Back on the yak, Packsaddle to Spencer's Hole on the North Santiam

We headed out on a favorite section of the North Santiam this past Sunday. It'd been a full month since I'd been in the kayak and I definitely felt the novelty of it when we first set out. The rusted reflexes quickly became intuitive though and I was fully relaxed and enjoying myself after a few rapids downstream of our put-in. By the end of the run I had another 4 combat rolls and one self-inflicted swim (vid coming soon).

Spencer's Hole, a class III rapid at the end of this run, afforded us the opportunity to take some great pictures while we ran the rapid. The rapid is formed by a narrowing of the channel to a 20' gap bordered by large sedimentary escarpments on each side. The camera man can set up on top of the rocks on river right while another person sets up safety downstream (though it's largely unnecessary because the rapid finishes with a large pool area with little current and an easy swim to shore). Lennie has taken most of our river pictures thus far, because he's a far more skilled kayaker than the rest of us, so I made a point to get this sequence of him going through Spencer's Hole.

Lennie, coming in to the top of the hole (all that really foamy whitewater below him is the front of the hole - it blocks the back of the hole from the camera):

Lennie, in Spencer's Hole

The best part about this run is that we can take out below Spencer's, drag our yaks up the rocks, and launch again from above the hole to run the rapids all over again! We each ran it a couple of times. 

A pic of me and a rapid somewhere upstream of Spencer's. 

Me, at the top of Spencer's.

We also had some time to practice rolling and T-rescues. Here's Kim (underwater) practicing a T-rescue. She slaps the side of her boat and other boaters will push the bow of their yak against her hands so she can push off their boat and right herself.

Kim, practicing her roll (she's flipping up from being underwater).

Me, practicing eddy-outs. Three of my combat rolls were forced from poor technique on the eddy-out. While I rolled up it's still far better to be able to eddy-out correctly. It's a little unnerving to put the boat on such a lean but that actually keeps you from getting swamped by the forceful water from upstream (to the left in the pic above).