Topic: Hussum Falls 2010 Posted: 27 Jul 2010 at 12:02pm
This thread is being started as a generic thread about Hussum Falls and all things related specificly to it. Been a few PP folk down this way runnin it, which is a welcome sight... great seeing some of you down here last weekend!
Anyway, As I start off this thread, I'm focussed on the experience of Guiding rafts over it. But it is a general topic about the falls, so feel free to add your own perceptions, experiences, river lies, tales of terror, whatever!
Running Livestock Over Hussum Falls
This year it was Allstar who opened up the Falls. According to my river log it would have been july 8th. The water level was 2.75'. My custies on the afternoon trip told me they saw two blue rafts run it on their way up to check in for their trip with us. They thought the blue boats were private rafters but I immediately suspected otherwise. It was a thursday, when we see much less private rafts on the water.
Zollers has blue rafts, but they have been very conservative this year regarding the falls since it showed it's mean streak last summer. Many guides ont he river got plenty of beat downs, and some got injured last year.I suspected Allstar and was not surprised to have that confirmed. Their staff is comprised of some core boaters, rafters who kayak the local goods. Those guys know waterfalls the way non kayaking raft guides simply don't.
So the next day one of our senior guides was chomping at the bit to run his peeps over it. He has quite often been THE GUIDE on the river in years past to start running it, usually right around 2.75' on the guage. Most of the other companies this year were trying to wait till it was 2.5' or even 2.25'. But right about now people flock to the White Salmon specifically to run Hussum. Supply and demand, with descretion and good judgement.
Anyway that day four of our guides ran it clean. I felt left out as I portaged, but hey- I just didn't have the right crew to open up the falls for my self for the season. I wanted a sure fire crew that would run it clean, not fall out, and inspire confidence in me for the season. The followong day on July 10th, I got a bachelor party. It was a hair below 2.75'. My first ever commercial crew over the falls was also a bachelor party. Perfect. Not only can I rely on them to paddle us through the approach, but if we flipped, or if one or two of them were to get recirculated, I needn't care too much for their safety, because they were hearty enough to endure whatever the falls was lucky to unleash upon them. We had a clean run.
Catch Ya on the Flipside
so we had a good run for a while where only All Star and All Adventures were running the falls. Mostly clean lines, too (having one or two swimmer or two counts as a "clean run" provided the guide and most of the crew is still in the boat).
Since it's been 2.5' and less, the other companies have begun running it, with lots of flips and other asorted carnage. Overall our success ratio at the falls has remained high. Although, last saturday our company had its first flip of the season...
It is a challenge to guide people when it comes to Hussum falls. I sh*t you not: I've been a whitewater raft guide in 6 states on over 15 rivers, including the class IV and V classics in West Virginia. I've never had to "Hold On" or "Get Down" as a guide. I've had my custies do it, but never had to myself. Till I started guiding on the White Salmon. Over Hussum. And the "Hussum Falls Get Down" is one thing. Training them for it is another. And informing them of the hazards is yet a whole other complication.
A raft can't successfully run Hussum without performing the "Get Down" command accurately, and damn near perfectly. If you don't hang on and get dwon, you WILL get blown from the raft. Sure, private rafters get lucky all the time. I watch their sloppy sh*t. They river let's plenty of rafts off light especially late in the summer when it gets low enough. But try running livestock over it every day. Law of averages states that sooner or later your ass gonna get spanked even if you do everything consistantly and precisely. And for me as a guide, evaluating the custies and sizing them up is a significant challenge most of the time. I love this challenge. It keeps guiding fresh, exciting, and adventurous.
At the Big Eddy we give the custies a long hard talk'n too. Not sure what the procedures are at other companies, but we pride ourselves on our thoroughness. We prep our boats a certain way for the falls, top off our boats above it, tighten the attachment points of each thwart, ect. But that's minor compared to the preparations we make with our crews. We start off our "Falls Talk" with a description of the falls ( 14' high or so, with the bottom verticle part being about 8'. Not only does it plunge, but it twists as well.) We talk about the consequences ( like the custie from some company last year who allegedly had 40 seconds of DT before resurfacing to inhale a bunch of foamy water with his much needed breath of air, ect.). You have to scare off all the people who aren't qualified by telling them the un-varnished truth. It is an otional rapid. Optional for them, but also optional for us. At All Adventures, the guide has the final word, and the support of the company. If we say you can't run it, you can't Boo Hoo sucks to be you. Because we make that decision with serious consideration, and everyone's safety in mind.
Perhaps I should have been more insistant that the two girl friends in the back of the raft not run it. The four pack of testosterone to which these hapless girls were attached was game to run it for sure. It would seem later to be as though they prefered carnage as the most desirable outcome. Plenty such crews exist. THEY WANT CARNAGE! It's just too bad that the two girls were'nt "onboard".
We pulled away from the bank, paddled around the tree that stickes out, and all the sudden they ain't paddling in synch at all. I never have to yell at my crews. Seriously. I push all sorts of other buttons and usualy have really smooth, compliant, competant paddlers. I instruct them. I encourage them. I'm firm when I need to be and forgiving as well. Nurturing, if needed. A hard ass when required. But I never have to yell. I had to yell now. "GET IT TOGETHER GUYS!!! PADDLE IN SYNCH GOD DAMN IT!" Our line was fu*ked. Too far left. I had to call the "GET DOWN!!" command early, and I had to get down myslef earlier than normal. We were in for a rough crunch of a deep hit. I'm pretty sure the majority of my crew missed their holds, and as soon as I reached the Nadir under the falls where the whole trunk of the river dumps directly on me, I could tell we were on our way to resurface in the form of a flip.
fu*k it. I did everything I could to maximize our chances of success. My first ever flip on the White Salmon, first flip at the falls. First flip since Boulder Drop in 2002. But Flipping rafts ain't nothing new for me. Still, the "Long Swim" under the bridge is a rocky one. Not for me because my body knows how to deal with swims while my brain is problem solving and planning my next action(s). But those two girls got BANGED UP. Kim's knee got all jacked up in the shallows, and Alicia smacked her hip pretty hard on rock under the bridge. It's unnatural under they, you know. They blasted the falls to make room to build the bridge way back when (1940's?).
They tipped me good, it's true. The guys really though flipping and getting banged up was awesome. One dude got a shiner. The girls were actulally pretty heartyu in spirit two. As Kim Limped toward her car she said she'd come back, and I invited them to request me so we could give'er another go. They probably will.
My fellow guides all tried to console me, but I didn't need it. I'm not bummed out or bent out of shape. Flipping is part of rafting. I'm proud it doesn't happen to me more, but then again, one never knows when a streak of flips or (swims if you're a kayaker) will spill forth along your timeline. It's part of the experience. And while I've flipped so many places, that experience is only marginally relevant. Flipping at that exact rapid is VERY VALUABLE experience I feel blessed to have. With it I can better evaluate future crews, prep them for more contingencies, and generally deal with flips there in the future.
A lengthy tale, but lots of fun. Just one of many tales that the guides on this river all have. This river has one of the best concentration of guides I've ever seen collected anywhere. And since the falls has been open for biz, I've all but completely forgotten about kayaking!
yeah I hate typos. but that was lengthy and needed to be knocked out quick n dirty as possible. Since I know yall been missin my VERBOSITY...
I wanna hear how kayakers are experiencing the falls this year. What lines yall are taking, armchair geologists speculating on how the fall has changed (and will continue to change) ect...
Like-
I heard about the playboat that got postage stamped on the bottom of the river under the falls. The kayaker swam free, but his boat supposedly remained in there ofr 3 or 4 days, and when the falls was done with it's plastic losenge, it spat it out as a deformed, destroyed mess of plastic.
An awesome raft guide for one of the largest companies, who I will call Sapphire, fell out of his raft and went deep. He says he was pushed so hard to the river bottom below the falls, that he found himself sitting in, believe it or not, a lotus position on the bottom. It was relatively still, he said, yet there was downward pressure holding him down. He sat there and acctually pondered his predicament. He sensed he was facing downdtream. With an inner shrug, he sprang upward in the downstream direction and caught the outflow and came right out. Still, a sobering thing to experience.
Anyway, It would be awesome to see all those on this site come out of the woodwork and shape this thread with some Tales To Astonish...
I even talked to Tyler and he confrimed what I'd heard: That he had casually run the meat line and consequently got quite the BEAT DOWN. Naw, of course he didn't come outta his boat or nothin, but suffice to say he did get served. Now I'm armed with that tidbit when I explain to my custies just how brutal the falls can be.
Nice write-up JP. I remember back in the old days... mid-90s, Husum was the first falls I'd run, and not knowing how the boof flake worked it was usually more of a line through the gut. Needless to say my flip ratio was pretty high back then.
Yeah, all the veteran guides talk about how much meaner it is since the trees got stuffed in there in the spring of 2009. Some guides got pulled out of their raft who had never had a swim there previously.
Setting safety at the falls is fun. It's one of the greatest benefits of guiding here all season.
My advice to all of you on this site, friends, aquaintainces, who ever:
If you're running it, you should have some one get out on the "Safety RocK". That's right- the one we use as raft guides. Particularly if you are paddling with less experienced boaters, less bold paddlers, whatever. Yeah, it's very runnable in a kayak. Much easier than in a raft without question. Still, I've seen boaters get really worked over in there. Boaters who I could tell would have much prefered a different outcome.
PLEASE:
Are you taking your girlfriend down the W.S. (for example)? Don't be a dumbass (not talking to anyone in particular, just sayin). Set safety. And if there is carnage you're swiftwater rescue skills will improve. You'll get to throw your rope. Swift water rescue clinics are cool an all,but only by setting safety can you really be skilled when it counts. People should get some rescue experience before they go on to run the Truss, ect. Screw playboating. It's cool and all but you should look at rescue through a similar lense: Rescue is the ultimate form of whitewater freestyle. A form of freestyle that can benefit someone else when they are in trouble.
Cutivate a passion for effective rescues. How good can you get at it? How fast can you respond? How accurate can you throw your rope? How intelligent can you be in the moments you have to prepare to set safety before the boater upstream drops in?
I think a successful rescue gives me way more fun and satisfaction than say, surfing a hole.
I threw a rope the other day from the Saftey Rock to one of our custies. I was off by two feet downstream of him. Not proud of that. Here's what I am very proud of:
I yelled "Swim for the Rope" as he drifted through the pool, but he was too dazed to repond quickly, as is often the case after such a 10-20 seconf recirc. So I Flicked the rope. I sharp flick of the wrist put a spiral wave in the rope that hopped it two feet upstream of where it floated. It slapped against the bridge of his nose. He was able to grabe the rope, and I swang him in to R. Right. he was late getting the rope, and got dragged over some rocks just beneath the bridge, but I got him in. And if your footing and your stance is good you often yard in on the rope as you pendulum them in, pulling them upstream. This doesn't always work though as it depends on how well they are planing on the surface. Rafters don't have a clue as to how to get roped in. Kayakers though should be able to participate in their own rescue on the swimming end of the rope: They should plane themselves on the surface to make it easier for the rescuer.
anyway, I'm stoked on this paradise we find down in these canyons. But the White Salmon in particular is one of the main rivers that flows deep through the center of my heart.
Last year I just got one run in on the middle WS, and I definitely noticed a difference in the falls and could see why beatdowns were much more common. However that just got me to stray from my usual route and run the far right double drop twist, which was quite fun. Crank a hard boof stroke at the top drop to make a left turn while dropping and that lines you up for the 2nd drop. Or go balls out forward and slam into the bridge piliing. Your choice. Option one worked better for me.
Always fun finding a new line in a familiar drop. Now that I think of it, I have run that drop all sorts of ways, from RL to RR....
• The far right double drop • The classic boof flake • Just left of the boof flake and partially into the meat • Right down the gut. • Left of the gut... at some levels there's a cool shallow slide that drops you down at an angle to the main falls. The trick is just not getting too right and getting sucked into the maw • Far left-raft lining chute... I've dropped this line plenty of times when the water is high, it widens out and is a cool little twisting drop (I don't know how the foot-gage correlates, but on the online gage we're talking 1700-2500)
It had been exactly two years and six days since I ran Husum Falls last weekend on Saturday. In 2008 it was my first falls on a riverboard, or any craft for that matter. It didn't seem like any big deal; the worst that happened is I came up off my board a little bit and had to spin around and get back on to paddle. I did laps on it all weekend and really enjoyed it, esp. during the race with the crowd on the bridge.
This time I followed the same line, looking for the little wave right of center that flows into the seam. Next thing I knew I was vertical and off my board coming up without feeling like I'd gone very deep. It felt odd and I didn't like it.
I did another main run later that afternoon and thought about what to do differently, maybe I needed to drive harder and push deeper, if that was possible. Instead I felt very jarred at the bottom, bouncing off something back into the curtain, my board dancing around in front of me. My head was above water mostly; I could see people in the eddies and I was more annoyed than anything. I eventually found a rock to brace my foot against and pushed forward, freeing myself, which somehow felt like cheating. I'd put my face shield down and I think the edge of it hit my lip, but that was the only real consequence, besides downright embarrassment.
I didn't know the trees were wedged in there. Perhaps that is what had changed? I think I need to find a new line. It didn't exactly boost my confidence in running falls, esp. having had a much better experience two years ago.
The WS was one of the first rivers I ran in kayak and Kirk and Larry Stratton made sure I had a strong (enough) roll at the top, and the rest was just awesomeness. I'd done the Powerhouse at Snoqualmie a dozen or more times, but was still a newbie by my estimation.
I got lots of roll practice that day, but no swimming, and I felt like I was finally a kayaker when we stopped for lunch. Then I realized my lunch was in Larry's van. Doh. They were both super nice to share their food, and introduced me to the beef chunk jerky (Scooby Snacks, if you ask my wife).
We put back in and paddled down to look at the falls. We had stopped the night before to see it from the bridge, but it looked bigger and meaner in the daylight.
This was back when the flake was still there, and they let me guess at the best line, then set me straight a little, and we walked back up to give it a go. I can't recall which of them went first, but I followed next and did just fine. After the other was down we hiked our boats back up for another run and I did almost as well, but then washed into a raft that was parted under the bridge and flipped when my shoulder stopped but my kayak didn't. I slid upside down until I could see daylight through the water and righted myself. The poor passengers thought I'd died because it took a while for my boat to clear the raft before I could resurface.
The WS will probably remain my favorite river, and Husum, my favorite feature. I haven't yet run any other falls, and it will be a few years before I'm able to make enough time to really put into boating and feel confident doing new ones. Until then, I'll make my annual pilgrimage and worship in my way.
As for rafting it, here are some great shots of BEWET running it last year. My boat is the one following the text "the backwards way to guiding a raft"; and that is me with both feet in the air in the fourth photo. It is hard to read the dark text on the dark background, so search on "backwards" if you're interested.
I usually only get one trip in to the WS each year, and didn't think I'd get to run it on this trip, but I ended up with a great crew that was siblings and cousins and took it all very seriously. As you see, we could all have gotten further down in the boat, me in particular. I smashed my helmet into someone else's pretty well, but no one else claimed that I hit them, and no one was hurt.
Mine was the only boat in our group not to drop someone into the water that day. We had a few flips, but we always set a strong safety of guides.
I got to run it twice the next day, once with my crew, and once with two guys from another crew and few of our guides whose boats were already down. The guide for that boat wasn't feeling up to it, and I laud her deciding not to run it. As will most of boating, that is a personal choice to make each day. I think she chose well, and we all had fun.
Hey JP, it was a creek boat that got pasted to the bottom of Husom. I know the paddler well, he's in the industry and lives in Hood River. The boat was a brand new, and I mean brand new, Nomad. He took it out of the plastic wrap, fitted it out, headed up to Husom, put in immediately above the falls, took the 5 or 10 strokes needed to line up and ended up pasted to the bottom of the river. He said it took some effort to get himself out once he was swimming. This guy runs the Little White on a regular basis. He's a very good paddler.
The boat was in there for 4 days! It came out on day 5 and washed up below the play hole (Rattlesnake?) just around the corner.
I have some photos of the boat I took when I visited him earlier this summer and will see if I can post them in the photo section.
Kyle
"I used to be somebody, now I'm somebody else." Bad Blake
Then you just type in the name of an Album, like Nomadic Husum. Then you go to your uploads folder and move them into the Nomadic Husum folder but using the drop downs.
I have heard from a number of people who run the WS on a regular basis that Husum Falls has changed over the last few years and has become more retentive than it once was. In observation of that while scouting it recently, I saw a few rafts go through (some better than others, and a few swimmers), watched one kayaker mess up their boof-line and spun through it sideways (they made it through OK, thank goodness), and another kayaker only a stroke or two away from getting worked... Needless to say, what I saw that day did not inspire me and I chose not to run it.
It's always good to hear of these type of hydrolic changes and people's experiences with them. Thanks all for sharing!!
When I first ran it, years ago in a hardshell, I had scouted it long and hard from on and below the bridge, and from above, and it really looked like it couldn't retain you. It has definitely changed, and I don't think I'd have paddled it with as much confidence if it had looked like it does now.
Husum was pretty fun and friendly last weekend @2.25ft. The best line seemed to be on the left side of the boof flake, soft fluffy landing.
SOMEWHAT OFF TOPIC INFO BELOW...
This is a little OT but the road from Randle to Trout Lake is in good shape - about 11 miles of dirt road - but overall faster to travel from Seattle to Trout Lake via this route versus going through the gorge to Hood River. This road was closed for a couple of years so if you started paddling when we did (in 2006), you might be programmed to take the Hood River route.
Also, if you are a cyclist, the loop from Trout Lake, north on highway 23 back towards Randle, west on 90 towards Cougar and then south on 88 back to Trout Lake has to be about the best road ride in Washington state. Deborah and I rode it last Saturday and we were grinning the entire ride. 6 cars past us in 54 miles. click for route map
arn9schaeffer@gmail.com (remove 9 for my real email address)
I agree with Arn about Forest Road #23: it's fast, scenic, and so much more enjoyable than I-5. The black top section south of Randle is a bit narrow in places, not quite 1.5 lanes in width, but plenty of room given the traffic load. The 11-mile gravel section is in good shape, as gravel roads go. It seemed like the only rough patch was the first couple miles on the southern end, otherwise I was probably doing 35 mph most of the way. I talked with a Forest Service Ranger who said she drives it in her Prius.
The route is closed to commercial traffic, but I was surprised by the size of some of the travel trailers I passed. One guy was hauling a full-sized 5th-wheel trailer behind his heavy duty pickup!
You cannot post new topics in this forum You cannot reply to topics in this forum You cannot delete your posts in this forum You cannot edit your posts in this forum You cannot create polls in this forum You cannot vote in polls in this forum
Register
Login
Active Topics
Memberlist
Search
IP Logged
I eventually found a rock to brace my foot against and pushed forward, freeing myself, which somehow felt like cheating. I'd put my face shield down and I think the edge of it hit my lip, but that was the only real consequence, besides downright embarrassment. 
Manage Your Gallery
