Althea’s Kayaking Blog

Today i went to a small playspot called 24/7 it is just a small pore over hole that is great for throwing some ends and trying to loop. i was close to looping a few times but had more success with cartwheeling and then throwing some old school pirouettes.

This sunday i went to a small playspot in the Willamette river in eugene called cotton candy. It was at a decent level and i was able to get some spins and maybe a roundhouse or two. Last week i spent time volunteering for the riverhouse for its kayak program. We took the kids down the upper Mckenzie, the N Santiam and the Deschutes. It was enjoyable to help the kids improve their paddling abilities and to help them experience some of the great whitewater in Oregon.

Today i went up to the middle santiam to run the class 4 section…thats only 2 miles long, but well worth being paddled. The one down side with this section is the put-in which is a long walk down a road and then through some blackberries that are rather vicious. The rapids are very fun though and the best is the last which is called concussion. The rapid starts out with some hole dodging and ends in a chaotic array of holes and waves. Overall it was a very fun day, and when i returned to eugene i went to a play spot called cotton candy and had some more fun!

        I have recently returned to Eugene after spending three weeks on the Ottawa river in canada. While i was on the Ottawa mini bus was in which provided some great playboating. Since i have gotten back i have done some paddling this previous weekend i went up to the White salmon and then to the Clack both rivers were fun but the White Salmon was a little more interesting. Picture on top is of me in maytag, bottom is me on mini bus. I hope to soon have more pictures from my kayaking adventures but this is my start for now.

Althea