Monday, June 25, 2007

Dirtpatch, on the Road Again!



Stacy and I are back on the road together for the first time in awhile. We are in north west Oregon in the Hood River area. Last time we were paddling here was back in '02. Wow, time flies.

After I left California, I drove up to Hood River and met up with Stacy who just got finished fighting fires in the east. I am sans kayak right now, except for Robin's broken Jefe. I took my borrowed leaky vessel along with Stacy and ran the Clackamas river, 29 miles of class II-IV in the beautiful Ponderosa Pine forest of north west Oregon.

It was fun to be back on the river, living out of my kayak. I could get used to that.


On the way to the put in we did a 3 mile side hike to Bagby Hotsprings. They were amazing! We did an early morning hotsprings tour and then went to put on the Clackamas.



Shortly after we put on, we paddled to the Austin hotsprings, right on the side of the river. The water was so hot(boiling) that it melted the vinyl mastic (sp?) on the Jefe and it began to leak for the rest of the run. Here is Stacy perched between the incredibly hot hotspring, and the incredibly cold river.

The river was pretty mellow, but was filled in with these huge lava-esque rocks.

We ended up camping on a beautiful sand bar and built a camp fire. The wood was dry and Stacy contemplated setting the woods on fire to give her firefighter friends some work. However it bagan to rain as the sun began to set. We had to batton down the hatches under a rainfly(the first picture is us battoning down). It was another adventure.


It continued to rain and was a balmy 53 degrees much the entire next day, but when we took off the river that afternoon we got to see 3 beautiful rainbows on the way back to Hood River.





The Adventure continues... We are glad to be here and happy that each time we go kayaking we get to help beat up on cancer and help those that are still fighting the battle.

Fight to the Finish!

1 comment:

Megan said...

Hey scabies and katie!!! I am so glad you girls are back together. I am thinking about you guys daily and wish that I could be with ya'll just one day to watch all the madness. Keep up the good work out west and just know how much I love both of you!! OH- and don't scratch my paint bitchez while ya'll are ridin' and lookn'
mazziboschmegmals