June Wenatchee Trips

Wenatchee (WA): 17 miles, Class III-III+, 6670-10100 CFS

The Wenatchee is THE river to be on in Washington during the month of June. Only a few hours from Seattle and nice big water waves. The club had trips on three of the weekends; I made it to two of them (stupid work trips getting in the way of my fun...!). The first weekend was for REACH (that's the one I missed), second for any club members, and third sponsored by SPEEA.

Noteworthy stories from these weekends:

One of the days, the guide trainee boat with Aaron, Josh, and Vinny was attempted to surf rodeo hole, and had water pouring in the nose of the boat such that it actually pushed the nose back and the back end up (as in straight up!). Yep, the boat completely stood up then managed to spin around without flipping. Would have been fun to be in the boat, but I do have to say that it was almost as much fun watching this happen!

On another day, the guide trainee boat decided (with his buy-in) that we'd try to "launch" Levi from the guide position as we went over Drunkards rapid. We didn't quite have enough speed, went only mostly up the Drunkards wall wave, slid back down, got speed again, slid back down again, and then unfortunately went sideways and flipped. Yay for everyone swimming the rest of the rapid! :) We clawed our ways out of the water on to the flipped raft. This was when I realized that the bottom of the raft is exactly like a slip and slide... we weren't quite finished in the rapid and had a wave take 2.5 of us off (I say 2.5, because I was mostly off, but managed to Go-Go-Gadget-Arm and grab a hold of Vinny's foot at the last minute... nyet nyet nyet!)

So then Vinny and I helped Levi and Vijay back on top of the raft. In our pool session, we had each taken a turn flipping a raft back over, so I knew we could all do it... but I wasn't entirely certain whether there was anything you do differently when there's several of you there to turn it over. I asked Vinny, who said to paddle over to one of the other boats, so we did... he then jumped over on to their boat, and wished us luck! HA! Alright... hmmm... Levi and I grabbed on to the flip line and started tugging... but we neglected to clue Vijay in on this plan... so when the boat flipped, it sent him sailing! (yes, sailing while rafting, I'm so punny)

On the last Sunday, we had virtually no "excitement" until the last rapid, when somehow Nate in the oar boat with his girlfriend Tracy, the cooler, and the deflated inflatable kayak, managed to flip over. Tracy was an absolutely trooper... she just floated down the rapid, grinning ear to ear... however, Nate had to do some real grunting to get that heavy oar boat turned over. We are still mourning the loss of the sombrero he was wearing. It was sacrificed to the river.

In my opinion, the best thing about the Wenatchee is the place we camp. It's a private residence's field that's surrounded on three sides by Icicle Creek. We launch directly from the campsite and float down to the Wenatchee River. The field is big enough that everyone can stretch out and put their tents where you don't hear anyone else snoring. Plus we can set up volleyball, which actually was my favorite part about the weekends. I'm generally afraid of things flying at my face, but volleyball was quite fun, probably because I feel somewhat competent as a server, and can at least make everyone laugh for the rest of the time.

Future posts, I should have some pictures and even movies to include, with my new waterproof camera. Woot!

- Melissa