EF Lewis Race and Canyon Creek

Thurday night was too much fun. Video premiere for Dream Result at the University of Puget Sound in Tacoma with Tyler Bradt, Rush Sturges, and Eric Boomer. It's a crusher. Amazing. Pool session follows with free pizza and Coke courtesy of UPS kayak club. Thanks Gordon!!!!!! After the pool session we drove back to the party Gordon had planned. We then commenced to playing some fierce games of flip-cup. An excellent social game that will surely have everyone playing along in no time! Then these dudes showed up... Prophet, Bazuka Joe and Blue showed up to tear up free style! Rush jumped in and those dudes were rippin the mic!!! It was sweet. They went on for hours. The neighbors kept coming over asking us to TURN IT DOWN. dang. no one listened. The party uh, ended after 1 sometime, with a little help.. Good good times!! No one went to jail. Rush, Tyler, Boomer, you guys are livin' it. Thanks for stopping by.

Fri morning drug into the afternoon before we left for the E F Lewis Race. The East Fork Lewis is a sweet stretch of river flowing from Mt St Helens and Mt Adams. There are so many miles of boatable whitewater in this drainage. ... Scouted Swift Creek, Curly Creek, Big Creek, ?? Fri night was freezing. 15 degrees, maybe? I wore ALL my fleece.

Tao dominated all men's pro divisions. Marco Colella has a broken frickin' ankle and he got 4th in men's longboat! JP and Darren Albright finished up in the top 3 or 4 of several of the men's divisions. I crashed about 11 after watching the new LVM 33 with the femme fatales of Femme 45!! Those ladies know how to paddle.

Sunday started slow, left the campground around 11 for Canyon Creek of the Lewis. Put on and a few rapids later arrived at the biggest logjam I have ever seen. It was immense, 20 feet above the river in places. Had it been raining, it would have taken much longer. There were a couple holes in the wood that would not be pleasant to fall in to. That jam is gonna be there for a loooong time.

After the portage the canyon opened a little with great rapids and boofs all around. One rapid I remember, might have been Prelude To Thrasher, we eddied out above while Leif cruised down the right side of the drop. I didn't see much of a boof stroke, just Leif disappeared followed shortly by his bow becoming airborne and pitching ass-over-teakettle back into the drop. Damn. Everyone gave the "glad that ain't me" groan while Leif got tooled. Scott ran left and made it, JP followed, but got hammered in the little pocket there. Leif made it out, JP, too. We all finished up on that drop and other sweetness like Swizzle Sticks (which is more like Swizzle Gum Drop), Thrasher, Champaign, Hammering Spot, and the Big Kahuna!!! Man that is such a fun run. After the drops comes a 20 minute paddle out on Lake Merwin. There is a 60? foot slide entering the lake on the paddle out we all stopped to look at. It goes. Bone low was the level today, no one ran it. The short steep hike to the road is a bit ball buster with a somewhat sketchy little rope you could use for something, I guess. The last bit contains a semi-technical section with some semi-technical moves that rate maybe 5.3? With a 50 pound creek boat it gets exciting. I'm already thinking about next weekend!!!