Reflections of Food and Water by Tom Meckfessel

Cookin' on the river - ain't nuthin' better.


I pretty much grew up in the “gourmet ghetto” of the bay area. When I was a child living in Marin I used to take trips with my mom over to Berkeley just to buy coffee from Peet’s or cheese at the Cheeseboard. I spent countless hours thumbing through Diane Kennedy’s “Cuisines of Mexico” and watching Julia Child cook on TV. I appreciated good food but spent more time watching my mom cook than actually cooking. That would all change when I started working as a river guide.

Through a strange series of events I ended up working for a small river outfitter out of Bolinas. We were a gypsy company that would load up the Suburban at the beginning of the summer and head north doing trips in California, Oregon, Idaho and Alaska. I was on cloud nine as I spent my summers running rivers with one of the most eclectic groups of guides and clients ever assembled. And, one of the best parts about this small company was that they were almost as obsessed with food as I was.

While often compromising on appearance and equipment, James Henry River Journeys never cut corners on food. Everything was made on the river. I never saw a bottle of salad dressing on a JHRJ trip and we were one of the first companies to run wine tasting gourmet trips. In the early years it used to take us 4 days to shop for a Tatshenshini trip in Seattle driving all over the place to pick up just the right ingredients. We would then pack up the sole suburban with everything needed for a 14 day, 24 person trip (including, boats, frames, gear) and put it on the ferry up to Haines, AK.



I quickly learned the ropes on how to cook for large groups and found that the place I was most comfortable was in the kitchen. For almost 20 years I cooked my way down some of the most beautiful rivers in the world and to this day cannot separate food and running rivers. When Team Clavey gets the itch to go boating the first thing I do is start thinking of the menu. And while everybody loves being on the river on a nice hot summer day, I find it most enjoyable to cook on cold weather trips: November Rogue trips with aged rib eyes on the fire pan and single malt scotch, April Illinois trips with Chile Verde from the dutch oven and homemade tortillas, halibut chowder for our Tashenshini expeditions and floating the Brooks Range with Ptarmigan Paella.



Paella has become my single favorite dish – mainly for the reason that it's a one pan meal that’s both rustic and elegant – and, if done right, tastes phenomenal. Even though I’d been cooking paella for a number of years I had never thought seriously about making it on the river. Paella, for those of you who may not know, is a Spanish rice dish that is cooked (traditionally over an open fire) in large, shallow circular pans. It is difficult to cook on the river because you really need two fire pans side by side to handle a decent sized group. Last summer I got invited to organize a trip on the Marsh Fork of the Canning, above the Arctic Circle in the Brooks Range. After years of talking about paella on the river, I finally put on a pair of man-pants and made the ultimate decision - We would be eating paella in Alaska.

Weight, when flying into the Alaskan bush, is always an issue, so taking two large fire pans was definitely out of the question. Instead, we went old school and built a pit fire with a fold out grill to hold our 22” pan. My good friend Jim (who introduced me to paella and also convinced me to start my own paella catering company, Paella del Reyes) and I were the designated cooks on the trip and we decided that we would do two paellas on the trip – one traditional and one with ptarmigan (if we could bag some) as the main ingredient. We also decided that we could use the 22” pan as our general skillet.



We had the pan pretty well disguised when we were loading the bush planes in Fairbanks but that did not keep the pilots from asking us what the f*#k was in the green bag. When we told them it was a paella pan the conversation quickly deteriorated and included such comments as, “you MUST be from California” and “did you bring a sword to go along with your shield?” To make a long story short, we had two great paella feasts – both around midnight – and we did have some unforgettable ptarmigan paella up above the arctic circle.


As a side note: Hunting ptarmigan in the Alaskan bush is not terribly difficult as the birds are pretty much everywhere. But regardless of the sheer number of the little buggers, you can take it from me - “Safety Tom” - that you’ll find your hunting success multiplied, not just by how close you get to the birds, and not solely by your aim, but mostly whether or not you’ve taken off the safety when you pull the trigger.



And it’s inspiring advice like that, that keeps you coming back to the Clavey blog.

Uncle Owen, this R2 unit has a bad motivator!

I’m a big fan of the R2. Two people, one small boat, lots of harmony (lots of swimming).

Don’t get me wrong, I like to row. I like the sole responsibility of taking my boat through the rapids. I like the ability to carry more gear, beer and food than I can possibly need for my time on the water. I like being able to carry people who can’t boat and dogs that can’t swim. I like the feel of a floating ’74 Country Squire station wagon when I’m on any river for more than a day. But I also love the R2 and here’s why:

I’ve got a 12 foot Avon Scout. I can roll that boat up, stuff it in a boat bag and take it anywhere in the world. I can get it on the water before you even have your frame strapped down. At the take out, I’m off the water and on the road before you’ve even humped your cooler up to the parking lot. I love the simplicity. I love the simplicity. I love the simplicity. I don’t have to give a bunch of thought to getting on the river. I don’t have to weight the time and hassle of getting all my gear together against the small amount of actual river time. My R2 question for getting on the river is super simple. Am I willing to drive? Yes or no to that one and I’m either getting on the river or working in the garden.




















The R2 time on the water is totally different from my 15’ Expedition time on the water. Am I gonna run Rainey Falls in with four days worth of gear, my girlfriend and two dogs? Not if I still plan on marrying the same girl. But you throw me and my girl in a little rubber sports car and we’re happy to sign up for the guaranteed flip & swim.


















Here in Northern California the quickest whitewater to get to is the South Fork of the American and that trip can get pretty boring pretty quick. But shrink down the size of your boat and suddenly you’re on a whole new ride. The holes look bigger. You’ve got whole new tight routes you can take. Anywhere you see kayakers surfing, you can duck into the eddy and jump on the waves as well. And unlike a gear boat, you’re not all stressy about flipping. Heck, flipping’s just part of the fun. Flipping, swimming, it’s just like being a kid again.

Dogs Love Rafting...

Not my dogs. But I’ve seen big yellow labs having a great time on the water.

When I proposed to my girlfriend and she said yes, I suddenly had an instant family: Two step dogs and two and three quarters step cats. The cats are no big deal. Feed ‘em. Pet ‘em. Clean up after ‘em. But the dogs are a different story. Nicole likes to take the little fluffy darlings with her when she goes up to the mountain, out to the beach, through the woods. And as Nicole and I have been having a great time out and about and on the water, she thought maybe we could teach some old dogs some new tricks...She was mistaken.

Technically speaking, a Subaru Outback is a station wagon. It is not, however, the Country Squire I spent my childhood driving across the country with my parents, three siblings, German shepherd and everything we needed for a month at the lake. Loading a Subaru Outback with everything you need for an overnight river trip is a snug fit but it works. Loading a Subaru Outback with everything you need for an overnight river trip and two mid-sized dog takes a little imagination. I suggested we tie the dogs to the top of the car with the frame, cooler and dry bags, but that wasn’t met with the sort of positive response I was hoping for. So the dogs would need some room inside the car and they seemed to be totally incapable of squeezing in on top of the kind of overnight package I’d put together in the past. It was obvious I would have to make some concessions.

To begin, I chose a smaller raft (the 13’ Avon Drifter) and decided on a day frame with only one bay (for the cooler) instead of a frame with an extra bay for the drybox (as I no longer had room in or on my car for the drybox). The boat, kitchen bag, dry bag o’ wood, water jug, dog stuff, and dogs all got stuffed into the back of the ‘Back. The frame, cooler, personal drybags and oars all got tied to the top. And for the two and a half hour jaunt up to Chili Bar, I longed for the days of the Country Squire.

When we first pushed the boat from shore Bonnie and Indigo (my step-dogs) were all kinds of bright-eyed and bushy tailed, waiting with bated breath for this new adventure to unfurl itself before them. Unfortunately, what unfurled in the first half mile, was not the big frisbee-like unfurling that they had been, no-doubt, anticipating.

The South Fork of the American was running a little over three grand that day in mid-April, which is a great level if you want to put in a few miles. Higher than your typical summer weekend flow, 3K adds a little meat to some of the rapids and washes out others. When I stuffed the bow of the little Avon into that first hole at Meatgrinder, the puppies made it immediately clear this was not what they signed up for. Fortunately for them, there was barely another 20 miles and two days left on the trip.

As the lion’s share of river trips any intelligent rafter will go on happen in the summer, a serious concern is hyperthermia - the overheating of your dog. And the biggest advantage of any decent doggy life jacket is the carrying handle - with this you can easily dip your pooch in the drink for a nice cooling off and then pull them back aboard, letting them show you their appreciation with a satisfying shake. We, of course, didn’t have any worries about overheating as we were rafting in temperatures in the mid-60s. After that first deluge of whitewater, the poodle cowered into a hypothermic ball of shivering wet hair and the Aussie crawled on to my lap, unimpressed with my need to row. Nicole and I were genuinely worried about the condition of the children, as their lack of a good time was quickly becoming our lack of a good time. Fortunately, we soon discovered the secret of canine happiness when we pulled the boat to shore. Once on dry land, life sprang back into them as they ran around peeing on everything that couldn’t move out of the way. We filled their little water bowl with river water (don’t ask), tossed the frisbee a bit and the little furmeisters were as happy as ever. The frequent landing of rubber on sand, it appeared, was the key to happy animals.

At camp, we repeated the transformation of the cold, lifeless lumps into frisky, inappropriately barking dogs once again (if this had been a hot day in July, we would have made the dogs wade to shore, preventing their feet from burning on the blistering hot sand). We set up our tent, laid the dog bed at the foot of our doublewide sleeping bag and then I threw the frisbee until my wrist finally could flick no more. The following morning our poodle, who is not normally much of a morning doggy, had an especially hard time getting out of bed (like she’d been pulling the oars all day).

I would have to say the second day went considerably better for the dogs than the first, as I made a concerted effort to keep the little barkers dry. Never-the-less, even with my added effort to pull hard so there was nary a drop on their shiny little coats from the various holes and waves that we threaded between on the second ten miles, I think this first rafting trip for the dogs may also be their last. If only I could talk Nicole into a lab.

GPS 101

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Trip Report: Middle Fork of the Feather

Middle Fork of the Feather, April 2009

Tom from Clavey recently did a 3 day run on the Middle Feather. This is a recap of the trip written by Robyn Suddeth. For more photos of the trip go to Clavey's Photo Gallery.

I had already made other plans for the weekend. My bags were packed and carpool was set for a beginner’s kayaking school on the Kern River, and I was even getting a great deal on the class (i.e. free). But when Scott A called up and said, “We’re trying to put together a Middle Feather trip for this weekend… you in?” I really only hesitated about a minute before replying, “100 Percent, I’m definitely in.”

I had been curious about the Middle Feather for a long time. It’s hard not to be when Holbeck and Stanley describe it as the “Best Multi-day Wilderness Run in California” and “one of the most beautiful rivers in California”, and rumor on the street is it’s “as hard as Cherry Creek, and totally committing.” For me, that last statement means: “An adventure!” My mom still asks me, whenever I go on a trip like this, why I am at all inclined to think they are fun. I tell her: “It makes life more interesting.” Truthfully, I think these kinds of trips bring out the best in a lot of us.

Either way, I was very, very excited. By Friday morning, we had a fantastic rag-tag group of eleven people – the best of the skilled, brave, and/or crazy – committed and meeting in Chico that night.

The dinner and breakfast in Chico before the trip were veritable feasts – we knew we were going to have to pack pretty light. Luckily we had a shuttle set up for us, so all we had to do after breakfast was load up Tom’s Clavey van and Scott’s truck, and get ourselves to put-in.

Like a lot of these committing Class V runs seem to do, the Middle Feather flowed wide and calm for the first few miles downstream of put-in, inducing a state of lackadaisical relaxation before shocking us right back into alert attention. The first Class V we got to was a long, fast-moving wave train that led directly into one of the more horrific looking boulder jumbles I’ve ever seen. There was a potential, very small airplane-turn line through there, but we decided instead to purposefully eddy out on the left at the bottom of the wave train, hump our boat over a few inconvenient rocks, and run a much kinder drop on the left side below the eddy.

The rest of the day had some big rapids in store for us, and as a paddler in the lead boat we caught a fair share of eddies that would have much better suited a small kayak, but nothing “as hard as Cherry Creek” had appeared quite yet. One of the last rapids of the day caught all of us by surprise; after the river seemed to mellow out and leave its first canyon, a sharp, riffled bend led into an abrupt horizon line. Adam, Kevin and I managed to catch a small eddy on the right and Kevin and I grasped on to the willows for dear life as Adam climbed out to scout, but the next two rafts came barreling down fairly quickly, and had to run based on Adam’s shouts and hand signals from shore. Luckily Adam, Scott and Jordan (the guides) all seemed adept at understanding each other’s arm-waving, and everyone had a good run.

Soon after we found camp – an old miner’s spot that, while a bit trashed, had a bunch of flat, wonderfully grassy camps amidst shady oak trees. It was a great spot. Some of the guys tromped off to fish while the rest of us began warming up by the fire and a few kind individuals took on dinner. Biggest catch of the evening was a whopping 7 inches long, but it sure tasted good with the thermos of whiskey being passed around.

On Day 2, we got our first taste of truly big, Class V rapids. Shortly after leaving camp, we found ourselves in “Franklin Canyon”, whose first Class V is Franklin Falls. The Cassidy Calhoun book writes this rapid up as a recommended portage for rafts, but it looked run-able. One raft in our group decided to push their boat, while the other two ran. Turned out to be a great line right down the middle of the falls.

The walls of Franklin canyon are steep and wooded, every once in a while allowing a glimpse of snow-capped mountains peaking above the river’s enclosing ridgelines. Side streams and creeks tumbled down through the trees and into the canyon so often that I eventually realized it was not all that exciting for the other two people in the boat if I pointed each of them out. I was lucky to have any time to appreciate the beauty of my surroundings, though. There was no shortage of horizons, and we found ourselves constantly paddling back and forth across the lip of a big drop, trying to boat scout as many rapids as possible. (I even had to embarrass myself the next morning and request that we forward-paddle some more that day to give my back-paddling muscles a little bit of a break.)

The biggest adventure of the day, and in fact the trip, came at the end of day 2. We reached the obvious and most-often used campsite, where the Pacific Crest trail crosses the river, at about 5 pm. This footbridge and campsite signify the beginning of Devil’s Canyon- the third and most committing gorge of the trip. But a certain participant (to remain anonymous) had a vague memory of a “really awesome ledge camp” somewhere downstream. “How far downstream?” we asked, to which we received the answer “Not sure… but within a few miles I think.” Hmmm… it had taken us about 10 hours already that day to go about the same amount of miles, so “a few miles” was not insignificant.

However, we knew we had a pretty decent portage to deal with the next day, so the closer we could get to take-out that night, the better. We stalled out in the eddy for a few minutes, pondering our little predicament. Finally, Colin said, “I’m up for pushing on.” And that was that; the decision was made. We peeled out of the eddy and pushed on into Devil’s Canyon.

Literally about a quarter of a mile downstream, all indication of potential camping spots completely disappeared from our sights. The canyon walls changed from forest to granite, and became disconcertingly steep. Just as the light in the canyon took on the low purple hue of early evening (quite a wonderful time of day to be relaxing on a beach, really, rather than paddling through cold and extremely challenging whitewater), we happened upon some of the biggest rapids we would encounter in the entire trip.

Very aware of our waning daylight, we began pushing ourselves more than we would under “normal” circumstances. Adam (and by necessity myself and Kevin as his faithful paddlers) led the trip as if we were in a kayak rather than a 14 foot raft. The thing about a raft is that it cannot really catch tiny eddies in the middle of rapids as deftly as its smaller plastic cousins. Translation: if you drop into something without seeing the bottom, you are almost certainly committed to the entire rapid no matter what you find below that entrance.

It was exciting to say the least; heart-pounding like almost no other hour of paddling I’ve ever done. (Maybe comparable to the first time I ever went down Cherry Creek, which for comparison, was also the first time I had ever experienced Class V whitewater.) I don’t even know how many rapids we pushed through in that hour and a half. I do, however, remember the scariest one. The washout for this rapid was so far below and downstream of us that we felt that we really couldn’t get away with just scouting from our boat. Kevin and I held on to the raft as Adam began climbing over the boulders on river right to get a look. The other two rafts eddied out upstream, and Jordan walked down river-left from a ridge about 40 feet above the water’s edge. Neither he nor Adam were able to get to a place where they could really see the middle part of the rapid.

Here is what we knew: 1) The bottom was clean; 2) There was definitely at least a kayak line because there was no reported portage in this section in any of the write-ups; 3) There was only one drop wide enough for a raft to fit through at the top of the rapid; 4) We were cold; 5) There was no where in the immediate vicinity to camp, aside from our rafts.

Here is what we didn’t know: 1) What the middle of the rapid, from the very top of the entrance drop to about 15 longitudinal and probably also 15 vertical feet downstream, looked like.

We decided to give it a go. After I kicked my back foot underneath the thwart about ten times to be sure I was really in there, we began paddling out into the current, and over to the entrance drop on river left. Amazingly, the drop was very clean, and fun. Adam had to ask for some quick back-paddling to stay off a boulder directly below the first drop, but otherwise it was no bigger than you’re every day, no big deal, Class V rapid. The exhilaration of making it through was amazing!

Luckily, we spotted a very tiny beach about 15 minutes downstream from there, and made the executive decision that this was “Ledge Camp”. Everyone was pretty happy to have found any flat ground at all, and dinner that night tasted just as good as the feast we had before we left Chico, even if it was just river fajitas. (The next day we found out exactly where those ledges really were – 7 miles from the Pacific Crest Trail, RIGHT above portage. And, there happened to be a smaller portage just around the corner from our beach, so we were very lucky to have stopped when we did!)

Day 3 afforded us a little more time to appreciate the splendor of Devil’s canyon in full daylight. Waterfalls dropped from granite cliffs and painted stripes of green algae against canyon walls. Deep pools shone their true blue-green against the light-colored rocks, and dark forests still covered the hillsides beyond the canyon. I would say that the Middle Feather truly gets better and better with each day, surprising you with its ability to do so.

Due to our little adventure the night before, we reached portage with plenty of time, and were able to have a nice relaxing lunch at the bottom. The write-ups all call the portage “strenuous” and some even go so far as to say “heinous”. As much as I would love to be able to disagree, I cannot. It truly is heinous. The trail is narrow, high above the river, dusty, and looooong. We had to completely de-rig the boats, carry each one sideways along the sketchy trail, and then go back for all the gear. However, three days on that river are completely worth the effort!

After portage there is a last stretch of really big rapids, ending with “Grand Finale” just a mile above take-out. Helicopter, a mandatory Class V, is an intimidating bend in the river with three significant-looking holes but with a lot of gradient and water flushing through. Everyone had great runs in there, although Mike had forgotten to close a certain key zipper on his drysuit after a mid-scouting pee break, which was apparently quite a shock in the final hole. There were a few high-water type maneuvers in the last Class V section as well, forcing us to run from one side of the river to the other and back again to avoid a few scary-looking holes. And that last rapid is truly a “Grand Finale,” not just named such because of its location.

By take-out I was probably more sore than I had ever been before, but happily so. I am in complete agreement with Holbeck and Stanley that the Middle Feather is, in fact, the best wilderness run in California. It is truly continuous Class IV-V in the heart of its canyons, and incredibly scenic. If given the chance, I think all of us would have gone right back up to put-in and started the trip all over again. Wouldn’t change a thing… except maybe to find those mysterious ledges just a “few” miles downstream of the entrance to Devil’s Canyon…

If you've got a sweet Clavey Rig you don't need a Ferrari

The Clavey Rig: The best rafting package ever? Yes.


If that sounds pretentious, it's because you don't already have your own sweet Clavey Rig pimped out on your own 15' Avon Expedition. Because if you did have your own Clavey Rig, you would know that the only thing it's missing is tinted windows.

Let's start from the beginning, from the water up, so to speak. Let's take a look at a recipe for what we believe (humbly) is the “can't be beat”, best multi-day rafting package ever created. Begin with the 15' Avon Expedition. This is a boat designed with the family and multi-day river trips in mind. When we designed the Expedition what we desperately wanted was the west coast small river maneuverability of the 14' Adventurer (something to fit comfortability on the Illinois in the spring or low water on the Tuolumne) and the volume and carrying capacity of the 16' Pro (a southwest rivers - read Grand Canyon - classic). To get our dream boat we took what already worked and just made it work better. We stretched the Adventurer to 15 feet and added an inch and a quarter to the tubes (bigger tubes than the Pro). This gave us an additional foot of frame we could put on top and the extra volume in the tubes to carry what we want on it. The only added width came from the increased size of the tube. So where the Adventurer sat 7 feet across the beam, the Expedition now sits at 7'2". Wide enough to be stable but narrow enough to scoot down the dory chute at Rainie Falls. On top of this you've got Avon's lower floor for more interior depth and this translates directly to a lower center of gravity and fewer flips.



So you've got a boat, now you need a frame. Everybody's got an opinion about boat frames and for the the most part everybody's right. But let's not look at what's right, let's look at what's righter. The Clavey Expedition Frame is Strong, Modular and Light. Built from super stocky 1 7/8" OD anodized aluminum tubing, the Expedition frame easily ties flat to the top your vehicle or breaks down to a golf bag sized bundle of metal sticks (for those Beaver flights into Alaska). Swedged 90º corners mean unparalleled strength and rigidity while the oversized tubing won't creak under pressure like smaller tubing can. We take advantage of every last inch of boat for the length of our frame, maximizing the size of our four bays. This means more room in the rowers compartment, a larger dry box, a bigger drop bag and a great sized river table for camp.

Boat? Check. Frame? Check. So let start filling those four bays. Under my butt, I think you can't beat the Yeti Tundra 120 indestructible bear-proof cooler. My tender derriere needs some padding so I always have a cooler cover. For those of you who like a rower's seat, the Clavey Flip Seat Bracket is an easy add-on. Next, I like a Drop Deck in the rower's compartment for anything more than a single day trip. With the drop deck, a world of possibilities opens up before me. First, it gives me a stable platform that I can stand on regardless of what my floor of my boat is doing. Next, it allows me to utilize valuable space in my raft that would otherwise be wasted. On either side of my legs I can strap in rocket boxes, water jugs, or my personal choice - Clavey Half Boxes (these guys give me fast & easy, watertight access to any number of important items - dry-top, insulation, rivermap, bourbon). In the next bay up, I drop my 16x16x40 bear-proof Dry Box with ethafoam on both the top and the bottom. Why ethafoam? Without it you'll fry your hand or your butt when the sun's been cooking the top all day or bust your ass when you step on the wet aluminum. I put it on the bottom too, because I’m not a big fan of sharp cornered, immovable metal in the bottom of my raft. And when I say I drop it in, I'm not wasting a bunch of time building slings. We weld tabs directly to our Dry Box so we can literally just drop it in and strap it down. Up front where my girlfriend and dogs encourage me to row harder and faster is one of the greatest gear storage systems ever: The Drop Bag and River Table combination. The drop bag holds all those items that don't mind a little water and don't really fit anywhere else - my Partner Stove and Stand, propane, Partner Blaster, and Fire Pan. I use ethafoam to keep the shape on the bottom of my drop bag as well. To top this off, we build the perfect River Table. The table top covers the frame, front and back, while the powder coated frame of the table slips perfectly in between the bars of the raft frame, creating a truly integrated platform that won't shift under your feet when you have jump on it but comes right out when you unstrap it. I top this off with my Paco sleeping pad (girlfriend and dogs do like their comfort).



To push the Clavey Rig through the agua blanca I use a pair of 10' rope wrapped Sawyer MXG whitewater graphite oar shafts (light, strong and stiff) with and V-Pro Ash blades with Dynel tips. I like the width of the lam blades and Dynel adds protection I could never get from rubber tips. I slip these into a pair of Cobra oarlocks. Cobra's have a wider, taller horn which spreads the pressure of my pull over a larger surface area of the oar and gives me more vertical play without binding. This makes it easy for me to row standing up (again the Drop Deck). I attach my oars to my boat with Clavey Oar Tethers. Our tethers will keep a popped oar next to the boat until the pressure gets too much and then the fastex buckle separates preventing my oar from either breaking or creating an anchor in the middle of the rapid.

And now that we've got our Clavey Rig dialed in, it's time for some window tinting. Linus had his blanket, these are the items that go with me on every multi-day run: Under my legs I string a Clavey Mini-Skirt for the occasional dead beer cans, water bottles and power bar wrappers that seem to grow like fungus on any trip. On either side of my cooler I tie in a pair of Everything Else Bags. One holds my camera box, sunscreen, some extra cam straps and on the other side the dogs have earned their own EE Bag full of dog toys (I'm not quite sure when or how this happened). My Umbrella Holder never seems to be positioned to offer me any sun protection but the Girlfriend/Dog Coalition seems to thoroughly appreciate it. Clipped in to the top of my kick bar on the right is my throwbag where it's always within arm's length. And attached to the other side of the kick bar is my Clavey Expedition Beer Beverage Holder. Also within easy grasp, the Beverage holder is insulated and has a quick-drop splash top for protection from even the biggest waves over the bow.



So is the Clavey Rig the best whitewater raft package the world has ever seen? I certainly think so. And while it’s only my opinion...I am right.

Trip Report: The Green Truss of the White Salmon

Fear is exhausting. Fear is exhausting. Fear is exhausting.

Today my hands look like they were taken out of a blender. They are huge and purple with nicks and bruises all over. My upper body was pummeled by oars, frame, etc and is pretty sore too.

Swimming Double Drop, an 18-footer on the Green Truss, took some energy out of me. The real reason I’m exhausted right now… is because I was absolutely terrified for nearly six hours yesterday. That’s right, we did a five mile trip in six hours, less than one mile an hour.

Rowing the Truss, realistically, is a horrible idea. But, once you’ve lowered your raft, frame, and oars roughly 100 feet down a cliff, you’re pretty well committed. And that’s where I and about two-dozen other people found themselves yesterday morning. Most of them were kayaking, but we had a few R2 boats, my oar boat, and 2 cat boats. Before yesterday, I’ve heard that the Truss had been rowed once before and had been written off as a really bad idea.

Why’s it a bad idea?

For one, it’s really steep, about 180 feet per mile in the first half. I know what you’re thinking, there are a LOT of rivers and creeks that are rafted that push 200 feet per mile or even more. Well, the Truss is not what I would call “continuous”, it’s pool drop, and as most of you probably know, there is a huge difference between pool/drop 180 per mile and continuous 180 per mile. Pretty much, if the river isn’t dropping here, it’s dropping more somewhere else. Thus, we have Big Brother, a 25’ waterfall to worry about, Little Bro (another 15’), Double Drop (18’ two-tiered”), BZ (15’), and a handful of other no-name drops that would be considered STUPID STUPID STUPID rapids elsewhere.

I had calmed my nerves after pushing off from the bank for the first time. But, in the first rapid, a narrow shoot dropping maybe 8 feet, my left oar caught the bank and shattered mid shaft. Gone. As I struggled to grab the spare, the next drop came closer and closer and closer, a BIG drop, maybe 10 feet, was pulling my boat downstream into certain gnar. Thankfully, I was surrounded by a few kayakers who wedged my boat into a little micro eddy. I got the spare out (my only spare) and we continued on our way. This was at mile 0.2.

We ran Meat Ball and Bob’s Falls without problems and then got to Big Brother. A heinous portage and about an hour later, we had gone 1 mile. We ran Little Brother and then came around the corner to Double Drop. A HUGE drop, it’s a two-tiered waterfall that is too difficult to scout with a massive hole in the first drop. Some kayakers ran through first and then climbed up to say “good to go”. I pushed off the lip with the thought… I’ll get to the lip and throw the oars forward, reach back and grab my seat, hope to get through the hole and be straight for the second drop. Well, it’s exactly what my boat did, but not my body. Pretty much I was going 50 miles an hour over a massive drop, hit the hole, the boat stopped instantly and my body shot off the front of the boat, clearing the second drop. I was under water for a micro-second and traveled about 20 feet. Lucky I didn’t break my neck. The boat came through no problem and I climbed back in.

Next up was one of the cats. It flipped in the bottom drop and swimmer and boat got to shore before the 8-footer just down stream. Then we headed downstream.

The most significant rapid (in terms of holy sh** this is scary) is a rapid called Lower Zig Zag. It’s scary because of wood. There is wood everywhere and a must-make-or-you-will-hate-life move above the scariest piece of wood I’ve ever seen. You’re also walled-in at this point, and portaging a raft is out of the question. With this in mind, you can almost imagine why I became frightened when, while passing under a log, my left oar jammed and broke at the wrap about half a mile above Zig Zag. Shelly Becker, one of the cat boaters, offered me her spare. It was 9.5 feet long, about the length of my entire boat, and 1.5 feet longer than my right oar. With no option of hiking out, I looked like a circus going down the river… my left oar sticking way out in contrast to the short stubby thing in my right hand.

A long story short… We all made the move and from here out it was a sprint to take out. I ghost boated BZ because I was absolutely beat. Got to the take out after putting on six hours prior.

It was a heinous trip. Kyle Smith, a friend of mine who guides on the Kern, was R2ing and we both agreed that it was the scariest bit of rafting we’ve ever done.

Nevertheless, I’m glad we did it. I will never row a piece of whitewater like I did yesterday. It will be something to remember and something to be proud of, but not something I will ever do again. I discovered yesterday that I don’t like fear. I don’t like HAVING to run something stupid to get downstream. I don’t like dropping off blindly, breaking oars, and boating defensively. Normally I have confidence when I’m on a river. Yesterday I had none.

I imagine that some will question my judgment in even attempting this stupid trip. Rightfully so, I probably shouldn’t have even tried rowing the Truss. I R2’d it last year and enjoyed the run. Time does strange things to a boater. Memory shrinks the size of waterfalls, the narrowness and speed of a rapid. About a month ago I woke up and thought “I’m going to row the Truss this year.” It was stuck in my head and I knew that with the right support of kayakers and boating friends it would be doable. The flow was right, the group was right, and the day felt good.

I’m not sure it could have ended any better anyway. As brutal as it was, no one was seriously hurt and we ran just about everything. I sure would like to have my two oars back, but thankfully Shelly had a spare to lend. It figures that I wait until the Truss to have my first-ever and second-ever broken oar.

Here's a short video of our run. Like most videos, it doesn't do any justice:



More Double Drop Video: