I know it's a bit late, but here's a post from a few weekends ago.

Rush told me that over the weekend, there would be a helicopter filming some of my favorite rivers and waterfalls around my home town of Trout Lake, Washington. I was super excited to see a new perspective on kayaking, especially on the rivers that I have grown up with and have shaped me into the person I am today.

We started out the weekend by driving to one of my very favorite drainages that runs off the east side of Mt. Adams-- the Lewis River. The all too classic Upper Falls was at a perfect level and something like fifteen paddlers rallied to the falls for a glorious huckfest in the sunshine. The falls went much better for me than the last time I was here, when I ended up behind the veil of the waterfall in a nasty undercut cave.

Here's a sequence of me running Upper Lewis River Falls (Photo by Max Blackburn)

Here are some my favorite shots I took of the day-

Jared Seiler boofing into a rainbow

Fred Norquist, rolling upright as he comes over the lip of the second drop. Somehow he even managed to pull off a boof stroke on his way down and stick it!

Erik Johnson at the point of no return

Fred Norquist on round two, sticking it a bit better this time.

The following day, Eric Parker, Kyle Hull, Rush Sturges and I drove to the notorious Skate Park Falls on Summit Creek. I hadn't been back to Summit Creek since Griff Griffith savagely shattered his spine on Summit Falls, and I hadn't run Skate Park Falls since my brother Todd Wells and I made the first descent of the creek a few years ago.

Although I had a good line a few years ago, I was super nervous for this drop after a number of people injured themselves running it. Nonetheless, I was fired up to drop back into the steep, beautiful gorge again. We waited for about forty five minutes before we heard the beating of the helicopter come roaring up the gorge. Inside the chopper was a crazy pilot who actually got so low, he was chopping off tree branches, and the talented Cineflex operator who filmed most of the footage for possibly the greatest action sports movie made, All. I. Can.

Rush led the charge off the falls with what appeared to be a good line. I followed him, and as I rolled over the lip, my stern caught a rock on the flake which caused me to start to go "over the bars," or sent into an inverted position. This is not ideal for any waterfall, especially the unique Skate Park Falls, which drops vertically about forty feet then transitions out into a flat slide. As I felt my momentum rotating in the direction of landing on my head, I took a useless stroke to try and correct myself. I ended up riding the transition out with only the bow of my boat, rotating and landing backwards looking strait up at the sky. Not the ideal line, but I rolled up uninjured and after emptying my boat out from an imploded skirt, I paddled straight into the drop below called "The Well," a narrow 25ft. slide that pinches into nearly a boat width wide at the bottom.

Myself, just before hitting the transition at the bottom.

Kyle Hull followed me with a sick line and right behind him, Eric Parker came flying off almost doing a complete kick flip.
 
Eric Parker staring down the lip

As soon as we got off Summit Creek, we drove straight to the Little White Salmon River while the helicopter filmed something like fourteen people drop over 80ft. Metlako Falls and another group of ten or so paddlers fire off Upper Lewis River Falls.

The Little White was at an exhilarating 4.2ft and having a helicopter roar overhead the entire time adds a little something extra to the experience. At a few points during the run, the heli was so low that the force of the wind from the blades was so strong it made it difficult to take forward strokes, as my paddle blades felt like a feather in a wind storm and there was so much water blowing into my eyes I could barely.

Here's a shot of me running Spirit Falls at the end of the run. Thanks to Eric Parker for the great photo!

The footage from the day was some of the best I have ever seen. Apart from the epic amount of kayakers paddling over some of the most massive drops runnable in a kayak, the Cineflex captured some of the most awe-inspiring shots of the beautiful rivers around the Columbia River Gorge, epic shots of the Cascade Mountains and even some rarely seen views of Osprey nests, huge Elk running through the woods and giant machines destroying acres and acres of wilderness. Look forward to seeing this footage in River Roots newest film!

We had to divert back to the takeout and jam into one vehicle but luckily Rolf was able to get us a shuttle driver saving us 2-3 hours of driving.  We made it through the maze of backroads to the hike in spot just past ross crossing at 4pm and down the hill we headed through a nicely groomed trail thanks to Darin Mcquoid.

We were geared up and shoving off at 5:30pm, all of us had done the run and felt good bombing most of the first big drops.  Jim got out to scout the biggest drop on the run since it had been 5 years since he had been down but besides that we stayed in our boats and made good time down to a big drop called spike.  I had walked the drop my two previous trips and really wanted to run it but my body was telling me otherwise after 2 hours of sleep and it being 45 minutes before dark.  The rest of the boys fired off the drop with varying degrees of success with JJ having a swim into the calm pool below.  We camped on a big granite slab for the night after only 2 hours on the water and went to bed early to try and recover some of our lost sleep from the drive out.

Jim getting ready at camp with a great sunset behind him

The 2nd day of the trip was amazing and we all were feeling good and ran lots of big drops throughout the bottom half of the run with everyone having good lines and the only swim coming when Jim broke his paddle and got surfed in a hole but no damage done as he swam into a nice pool.

The boys trying to figure out how to work the chainsaw to cut up Jim's broken paddle, gotta pack out your trash! (we ended up not being able to work the chainsaw and just snapped the paddle)

With the lower water level I walked anaconda and the final large drop of the run named Nicky Kelly’s slide.  Last year one of my good friends partially tore one of his nerves controlling his right arm giving him numbness/weakness for 8 months after running the drop upside down.  His tough recovery was messing with my mind to much for me to run it and I carried my boat around as Rolf, JJ and Jim ran the drop with everyone coming out unscathed.

Rolf on the good morning slide

Rolf on a great drop just below camp

Rolf blasting through prison love

Rolf sending the nicky kelly slide

Dinkey Creek was a great way to start our 8 month kayaking binge, it has amazing whitewater that for the most part ends in pools, classic California scenery with sunny granite wonderland and was with a great group of friends that I love paddling with.  Enjoy the video short of the trip and thanks again to Dagger for all the support!

The Next Horizon Line Dinkey Short from Tom Janney on Vimeo.

I knew it had to be one of the young local Bellingham paddlers and without thinking replied, “I’m in, see you in thirty.” Impulse decisions have always led to the most exciting adventures of my life and I knew this weekend was going to be one to remember. On Friday, my plans to fly to the Homathko River fell through and I was just waiting for an adventure of some kind to fall into my lap.

Before I knew it I was driving through British Columbia on my way to the Skookumchuck Narrows, or more commonly known as “Skook.” Skook forms the entrance of the Sechelt Inlet on British Columbia’s Sunshine Coast in Canada. As the tide changes, billions of gallons of water flow out of the inlet and are forced through the narrows creating the Sechelt Rapids. At peak flows these giant rapids create the infamous Skookumchuck wave. The wave fluctuates from a small rolling wave into a giant ten foot standing wave with a huge foam pile in just a matter of minutes; a dream come true for freestyle kayakers. The crew of five young Bellingham boaters consisting of Todd Wells, Eric Parker, Olin Wimberg, Ben Dann and myself motivated like I’ve never seen before. As the sun was setting we arrived at the campground next to Skook and recognized the familiar vans of the World Class Academy (WCA); a traveling high school focused on character, academics, and kayaking. All five of us attended the school at one time or another and it was great to see some of my former teachers and classmates continuing to live the dream. After a good night sleep we were all awoken in classic WCA fashion with cowboy coffee, cereal and leftovers. We were on the road by seven a.m. to catch the peak flows as the wave only forms for a few hours a day. The sunrise over Skook was one of the most beautiful I’ve seen in months. The fog and low lying clouds rose and a brilliant blue sky appeared just as the wave began to shape into full form. It was obvious that the WCA students and teachers had been shredding Skook for over a week as I got to witness some of the biggest tricks I’ve ever seen in person. Even if it was just for a day, we had one of the best WCA reunions ever.

Unfortunately school and other obligations forced us to leave after just one morning of amazing surfing. It was great to finally get back on a big wave after not surfing anything comparable since I was in Uganda with World Class last year. I can’t wait to uncover more of British Columbia’s whitewater gems and keep checking in for an update on our next mission North!

Here's a few pictures from our weekend at Skookumchuck. Thanks to Eric Parker and Todd Wells for the photos!

7:00 a.m. fog over Skook

Todd shreds the classic orange Ultrafuge with friends

I couldn't ask for a better wave so close to home!

From left to right: Myself, Eric Parker, Olin Wimberg, Ben Kinsella, Todd Wells