two weeks of low and dry force us onto the only water that's left
Normally the entire state of Oregon is pounded by sideways rain from November to April, occasionally we'll get a sunny patch, but this December has been weird. I normally hang up the sea kayak for the winter, but after two weeks of solid sunshine and there was little to no creeking left to be done anywhere. We'd run the Truss a few days earlier, but at this point our options were getting pretty thin. Fortunately the surf was getting pretty flat so I thought this would be a good opportunity to introduce a few of my whitewater friends to the unknown sport of open coast creeking. Essentially this involves gearing up in face masks and elbow pads and then heading out to explore the cliffs and caves and arches in short but very manuverable whitewater boats. It's a bit of a slog, but once you're out there a creekboat is a far superior tool to a sea kayak for getting up close and personal with the rocks, slots, and overfalls. Even on a small day the coast delivers a class V punch of beauty and sheer energy, but once you know how to read the water and how to rescue a whitewater boat without landing, you can do some pretty amazing things without rising about a class III risk level. That's a pretty good risk to reward ratio if you ask me. Still, it's like pulling teeth to get whitewater boaters out here and no matter how much I gush about how incredible it is:
"...dude, the most amazing sea cave in North America is out here, it has five entrances, a long tunnel, and a huge room with a skylight that has a waterfall pouring into it! there is just so much noise and energy sloshing around, it will blow your mind!..."
....I still mostly come up empty handed. Time and time again I've encountered the baffling phenomenon of class V boaters who are freaked out by the surf. This week I persuaded Brandon to strap on some pads and follow me around Neah-Kah-Nie. The surf never quite dropped low enough for us to really get up close and personal with the tight slots and the good caves, although we did pass by a few insanely clean surf breaks that had me nearly in tears that I wasn't in a glass boat with fins. Oh well, it was a beautiful paddle anyways and always nice to do something different.
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