Perfection of whitewater

Driving through Tumwater Canyon on U.S. 2, you almost can’t help looking over the guardrail at the boiling whitewater below.

It’s the same river that trickles out of Lake Wenatchee, flowing peacefully into the town of Leavenworth. Somewhere in between, however, it picks up enough incline and restriction to become a Class V run.

In June, the spring runoff swells the river into a pure white, hole-filled maelstrom capable of swallowing minivans. In August, with about 10 percent of the volume, it’s still filled with holes, but there are at least some calm spots between them.

“I’ve looked at it in June and thought, ‘No way,’” said expert paddler Don Larsen of Index, “but when it gets to be August and the levels drop, it becomes a challenging but doable run in a kayak.”

One recent August morning, six of us gathered with our little plastic kayaks and prepared to put in. Our group consisted of Larsen, a fisheries biologist in Seattle; Paul Dutky, an emergency room physician from Bremerton; Larry Stratton, a chimney sweep from Shoreline; Dave Moroles, a construction worker from Bonney Lake; John Schier, a software expert from Redmond; and me.

We were joined later by Mark Hattendorf who was visiting from Bozeman, Mont. The combined experience of our group approached 60 years and, while some of us, such as Stratton, have only a couple of years of kayaking under our belts, others, like Dutky and Larsen, have been paddling 20 years or more.

I think it’s safe to say that we all knew what we were doing out there.

The Tumwater Canyon section of the Wenatchee River can be a bit deceiving, and it’s easy to underestimate its power, even at low water. In summer 2003, two people died here on separate occasions. One, a kayaker, was running the river solo at a high flow in early July.

The other accident happened in August, when a group in small rubber rafts put in one of the calm pools, apparently unaware of the Class V rapids below.

The first big rapid of the run is called “The Wall” for the highway’s retaining wall on the side of the river. I like to call it “Another Roadside Attraction,” because, more often than not, people will stop their cars to watch us run it.

It’s a very long, steep, constricted boulder garden requiring jumps over ledges and tight S turns around huge rocks.

“The last time I ran this rapid was at much higher water several years ago, and back then it looked like a torrent of solid white,” Dutky said. “There are a few more rocks showing today.”

The boulders made the river less pushy but also required some precise maneuvering.

As we ran single file down “The Wall,” we each had moments of heart-stopping panic as we glanced off boulders, went vertical off the larger drops or flipped in one of the holes.

“Wow!” Schier cried. “Dave really went for the meat of that drop.”

Moroles had headed straight for the biggest ledge in the rapid and ended up spending more time in the air than in the river. Fortunately, the rapid ends in a short lake formed by a diversion dam, so we had a built-in recovery pool.

I’d paddled this lake during the Icicle Creek fires in 2000, when a huge helicopter had loomed up and lowered an enormous bucket. As the chopper began to scoop water from the lake to quench the nearby fires, I quickly herded my fellow paddlers over to the shore. No sense risking any more excitement than the river already had in store for us.

A few easier rapids followed before we came to the second of the big ones, a drop called “Chaos Cascade.” This rapid begins with a flight off a 5-foot ledge into the maw of a seething Class IV+ rapid. It’s not for the faint of heart.

In fact, the first ledge is actually the easiest part of the rapid. The crux comes at the bottom, where a huge, unavoidable hole must be negotiated.

It’s great fun if you’re in your boat and in control, but terrifying if you aren’t.

On this day I aced the entry ledge, then gracefully danced around the boulders and holes below to go flying off the bottom ledge with ease. I felt like shouting, “Whee!” as I finished the drop, but instead just breathed a sigh of relief and broke into the huge, ear-to-ear grin I always have when I do well in that rapid.

Next was “POW” or “Perfection of Whitewater,” depending on your frame of mind. We scrambled up to the highway to scout it, and Larsen and Schier said, in unison, “It sure doesn’t look clean today.” What they meant was that the usual route around the big holes now went directly through them.

Going through holes isn’t always bad, but when they’re stacked up the way they were in “POW” it’s very hard to keep up enough speed to get through them without getting into trouble.

After watching everyone else run the drop down the left, I paddled away from shore with the combined experience of the group running through my head.

Larsen had needed a huge brace to keep from flipping. Hattendorf had gone up against one of the boulders and gone over in an ugly spot. Moroles had submerged almost to the point of disappearing.

Even though everyone finished fine, I decided to run down the right side.

The holes were bigger there, but the run was more straightforward.

Taking a deep breath to calm my nerves, I launched myself into the froth.

The entry went well, but then I got stopped in the swirly water. Instead of speeding down the right side, I was slowly pulled to the left, over a huge pourover rock into a humongous hole.

Upside down.

I have a good combat roll, which should have worked to bring me upright, but my knees lost contact with my boat at that moment and the roll was futile.

The only way out was to pull my sprayskirt and exit my boat.

Once I was in the water I felt myself being sucked back into the hole, this time without a boat. This has happened to me before. It generally means a few moments without air as the force of the hole keeps you underwater. By rolling into a ball and letting go of my paddle, I broke free, only to find myself tumbling like a rag doll down the rest of the rapid.

Keeping my feet downstream to protect myself from the rocks, I slid over ledge after terrifying ledge. Even with a lifejacket on, I was frequently submerged. I was definitely taking a beating, and my butt took the worst of it. It couldn’t really been avoided in a rapid like this. Well, it could have, if I’d been able to stay in my boat.

Fortunately, when I reached the bottom and surveyed the damage I was merely bruised. With hits to my leg and my butt still smarting, I realized the biggest hit was to my pride.

“Well, at least you were smiling when you finally got out,” Hattendorf said.

It must have been because I was so happy to be out of the maelstrom mostly intact.

Once again, Tumwater Canyon lived up to its well-deserved reputation as a butt-kicker. It kicked mine that day.

Glossary

Rapid Rating System: Class I to Class VI: Rivers are rated from Class I (mostly calm, with a few small waves and riffles) to Class VI (extreme and exploratory). Class V, according to a definition found on American Whitewater’s Web site, consists of “extremely long, obstructed or very violent rapids which expose a paddler to added risk.”

Eddy: A calm pool in a river created by an obstruction such as a boulder or landmass.

Hole: A hazard created when the current runs into an obstruction, such as an underwater or slightly exposed rock. Water going downstream is forced back upstream and creates a “hole” of recirculating whitewater. Some holes are considered fun play features; others are considered dangerous.

Boulder garden: A rapid consisting of whitewater running through a gauntlet of boulders, requiring precise maneuvering and boat handling.

Brace: A defensive maneuver used by a kayaker to avoid flipping.

Pourover: Hazard created by water flowing over a barely exposed boulder. A pourover is usually a very sticky hole.

Combat roll, Eskimo roll: Maneuver whereby a kayaker uses hip action and a paddle to right a flipped boat.