Thunder Creek: 1st Riverboard Descent

My kiwi buddy Erik in the stix

You know you're out in the wilderness when the Verizon network gave up on you 20 miles back, but even though it works like crap in the city, AT&T manages to find a signal. I had no way of knowing if Thunder was really going to happen or not when I left on Friday. Video footage provided a lust-worthy tease and the levels were excellent. Cascade, a few miles away, was done for summer.
If you've never heard of Ross Lake, google it, and you'll find some pictures of breathtaking scenery and emerald colored water. Backed up by a dam. Thunder Creek flows into it, feeding off the melting glaciers above, peaking at night.

Friday night I camped with the Washington Recreational River Runners, strong emphasis on recreational. The 8-mile stretch on the Skagit River for the Saturday poker run had a couple of short, easy class 3 sections, lots of flat water, and even in two wetsuits, I was cold by the take out. But I wanted to take a first-time riverboarder out on something relatively calm; with two canceled previous attempts and levels dropping everywhere, this was a sure bet. And, she loved it. Plus, my 2-pair poker hand ended up good enough for a Hail Mary throw bag.

Ian, a Colorado-based kayaker who also wanted to run Thunder, joined us for the river run and provided a link to the Bellingham hard-core boaters who had hinted at running Thunder (he had AT&T). I'd sent an email to the rather tightly-knit group, asking them to find me on the way up, but with Ian there my chances were improved. He camped at the trailhead campground and I met up with him Sunday morning. By 10:30 am, we had ten boaters readying their gear.

A riverboard weighs under 10 lbs. and isn't too hard to carry without any additional straps. A kayak, on the other hand, without gear is 45, and requires a special backpack to strap on. Which would you rather carry for four miles? (Chris, who posted the video linked above, did it with a birthday hangover and offered to trade crafts with me 1.5 miles into it. Fat chance.) Catarafts weigh over a hundred lbs, and would require two round-trips to the put-in. Dave and Shelly Becker walked the trail with us to scout a potential first Cat boat descent on Thunder. While the trail was wide enough and the 16 mile haul would be 'epic' yet undaunting to them, the river was over 50 yards from the trail through unbroken forest, involving log-hopping, branch-dodging and creative way-finding. Not going to work for them, and as I could tell later, neither would the river.

I was one of two ladies on this outing, but the only riverboarder, and to my knowledge the first. I was excited to catch it on my go pro hero, but alas, the batteries drained when I accidentally left the power on during the hike in. I captured a few rapids, but the best were after they died. The aquamarine water was refreshing after the hike. If I'd known how much scouting/portaging we'd do, I would have just worn the 5 mil without the farmer over it.

We jumped into a big eddy at the base of a cascade. The first few drops weren't too bad but I was tired from hiking in a wetsuit. On the trail I could easily have laid down and slept. Having a done double run on the Nooksak Thursday, plus cross-fit classes Thursday and Friday mornings, left me a bit low on energy. Which affected my decision, with nine others, to portage the first burly waterfall; it's a good 10-15 feet of narrowing madness with a bumpy lead-in. Cave behind. The kayaker who ran it disappeared for a good 4 seconds and took three tries to right himself in the aerated mess below. And he's the strongest in our group. I'm not really afraid of the drop, more of what might happen afterwards. Gettig sucked behind the falls isn't my idea of a good time. (The video shows it run at a lower level.)

The next series of drops are what make the hike worth it. Chopstix (first photo) is appropriately named: whitened trees criss cross over the gorge 10-20 feet above with one only a foot or two above, necessitating a limbo or roll move in a kayak. The next ledge is a 10 footer followed by a 25' long pool then another drop.

Chris Tretwold, hungover birthday boy

Just after the drops there is a rooster-tail shaped rock creating a launch pad over a ledge. Looks really freaky because you can see the rock protruding vertically about 4' high, but the right side was runnable. Total launch slide, so fun to riverboard I couldn't help but hoot about it for a minute aftewards.

A tricky spot came up when what looked like the obvious line had a retentive hole at the bottom. The froth was tilting backwards in an obvious manner. The left line was a boof off about 2" of water jutting out from a horizontal rock. Scrape city! Hole or scrape. There looked like a sneak line to the left of the boof with an eddy above, but from the other side of the river it looked really narrow. I ferried across to the eddy and looked over, it was perfect and clean! I backed up a bit and came down the 4 footer smooth, avoiding the perpendicular tree along the left side. Ahhhhhh....

What you can't see can kill you; when I was finally waved forward, Eric was standing on the bank holding his hands about two feet apart, then pointing downwards. What was up? They'd already told me to take the right "slide" line, then eddy left, but then signaled to eddy right. The 2-foot wide line was between two hanging tree branches over a bumpy drop that shot you into the middle of the pool. Much encouragement was given to eddy to the right after getting swept center, in no uncertain terms. It was easy to get back and I quickly saw the problem: a tree had managed to balance itself against a large rock in the middle of the river, the top half of it completely blocking the right line, and the bottom of it partially blocking the left. This was towards the end of the run. I am sure I could have made the left move, but I was pretty tired and decided to portage it. There was one ledge drop at the bottom, and I did run that.

One side benefit to hiking, scouting and portaging was the ample huckleberries and blueberries everywhere. The blueberries weren't as sweet as they could be (it's early) but I ate a bunch anyway.

The rest was read 'n run until we had to portage another log jam. I didn't bother taking off my flippers for the 5 minute hike. Below that was flat water back to the campground. I laid on my back on the board and stared at the sky, slowly drifting towards the lake. How could I have never come up here before and enjoyed all this God-created glory? The area had everything; lakes, trees, glacier-speckled peaks, and that day, the sun even came out. A headwind brought me to a stand still. Time to flip over, ignore my aching everything, and get back to land after 3 1/2 hours to run 4 miles.

More information on this run can be found here.