24/7 is a little pour-over at a canal next to the Willamette River (right down the path from Knickerboker Bridge). It’s a great place to practice cartwheels. In the spring, when the Willamette is running a bit high, it is too low. When the river level drops in the summer, it starts to come in. At some point during late summer there is actually too much water flowing through it, and it’s not that great. I was hoping that it would come back in sometime this fall, before dropping down too low, and it has.
Last weekend I went down there to check it out. Some well intentioned souls had put wood into the slots next to the pour over (this can be quite helpful in the beginning of the summer when the level is not quite high enough) and the water level was too high. You can tell that it’s too high because there isn’t much of a foam pile at the bottom of the pour-over and the water is covering the cement at the bottom of the embankment. A couple of kayakers dropped by (sorry that I can’t remember your names), just after I had arrived, and suggested that we should lift the wood blocks out a bit. We did so, and I couldn’t believe how much it changed the feature. It went from being extremely mediocre to being pretty good. It’s still a tiny bit too high, but it’s definitely worth dropping by. Obviously, for this to make such a difference, this spot has a pretty narrow window where it’s really good.
I was stoked because I was getting four ends consistently. I went again with Pete, on Wednesday, and the same trick worked (lifting the blocks of wood out). While the rain has disappeared (hopefully, only a short term trend) it’s good to have this little spot to practice at. See you out there!
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