Cispus river: Scary moments on The Upper Upper

Looking back upstream at the 1st rapid

photo by Lance Reif

The Upper Upper Cispus is a great run that is in late season.  Of Coarse when you live in the Hood you run the classic Little White and Truss all spring and into the summer, but when the flows get low head up through Trout Lake to 23 and in a little over an hour you are at the take out for this great run.  These photos and trip report are from several weeks ago, but I currently have TONS of free time, so here it is.

 1st rapid, Lance Reif

Unfortunately for me most of my paddling buddies had already been on this run, but I was going to get my chance.  So myself, Trevor Sheehan, and WV Garrett loaded up in Trevor's truck, through a bike in the back for shuttle and off we went.  With shuttle set we put on the river to see what the Upper Upper Cispus was all about, and it was going to be a personal first decent for all of us!

Behemoth and the rapid after

It might look small here, but Behemoth is about 30 feet tall

After about 100 yards or less of class II and you get the the 1st rapid.  It is a sloping/cascading 15ish foot drop.  It looked like it would be hard to style it, but it dropped into a small pool that had some wood issues for the exit.  Luckily a week or so prior to us getting in here, our buddy Drew Austell climbed out on one tree and cut off some branches to make the exit runnable, but by runnable, you have to duck hard while in the exit rapid.  So I decided to go first, had an alright line, but plugged in and resisted the stern squirt.  I quickly paddled over to river right where I got out to take photos of Garrett while Trevor remained holding a rope.

Garrett in the 1st drop

photo by Lance Reif

Garrett dropped in, plugged like me, but had this epic looking blast out of the water.  He then missed a few rolls while Trevor and I looked on as he floated upside down towards the rock garden with trees.  He ended up swimming around the corner from my view and while I was trying to get back in my boat Trevor let me know that he had gotten into an eddy.  Turns out Garrett dislocated his shoulder in the drop and that was why he was not able to roll.  

So we hiked him out of there  and back to the car, which luckily for us was really close.  Trevor and I decided to continue on and look for the lost kayak and Garrett would drive to the take out and meet us there, or atleast that is how we thought it would go...

Garrett launching out of the water upside down at the 1st rapid

photo by Lance Reif

Well the next few miles are supposed to contain various low volume rapids and lots of tree dodging.  Just around the corner form the 1st rapid was a nice sized log jam, and in it, floating upright, was the boat that Garrett had swam out of.  So I climbed around on the tree pile and was able to hook a rope to the boat and throw it to Trevor whom pulled the boat out.  We hiked up upstream a bit to the same spot we hike Garrett out at and decided we would come back for it once we finished out run. 

After some small rapids and tree dodging, we came up to a small rapid that had a tree in it.  It looked good to go but I had remembered my buddy Curt telling me about a tree that he just barely made it out, and I pulled into the eddy for a second look.  The eddy was small and as Trevor approached the eddy he looked and decided to go.  I watched him enter the rapid and was about to pull out of the eddy and follow when I saw him get rejected by the tree, roll, and then suck under it. 

I quickly headed to shore, looked back downstream to see his arm in the air moving, his bow pointing upstream from under the tree, and his head was underwater.  A lot of things started flying through my mind.  I tried throwing him a rope, which he was only a few feet from the bank, but that didn't work.  I tried hooking my rope to his bow and pulling, but i didn't give.  So while I was grabbing gear out of my boat to try something else I could see his hand signaling me.  So I ran back to him and in a last effort jumped on the tree he was pinned under and tried pulling him up to breath.  My body made an air pocket big enough for him and I to talk and I asked him what he wanted me to do.  In the end I was able to provide him with a big enough pocket of air that he could breath and rest in between going underwater and pulling himself out of his own boat.

When he got himself out he was no longer wearing his skirt.  Turns out it was pinned between the cockpit rim and tree even though I pulled it for him.  We were able to get the boat un-pinned and as I was putting the break down together realized my paddle was no longer by my boat.  somewhere in the craziness my paddle floated down stream.

Within a few minutes of hiking out river right we came to a road.  We followed the road downstream and found some friendly campers who offered us a ride back to our truck.  I did get back on the Cispus several more times this season, even found both of the lost paddles.

By far this was the scariest moment I have had on the river.  Guess it was just one of the days, maybe we weren't supposed to be on the river that day.  I did learn alot that day though.  I am glad I have the training that I do for situations like that.  If your going to boat class V make sure you have proper training, so be responsible, take a class if you need to.  It will help!