Huntun Seezun

So Young Gun shoots me an email-
"If you're interested I think I've found a run that hasn't been rafted yet. There is a 5 mile section that drops an average of 175fpm which hasn't been kayaked yet either due to highly restricted access. We only have this weekend to try it, the drainage is in an area that is heavily logged, the recent heavy rains may have washed some lumber into the creek, and, we have to hide our boats and dress up like hunters to get close enough for a scout."
?
Okay we're in.
I arrive at Ox's house at 7am and he walks out wearing green overalls, a hunter orange vest, a Rambo III knife, and a Jason mask.
?
Alright that's funny, ha-ha-ha...ha.
He wore the green overalls all day, even after we got past Gate Lady. We call him Ox, he pronounces "creek", "crik", and he even had a camo blanket to cover the boats when we rolled up to the access gate, dadgumit.

Gate Lady put down her cigarette, wrote down our license plate, said "good luck" and handed us an elk hunting rules document before she shuffled back to her post.
We were in.
Got to the put in, not enough water.
Before straying from the road I donned Ox's orange vest since I was wearing black and the place was crawling with Elmer Fudds.
We then scouted the upper gorge before relinquishing to the fact that the lower 3 miles of the crik would be as gnarly as we were going to get on this day.

The lower section had been kayaked once so we had some good beta.
We only rafted the 2 class IVs as the class V looked doable but I just wasn't feelin it. See footage of this run at:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=clGcwndRS_0

After scrapin through the run and sliding by downed trees YG and Ox ran the shuttle.
"Didn't you boys come through here this morning?" the Gate Lady asked.
"Ya but we were in a different car" was YG's reply.
Silence.
Silence.
Gate Lady shuffled back to her post.

Ox and I stopped and visited Nightcrawler, who now lives in them there parts, on the drive home. The next day we geared it down and enjoyed River Rat Sunday with Andy n Bax on the Clackamas. Hopefully we can return again someday and get on the upper section of the creek mentioned in Huntin Seezun, at that point Ox will proudly exclaim, "We goll darn gone n done it again".

See more trip details at Young Guns blog:
http://www.mthoodh2o.blogspot.com/

Tim