The Pacific North West – part 2

We also attended the North West Creeking Comp at the East Fork of the Lewis and Canyon Creek. The NWCC was good fun with many laps at Sunset, one of the best waterfalls to get started and a couple races down the Lewis, a short section but with some nice rapids in a tight canyon.

Canyon Creek is a pretty cool run, just about 30min drive from the Lewis. There are many cool rapids in the canyon, specially the waterfall and the last few drops. Overall a beautiful run with many cool drops and a nice flat water paddle out!

The Robe Race consist of teams of two going down the canyon, portaging Landslide as fast as possible and continue racing through the following rapids. It’s about 25-30 minutes long (longest race I’ve ever entered!) and the rapids are high quality white water. We did a couple laps on Friday trying to remember some of the many possible lines. Saturday was race day, but unfortunately the race got canceled due to high water. Anyway we had our own race and timed ourselves. Was pretty fun, and the river couldn’t offer a better flow. We did another lap in the afternoon and drove to Bellingham looking fro some shelter.

Log Choke and Alpine Falls on the Top Tye, a Washington classic

On Sunday morning we had many options as it had been reining hard, Robe was at 7ft, Clearwater, Middle Fork… We faintly chose Top Tye, and it was such a good call. We meet up with Washington locals Sam and Rob and they showed us their amazing backyard run. Great rapids, big holes and a great flow under nice weather made for a perfect Sunday. We ran all the rapids of the run and then lapped the lower section 3 more times, it was so good!

Overall happy with the results as I’ve only been paddling since February and I’m just feeling better and better in my boat. 3rd and 4th on the Lewis, 2nd at Canyon Creek race and first together with Darren at the ‘unofficial’ but true Robe Race. Pretty goods times, stoked for more!

The beautiful Columbia river Gorge