Kayaks on the Sandy River – A True Story

Prologue:

paper boat
cast adrift on the current
sent on an indeterminate voyage
bound to get soggy
destined to sink
fun in the journey
(for the creator?)

silver fry
cast adrift on the current
sent to the ocean
bound to return
destined to spawn (and die)

(Fun in the journey?)

the River
the Current
carries us along

Maybe we understand the river is a metaphor.
Maybe we learn to read the currents and risk the rapids in order to live out the story, to wager our lives and prove we can win…sometimes.

Maybe.


The Narrative:

Well, I don’t know about all that philosophical crap, but my brother Fred, the Monkey-cam and I decided to try kayaks on the Sandy River. We started at the far end of Oxbow Park with the intention to make it down to Lewis and Clark State Park.

None of us had ever taken kayaks down a river before, not even the Monkey-cam, and I don’t think I’d taken my canoe down since before the floods in November – the floods that significantly rearranged the landscapes of the Northwest’s strato-volcanoes.

As I’ve hiked various trails around the three ‘guardian’ peaks (Adams, Hood & St. Helens) I’ve come to realize that mountains are far from static environments. I think that in terms of geologic timeframes, a volcano is like those pyramid shaped stacks of oranges at the grocery store which can collapse quickly and completely if you take out an orange from the bottom row.

The Sandy River is a child of Mt. Hood.
Evidence of its dynamic potential was everywhere evident.

I picked this particular section of the Sandy River because it was supposed to be lacking in significant rapids – the kind that demand the technical kayaking excellence that none of us possessed. But an ominous roar from an unexpected location ahead suggested that we should pull ashore and scout downriver by foot – just to be safe.

What we saw was an incredible uncharted waterfall formed by accelerated erosion. I had little doubt that the unconsolidated debris carried by November’s record rainfall was somehow responsible for this new river feature. I’m a little hazy on the location. It was somewhere between Oxbow Park and Dabney State Park, but, as big as it was, it seemed extremely unstable, and for all I know, it may have been worn down since then. As I studied it, it didn’t escape my attention that it looked remarkably similar to Falls Creek falls, though more like a mirror image.

I had seen mountain climbers on T.V. outline their assaults on Mt. Everest, so, in a similar fashion, I drew up a preliminary plan for our route down the falls. I knew our borrowed Pungos, with their ‘V’ shaped hulls were not ideal for maneuvering in rapids like these, but all of us had drunk enough of Fred’s homebrewed beer to believe that it really wouldn’t be that hard.

Never-the-less, Fred and I determined that the Monkey-cam should go first – just in case.

The Monkey-cam courageously followed my proposed route to the edge of the precipice (bless his heart) with disastrous results. Fortunately, he was dexterous enough to leap form the Pungo to some nearby branches. (I’ve decided his probation period is over.) You can see the Monkey-cam’s wrecked Pungo submerged in the punchbowl at the base of the falls (a punchbowl remarkably similar to the one I’ve seen on the Eagle Creek Trail.).

Fred was up next.

Having seen what befell the Monkey-cam, and keenly aware that he would be unable to leap from his kayak, Fred chose to use ‘the Force’ like Luke Skywalker in the first Star Wars movie. At least that’s the reason he said his eyes were closed.

Halfway down the stretch of rough water, Fred, like a bareback bronco rider, demonstrates his excellent, evidently instinctual balance and form.

All I had to do was follow Fred’s path.

It really didn’t help much to paddle in the midst of the cascading torrent, but I noticed that once you got going fast enough, you could use your paddle to fly much like flying squirrels use flaps of underarm skin. In this manner, I was able to avoid the hidden rocks (rocks that are remarkably similar to the rocks at the base of Latourell Falls) cloaked by the dynamic white robe of water approaching terminal velocity.

I can’t speak for Fred, but in my own case I believe it was my super buoyant love-handles that minimized the time I spent underwater (for some reason, this scene reminds me of the upper section of Pup Creek Falls.)

We got lucky this time. We triumphed against the river. We demonstrated that we could take our destinies into our own hands…at least for a time. We perpetuated the illusion of free will and self determination.

Mostly, we had fun.

Ramona Falls Trail (Super-sized) Part Two

In my April 30th entry (http://thenarrativeimage.blogspot.com/2007/04/scouting-road-to-ramona-falls.html), I previewed the road to the Ramona Falls Trailhead and chronicled the conditions that currently exist after flooding that occurred in November.

Although the bridge that spans the Sandy River is intact, the southern bank of the Sandy River is not – that is, a substantial gap between the bridge and the land makes vehicular traffic to the Ramona Falls Trailhead impossible. This ultimately adds approximately three miles inbound to the existing seven mile loop. Add the extra three miles outbound, and overall, you can expect a new super-sized 13 mile hike.

This is the alternate bridge I used to cross the river where the road is closed. The third trunk on the right provides a fairly steady platform for your feet and you can use the middle trunk for balance.

It is kind of eerie to walk on Forest Road 1825 and never see a car (Saturday I didn’t see any other hikers either). I was reminded of a scene in that zombie movie, 28 Days Later, where the guy wakes up in the deserted hospital and wanders the empty streets of London. Occasionally, the clouds would part and reveal Mt. Hood looming above the river valley.

I found myself wondering about the dynamics of the flooding in November. According to the Oregonian (Fall Rains Dampen Spring Hiking, April 27, 2007), the Sandy river is a glacier fed stream on a strato-volcano. Years of above-average temperatures and shrinking glaciers have uncovered massive amounts of unconsolidated debris. Presumably this uncovered material, when mixed with record November rains, helped provide the scouring action that carved away multiple sections of the Ramona Falls Trail.
I tried to imagine the water filling this channel to the rim, but couldn’t believe it…mostly.

As noted in the previous entry, this is approximately the position where I reckon the seasonal bridge is usually placed. While it wouldn’t be too much trouble to wade several steps through the water, I chose to use the green branched tree (above) lying across the river as my sky bridge.

However, once you scramble up the opposite bank, regaining the trail becomes problematical. It looked to me like a new river, or a temporary secondary river had washed away my hopes of finding the Mt. Hood Wilderness registration area. It occurred to me that maybe the Forest Service had the foresight to refrain from building registration areas in the middle of glacial scouring zones, so I continued walking diagonally up-river and bank-ward, occasionally observing clues like cut stump ends, until I stumbled upon an upward leading path. The path turned out to be what I was looking for, and for those of you with GPS devices, I made a waypoint for the Wilderness Permit box and trail signs at 45° 23.451N and 121° 48.502W.

From the registration area, I chose to travel onward toward the falls on the loop portion that parallels the Sandy River. The trail climbs steadily, though gradually, and here and there disappears. From this vantage point, you can see a timid little stream innocently meandering through a vast wasteland. The fallen tree below almost looks as if it is bleeding from a massive trunk wound. I fought a compelling urge to go down and trace a chalk outline around the murdered river-victim.

An inexplicable finger of snow reminds me that: 1. This is a wilderness area. 2. The road is cut off from the rest of the world. 3. It is likely to get cold at night. 4. I am wearing shorts.

The trail runs right up next to the falls which ordinarily would give you a pretty good view…except somebody put a bridge in front of it.

A little further down the trail a river of trees (in imitation of Ramona falls) cascade lemming-like, down a sheer rock face.

The return portion of the loop follows the stream – the dynamic element of Ramona Falls – back toward the registration intersection.

The terrain changes constantly from what could pass as lush rain forest to…

…dry eastern-Oregon-like-stunted-desert pine trees.

Over-confident that I could easily follow the trail out, I got lost temporarily and had to rely on my GPS device to locate the area where I crossed the river. Note how water-carried-unconsolidated-debris beat the bark off these trees on the up-river side.

At last, the sky-bridge!

From the sky-bridge, looking downriver to the setting sun.

Just a matter of time.