When Sam left me with the keys to his house and E-350 Van, with the words "Take chances" as the last thing he said to me, I knew it was going to be a great week. 

The following day, I ganged up with Steve Cameron and crew to catch Hagen Gorge. It's flashy, shallow, and has a bunch of great slides and ledges... The PNW equivalent of Woodhull Creek in NY, or maybe Patterson for you Vermonters. Except it's way better because it's in the PNW...

Hagen Creek ends after about a mile and 260 feet lower than where we put in. It joins the North Fork Washougal, doubling the flow and immediately falls off Teakettle Falls, a really fun slide to waterfall combo that requires a strong ferry halfway down. There's a stellar playhole at the base of the waterfall...and by stellar I mean uniform and sticky... and backed up by another identical hole just behind it. I forgot the gopro, but these guys put together a great edit from another trip.

The next rapid that's really of note is sometimes called Double Drop and sometimes called Crack In The Earth...which is confusing because later on there's another one alternatively known as The Portage and Crack In The Earth. Anyways, I screwed up the line in the runnable CITE, boofing into a curtain and then flipping in the slot that gives the rapid it's name. I still consider it a success though, since I've always wanted to boof into a curtain...

After several fun class III-IV rapids and a couple weirs with serious holes, we joined up with the Main Washougal, probably tripling the flow and changing the character yet again from pool drop to play. As I cut into the eddy servicing the best playspot, I dropped into another great playspot. It's great because it's super retentive! With a reminder that my surfing abilities are definitely lacking, I slid into the eddy with a sigh of relief.

It was a great day, starting way up in the mountains with snow falling and eventually ending on a river several times larger than the one we began on in the typical lush mossy greenery with sun shining at the takeout. Thanks to everyone that made it such a great day!

The next day, Harrison Rea rallied to get me on the Wilson River with some LCers for a great day of playboating. Unfortunately, I was in a Jackson Fun, a boat designed for someone approximately a foot shorter and 50 pounds lighter than me.

At some point in my unexpected introduction to squirtboating, we had a swimmer on our hands, and the three of us remaining in boats piled into a large recirculating eddy. It took a few minutes to get the boat to shore because everytime we reached the top of the eddy we were stern-squirted and sent to repeat the process.

After ensuring our rescuee was alright, I made the comment "if you're not swimming, you're not trying" and peeled out of the eddy. I proceeded to try, really really hard. As I peeled out, I stern squirted as expected, but my momentum carried me to river left and I splatted a point of rock. The point happened to be the downstream end of a rather hideous pocket (complete with depressed whirlpool) that also happened to be the perfect size for a Fun.

I'd love to say that I made a valiant effort to extricate myself while in my boat, but really, I missed a few rolls, reached for the green water, and felt the boat starting to pin up against the rocks. I decided it was time to say goodbye to my impromptu squirt boat, pulled the skirt, and in the same motion grabbed the shore and pulled myself up.

I stared in horror as my borrowed boat was sucked out of sight, straight down into the whirlpool. My borrowed paddle followed immediately after. When the river regurgitated my gear about 10 seconds later, I wasted no time getting it up on the rocks with me. The whole self rescue probably took less than a minute, so I don't think I need to be practicing that any more...

After a few days of working, I rallied out to Mt. Hood for my first day of snowboarding in the West. Although it wasn't the champagne powder of Idaho, the snow conditions were great, and it was bluebird for the first half of the day.

funny that it's called bluebird when my skin gets SO red.

 Great (new) friends made the day even better, showing me down some lines I wouldn't have tried on my own, and providing some great material for my first edit in a while...

Saturday John and Kate plus way more than eight showed me down the Upper Wind while we set safety and ended up prviding safety for other members of the safety crew. The Upper is great fun, pushy, with some pretty big holes. After paying the appropriate tribute to the river gods and bribing some other new friends, I headed over to Hood River for the premiere of "Slippery When Wet" to watch the schweet footage and bro down with Shon Bollock.

With plans laid to paddle Canyon Creek the following day, I headed home fairly early to get a good night's sleep. I helped Kate get her Sandy River float trip together and set a backup plan to paddle Bull Run with her since it was close to the Sandy. I then settled down to wait...

and wait...

...and wait...

and then finally, I waited some more.

At 1, I had given up all hope on paddling something gnarly, so I headed out to Bull Run for a quick lap on some class III.

Or so I thought. You see, Kate is a rally-er, despite her reluctance to admit it. When I suggested a game of EDDY (think HORSE for basketball, but for kayaking), things got real, real fast. We were a pretty even match, and made some pretty spectacular moves out of the usually mellow river features.

In an hour, we made it approximately 100 yards from the put in. It was the most fun I've ever had in a single rapid.

And that pretty much sums up the awesomeness of last week!