Lewis River Lower Falls '08

Lewis River's Lower Falls had always been an exciting spot to visit, but it wasn't until this year that I'd heard of people kayaking the falls. After a summer full of creeking I thought that running this waterfall would be a great "next step." So one Saturday afternoon in August my brother, Tate Taylor and I drove up to the falls with boats, cameras, and safety equipment. After lots of scouting, and putting together a bomber safety set up, it was time to run the falls. This falls was pretty straight forward, but paddling over the 6ft. drop right before the falls was a little tough, and the rock jutting out from river-right at the bottom was quite intimidating. After the first ledge I got one last boof stroke in befor sailing over the 40ft. waterfall. Hitting the bottom straight on I could feel myself go deep as well as my paddle bounce off my nose. After coming out and rolling up I paddled to the take out; everything went well except for my bloody nose. (Unfortunatly, towards the bottom of the drop I didn't tuck as much as I had hoped and upon the force of impact, my paddle hit my face giving me a pretty bad bloody nose.) Next it was my bro's turn, so I talked him through the line and strokes as best I could, then went to set up safety. Watching my brother go down was almost as scary as going down it myself. My brother's boof stroke wasn't perfect, and it resulted in his barrel role down the falls. Brendan was quick to come out of the hole at the bottom, but I noticed that his skirt had imploded, and his boat was half full of water. Luckily he was able to swim with boat and paddle to the take out. All in all this was a killer trip, and I'm looking forward to running it and its surrounding drops in the future.

My brother and I set safety below the falls.

The Green Truss '08

This year was my first year paddling the Green Truss Section of the White Salmon, and now it's my favorite local run. With drops like the 28ft. Big Brother and Double Drop my adrenaline is always pumping, and with the run only fifteen minutes away from home access it's quick to access. I'm really looking forward to running this more and more next summer and maybe even a few times this winter. (In this video I'm the paddler in the green boat with the orange top.)

Deschutes Dam

Sliding down the dam outside of Bend (side view)














Last spring break my dad, brother, and I went to Bend to paddle the Deschutes River. After a leasurely paddle down the Tumalo Section of the Deschutes we heard about a 30ft. dam right outside of Bend. So after a little bit of exploring around to find this dam, my brother and I took turns sliding down it. Because the dam flatens out at the bottom I ended up skipping over the flatwater at the bottom. I'd never done anything like this before and it was quite fun.



Same dam
(straight view)

Freewheelin' Husum Falls

At lower flows Husum Falls doesn't have too much of a hole, so one day, after paddling the Orletta, my bro and I decided to give freewheels over Husum Falls a try. I'd never tried a freewheel over a waterfall before, but it ended up better than I had expected. And by quincidence a friend of ours was taking pictures for a local raft company and got a few shots of my brother and me as we wheeled over the falls.