leader and the pod looked great forming a line and then shooting through the fast area. From the rear, you can't really see the river, but you can see the people in line and see when each person suddenly accelerates and shoots sideways across the river or around the corner. Such fun.
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| Morning Stretch and Pod Safety Meeting |
Let me describe a common feature in the river. You are paddling along in moving water. Perhaps 1 or 3 MPH, with the water deeper than visibility (more than 6 feet, say). Up ahead is some obstruction in the river, usually a gravel bar. During high water, this is just a submerged feature, but during late summer low water, this thing has become an island and the river needs to go around it. So the river gets very shallow and pushes to the side (let's say to the right). Close to the gravel bar is too shallow to paddle, but there could be a lot of current going that way and you want to avoid that. The river is taking this hard right turn and you want to find the 'deep' (1-2 foot) water and stay in that fast moving water as it goes around the turn. At the end of the right turn, the river has to turn hard left again to go regain its normal channel. At that point the fast moving river has usually carved a steep bank. You want to stay away from the bank. Also, as the river goes swiftly around this left sweeping curve there is often a little embayment outside of the curve and the moving water. In that area is a strong eddyline, a counter rotating body of water that you don't want to get sucked into. Nothing bad will happen, but you will get spun around and perhaps dumped in a place with wood in the water. The current you are in, as it goes around the turn, sort of wants to push you into the eddyline or the steep bank, so you need to point and paddle to stay in the main current around the bend. We must have hit 5 or 6 features that meet this general description. We had some people hit the banks and had some get caught a little in the eddylines, but no one went swimming and everyone thought it was exciting. I learned that I need to explain these things better in the safety briefing before we go through them. I remember that our pod leader back in our early paddles did tell us about the importance of having your kayak facing in the direction that you want to go, not in the direction you are going, when you go around these turns.
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| Agate Hunting and Cooling off |
Now, you might want to know if we had anyone go swimming. Well.... yes we did. Quite a few of us took a dunk, including me. But we all flipped over essentially on shore when we were getting in or out of our kayaks. That turns out to be the most tippy place. The idea then is to try and get up before anyone notices you. We did have one paddler hit a rock (that I didn't see) and go over, but he self-rescued and walked himself out. I was up in front when this happened. Someone blew a whistle to alert me and I brought the rest of the pod to a safe spot while Paige assisted with the rescue. That was a learning lesson, to know that you job is to NOT help but to take care of the other participants.
We had three nights of camping this year. The first night was on the ball fields at Crystal Lake park in Corvallis. This is a nice green place to camp. One of the other 'changes' that Riverkeeper made, perhaps to adjust for how hot summers are getting, was to encourage people to get into camp as late as possible. Stay down on the river. Stay cool. Go for a nice swim. That is what we did, with the effect that when we got to camp, there was quite a bit of shade to be had especially over in the common eating area. We had great Barbecue for dinner with ice cream bar for desert. It was very good. There was a local brewery and cidery there selling cold beverages as well. The Cidery had a non-alcoholic sparkling juice they were pouring which was considerate of them.
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| Going Through Corvallis |
Day 2 was another shorter Day. We had a nice talk by the Riverkeeper Executive Director (Travis Williams) on Freshwater Mussels and we had another talk further down river by the head ranger for the Willamette Greenway. It turns out that the Willamette Greenway is state parks land that is all along the Willamette river and makes up for more than 20% of the total State Parks Land in Oregon. And this doesn't include the two large named state parks that are down river closer to Portland (Willamette Mission and Champoeg).
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| Travis talks about Mussels |
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| Freshwater Mussel feeding |
Just past this stop is one of my favorite places on the river. This is the larger lagoon and rockbar at the bottom or Trip Island. This place is big enough for a hundred kayaks to pull up and eat lunch and has a wonderful deep water lagoon that has no current but is large enough for many people to swim or practice kayak rescues and such. I had asked my pod mates if anyone wanted to practice wet exits or other things and a number of them joined me in the water to flip our boats, get out, and then swim the boat to shore. Why do such a thing? you may ask. Well, you do things for practice and fun so that they don't kill you when they happen unexpectedly. I was very happy with the participation of the pod.
That night we spent on some private property that touches the river just upstream of Albany. The owner was very kind to let us camp in his large field. This was a much nicer property to camp on than the one we had last year mainly because it was a much shorter walk from the river up to where our gear was waiting. Oh, Did I mention that? Though you have to bring your own gear and take care of your own camping, Riverkeeper transports the gear from one camping site to the next in a big UHaul truck. You just need to put your gear into a couple of duffle bags and lug it to the truck. It will be unloaded in the grass at the next site at the end of the day.
The next day was our first really long day. 22 miles. Of course, you don't really have to paddle that far because you usually have a couple of knots of current. Still it was a long day on the river, luckily it wasn't all that hot. Paige was leading and I was either in the middle or on sweep depending on how things were going. We were starting to get some stragglers now. The deal is, not only are people of different physical capabilities, but different boats are easier or harder to paddle. For instance, a long skinny smooth material (say, fiberglass) boat coasts easier and has a faster hull speed than a short, fat, plastic boat. This means that you don't have to exert as much energy to keep that longer, skinny boat up to pod speed.
One of are participants was in one of the Origami Kayaks from Oru. Though it was their 'Sea Kayak' version (16 feet?) it still has folded features and some bracings that drag on the water. The paddler in that boat was working harder than other paddlers. I didn't realize this was happening, though I will look for it in the future. Poor guy was keeping up with us but he was much more tired than other paddlers and it caught up with him on the fourth day. I am currently of the opinion that inflatables and Orus shouldn't be allowed on the paddles that have 20 mile segments. Not sure that is something I get a vote on, of course.
On Day 3 we ate lunch on the rock bar that is at the Confluence of the Santiam and Willamette rivers. Not much shade but a lot of rocks. I found 3 very large Agates there. They were all sort of dirty and hidden or someone would have picked them up years ago, I suspect.
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| One of my Agate finds |
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| Camping on the Bar |
On our last night we got into camp late and tired. This was a camp on a real rock bar in the river. The sort of camp ground you would have if you floated the river by yourself. Adequately comfortable. We had a great meal and some very good live music. Afterward, we were surprised to receive an excellent talk on the politics of the Willamette river by Brent Walth, one of the guys in our pod. Turns out he is an author that wrote a pulitzer prize nominated book on the Oregon Governor whose political actions took the first steps to clean up the river and establish the greenways and parks along it. I have ordered the book, it called "Fire at Eden's Gate" and is about Governor Tom McCall and his efforts to clean up the Willamette River.
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| A smoky sunrise. Fires in the mountains. |
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| These guys were our live music. They camped with us and then came down to sing us out on our morning launch |
On the last day of the paddle we stopped at a chunk of the greenway property that is just upriver from Salem. This 'island' is surrounded by water only during the winter. It has this big seasonal back channel that up until a few years ago was choked with an invasive weed (whose name I need to look up). Willamette Riverkeeper, in cooperation with Oregon State Parks, has worked to eradicate the invasive and replant indigenous species plants. What this has led to is a huge field of beautiful Wapato growing in that (seasonally dry) back channel. We stopped the pod on a sandbar to hear a talk on the project and then followed a little trail back for a viewing of the Wapato field. My lord it was HUGE. I had no idea that Wapato grew like that. We have been seeing a lot of the arrow leafed plant down the river this year. We saw so much of it that I commented on the growth (albeit only to myself). But this field was a order of magnitude beyond what I expected to be seeing. The pictures I have don't really do it justice and I wasn't up to walking deep into the field for full surround pictures, but you can trust me on this one. Of course, this is just one back-channel field. There must be hundreds up and down the river that suffer from the same invasive and could be returned to their natural state with some intervention. Will they stay this way or be re-invaded? Changes to the river itself, back to a more natural state, may be necessary to long term success.
Changes to the river? Yes, especially along this stretch of the river there is massive amounts of RipRap that has been placed to stop the the river from eroding the 'owned' land. RipRap is just huge stacks of large stones (chair size) that are dumped on the steep slopes of the river to stop the river encroachment. They are really ugly and not safe to climb on or land on. They also force the river to go places it may not want to go and it stops the river from doing much of the lowland flooding that it used to do. The thing is, lowland flooding is a water storage mechanism. It is how massive flooding is prevented. It also something many species need to live and thrive. But There Is So MUCH of this RipRap. Travis talked about possibly removing some of it in some areas where the owners and the states can agree, but it would be very expensive and difficult to remove. Dumping something into the river has always been easier than pulling it back out. I would like to find an article on this RipRap. Who put it there (Corp of Engineers?) and who paid for it (The government?) and who did it benefit? Not sure I have any pictures of it. The RipRap is not the scenery that is usually photographed.
We then proceeded on through Salem moving to our take-out point at Kaiser Rapids park. Just as we entered Salem we had one of the trip occurrences that shows the excellent safety and paddler support services that Willamette Riverkeeper provides. One of our paddlers had been struggling and he started getting back spasms and really needed to end his trip. We called in the safety boat team and they phoned in for a boat and paddler pickup at a nearby boat ramp. No fuss easy pickup and our guy was safe and happy. On the rest of the pod went through Salem.
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| A little Casual Rescue Practice |
The very end of the paddle is sort of a funny thing. You arrive at the exit ramp and you help everyone haul their boats and gear up off of the very long ramp and.... now everyone sort of walks away to load their cars and go home for a shower. If you thought your were going to get a "End of Paddle Pod Picture" your were sorely mistaken. There was END OF PADDLE ICE CREAM from Riverkeeper, however. That was nice. So, you get your car. Load your boat. Hell, help a few other people load their boats also and now you can go home for that shower.
So. A great trip. I really enjoyed meeting and talking with all of the interesting people that were in the Agate Pod and I certainly appreciated them allowing me the chance to be one of their Pod leaders on this 4 day adventure.
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| Agate Pod Heads Out |
