Oregon Paddling Trip Part 1:Breitenbush

With flows across the PNW on the rise, Chipper and Leif wanted to head down to Oregon before the classic Washington runs started to come in. We had our eyes on two gems: the Breitenbush River, and Opal Creek (section of the Little North Fork of the Santiam). I'd run the Breitenbush in my first year of boating, and had definitely been in over my head at the time (but I didn't swim!). Since the weekend coincided with Mother's Day, I drove separately in order to go visit my folks, while Chip, Kelsey, and Leif drove down together. I left Seattle at around 7 and, with a quick stop at Burgerville for a strawberry shake, arrived in Detroit, OR around 11:30. Met up with the others, and we camped up the Bbush river road, falling asleep quickly with the sound of the river all around.

We woke up to a beefy 1300cfs in the Bbush. Rackley's Oregon Kayaking TR says 1300 is an optimal medium flow, but IMO that is pushing medium high. We scouted our way up the river, noting some sketchy wood in places, and finally put on at the campground. First drop of the day, the Slot. Pushy class III into a 5 foot ledge, into a twisty pillowy flume. Excellent rapid, except Chip missed the boof and got worked in the ledge.

Chip, battling the ledge at the Slot

He swam after a valiant fight and his boat immediately took off down the river, with me chasing it. I couldn't get it to shore, and finally eddied out above a blind-ish turn. Leif came down after a while and we proceeded to work our way downriver, with the intention of recovering Chip's Nomad. I was pretty uncomfortable - there was a lot of wood, the river was quite pushy, and we had to scout a lot, and portage a couple times. We finally got down to the one mandatory portage, a riverwide log in some class I. After a tough scramble up to the road, Leif's boat decided to escape and took off down the slope and into the river without him! Leif took down the bank after it, while I was thinking "well, I'm not soloing class IV with wood to recover two boats, sorry guys!". Amazingly, Leif then comes back up to the road - his boat had eddied out upright after running S-turn rapid, and he'd just jumped in and grabbed it! We headed back downstream and ended up finding Chipper's Nomad maybe 5 miles downstream of his swim, beached on a gravel bar in the middle of the river. We got it to shore, hiked it up a trail, and then boated down to the takeout. I was beat - not enough food or water, but a fun enough day on the river, and a pretty good adventure, with no lost gear!