At the end of our Selway run once back at the car I was getting a little antsy. It took only a few minutes to unpack the boat and get out of clothes but there was still daylight. The others seemed to be in no rush so I decided to stroll down the road to see if I couldn't get a good look at what the Class VI Selway Falls run looked like at 810 cfs. I had no idea what to expect really but what I saw impressed me. True house-sized boulders with whitewater shifting around and under them in a maze of siphons, sieves, and waterfalls. The more I looked at it the more I thought there might be a sane line through it all. Incredibly almost the whole thing could be seen from the road. I paced up and down the road, slowly observing the water and piecing together the pieces. After about twenty minutes of careful study I decided there were some serious consequences to messing up, but that each component seemed to be something I was capable of, and if I could string it all together it would be quite a nice run. I want back to grab the others just before dark, and Jeff and I resurveyed the run together. He came to more-or-less the same conclusion I did: Meaty, scary, but looked like there was a way through and that it was something worth doing. We made plans to give it a try the next morning! The run weighed heavily on my mind that night.
Jeff instructed Dan and Jesse on where to position themselves in case we need a throw rope safety. Jeff and I suited up and paddled across to check out the first tight drop. The drop would have been ok but there was a low flow sieve just around the corner that did not look to be much fun so we portaged this first obstacle (above). Next up was the longest straightaway of the rapid where our only goal was to stay left, far from the bulk of the flow draining under house sized rocks! We scouted the next section before proceeding, another section that would have been smoother at higher flow. This put us in position for the second half of the rapid which was the real prize. We shot through a narrow pass between rocks and then I pulled hard to cross to the other side of the river. I flipped on a rocky boof while Jeff went smoothly down the tongue on the left side (I should have chosen that line too). I was able to self-rescue easily enough before the frothy 8ft drop ahead. Back in the boat I started to ferry to the eddy above the drop as Jeff and I planned, I looked ahead, saw my line, and then made a split second decision to just go for it. A few aggressive paddle strokes put me right where I wanted and over I went, sticking the landing. Jeff followed taking an unplanned grinding line down the arete but made it look like he meant to.
We re-grouped in the long eddy and continued down the run with two more holes to contend with and then two fun wave trains to complete the rapid. I was stoked and couldn't resist taking another lap since I was here and access was so convenient. The second run I took Jeff's line down the tongue drop (much better) but then botched the eight footer...good. I flipped and got caught against the falls which held me down for enough seconds that I dropped my paddle to be able to swim out. The paddle is probably still swirling around at the bottom of the hole as I type. It was an unfortunate end and I was sad to lose the paddle but happy to have taken on Selway Falls. Obviously it was not Class VI in the conditions we ran it but it was certainly formidable.
We then drove on to Missoula, which I found an interesting enough town. We played around at Brennan's Wave in the middle of town. Despite inopportune conditions for a good wave, I picked up a lot of experience in trying to surf and really enjoyed the vibes from the friendly board surfers. After a tasty dinner at a local Indian place we met up with Kristina and found a campsite in the woods.
No comments:
Post a Comment