Category Archives: White salmon

Multi Tasking

May

2011

by aliirose | 0 Comments

After a quick afternoon skiing with Mike Mourar and Steve Baume I left our base for a week with my van packed with Skis, Mountaineering gear and a full Kayaking set-up. I started with a three day Swiftwater Rescue Technician Course at wet planet on the White Salmon River in Washington and followed it up with an ascent of the Reid Glacier Headwall route on Mt Hood with Trevor (descending via the south side) followed by running the White and West fork of the Hood Rivers with Mike Mourar and then two days safety kayaking for the Assistant Instructor Training course on the White Salmon. It was great, if a little tiring, trying to tag so many things back to back but definitely made the most of the conditions available.

Reid Glacier Headwall – Ski up till level with illumination saddle, drop skis and traverse to saddle. Rope up, descend onto Reid Glacier then head up up up trying not to be scared when the 4 pickets and 2 ice screws didnt seem to be enough. Descend via south Side to skis, ski (badly) back to vehicles.

White River – A long off road drive (my van is rear wheel drive) to the start of the river. Pray that said van will make it out, leave in the morning and the van makes it out, decide to use mountain bike for shuttle instead.

West Fork of the Hood – Only a short section of river but ran after the White making a very full whitewater day. Feel ready for the White Salmon

White Salmon – put in at 820am to recon river for staff training, 7 miles takes 45 mins, realise that the river is a little high. Run it three times in the next 2 days.

The Week – Highly Succesfull but am now very tired

Trevor (approx 7am) high on the Reid headwall after the main difficulties (a steep ice pitch) were passed.
Trevor leading out below some serious rime ice on the Reid Headwall
Oregon Road, still learning how to use the new fish eye lens – taken on a few hours drive around Northern Oregon with Mike trying to see what rivers where actually “up”
Trevor leading through the final technical section – a rime ice tunnel on very unconsolidated hard wind slab snow.
Loading my van for the portage on the white salmon (definitely making my daily wage as it reduced my fuel efficiency to 8mpg)
The bottom hole of “Maytag” (Class 3) on the White Salmon – the first 2 miles was essentially survival paddling after this rapid as the boats were so full of water.
Skiing Tumalo Mtn with Mourar and Baume – Mourar drops in to a couple of inches of powder with his usual flair.
Anyone whos ski-ed with me should be able to guess which line is mine (clue – Mike Mourar teaches kids how to shred in the back country)
Trevor and I loving it high on the Reid Face – we summited at 930am, grabbed our skis (stashed on the south side) and ski-ed back to our vehicles in a 10.5hr round trip) it was blizzarding within the hour.
Mike Mourar and I pleased with ourselves after a rather full on off road drive down to the put-in for the white river – 12 miles of constant class 3+ with the odd 4.