California and Oregon Rafting

This last weekend I met Rorie, Bubba, Tom, Bill, Chet, and Jeremy for an overnight duckie run in Northern California. It was incredible and I was told about half way down that this was a “secret” run and I immediately felt so cool. Bill has a “Mystery Run” listed on his cacreeks.com website so I was so excited to be a part of a secret run.

This was a Class IV+ overnight trip with nearly continuous rapids. We had about 250 cfs which was a perfect flow for duckies. The run starts off with several miles of Class III and IV rapids which they called a gorge. After that gorge, the run is still interesting with tons of techincal Class III rapids and the occasional Class IV drop. We camped about half way down the 20 mile run among the changing fall colors.

As usual, camp was the best part. Rorie and Tom enlighted us (me) with some great life advice, Bubba introduced us to premixed margaritas and fried Spam, and we all enjoyed our beverages around the campfire.

The rapids on the second day were more sparse, but there were enough of them to stay interested. One in particular involved weaving through some narrow chutes among beautiful plants and ending with a fun eight foot drop. This was one of my favorite trips ever due to the fun rapids, truly awesome scenery, and length.

Click Here to view more pictures from the trip.

For those of you that haven’t been to the Reno Whitewater Park, it’s definitely worth checking out. The park is located on the Trucke River near the casinos in the heart of the revitalized downtown Reno.

The park consists of two river channels with a music venue and grass on the island that seperates them. The right channel has some fun Class II rapids and is set up to be a slalom course when the slalom gates are up. The left channel has four well designed playholes. These playholes complement each other so there is somewhere to play at all flows.

In the warm summer months the whitewater park can be dominated by kids on tubes which makes it difficult for kayaks. Of the few times I’ve been there, I’ve never seen a raft or an inflatable kayak and either would be quite fun to take out for a surf.