Professor Paddle: Best teaching rivers for beginners.

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   First me.. Haven’t paddled very much in recent years but back in the day was a solid class 4-5 boater.  I get out every few years mostly to do self support inflatable trips on the Owyhee or Rogue etc… Plus the occasional pack rafting trip here in there.

I have decided to teach a couple of friends how to paddle Whitewater. They will be in inflatable kayaks and neither have much or any experience. They both desire to fully learn so they can go with me on various easy to moderate self support trips. My problem is that I really don’t know where to go around here to teach people in know where to go for harder water, just not easy and of good teaching quality. When I learned to paddle in Eugene Oregon there was a couple of different places where I could go that were perfect  for teaching,  i.e. nice big pool with some rapids and decent eddy lines, or short runs with nice easy Boulder gardens that end in good pools.  They will be in inflatable kayaks so they’ll have an easy leg up on learning in a hard shell. But I still want to teach them properly and get them solid fundamentals before embarking on some river trips this spring and summer. 

So, what are the go to beginner runs near Seattle for teaching people basic white water, river running and boat handling? Are there any that are particularly well-suited for training? Such as rivers with a nice mix of boulder gardens and wave trains with pools? Looking for say 2+ for a couple of trips and then good 2-3 with emphasis on 3... or something like that. 