Seals, Sharks and Surfing

Todd and I at the beach.



What do you do on the weekend when you live in Eugene and you haven't gotten any rain all week?!


You go to the Oregon Coast!





Despite the forecast for rain, we seem to never get it. As a result, for the past two weekends, Todd Baker and I have been paddling on the Oregon Coast with friends Connor Ross, Glenn Dalgleish, Josh McKeown and my sister Christina Russell. If you drive 1 hour due West from Eugene, you hit the coast at a little town called Florence, Oregon. Florence is a small town that used to be home to a good sized logging operation, but now, it is more of a historic town with "new" and "old" Florence smashed together with awesome surfing nearby.





Todd and I dropping in (Photo by: Tamson Ross)


In Florence, we surf at the South Jetty.


Only, it is hard to catch the waves here at a time when they are breaking and the rip tide isn't too strong. (There are some gnarly horror stories of almost being swept out to sea only to eventually get close enough to the jetty to get ahold of the last rock before being swept out to sea... SCARY!)

Luckily, however, since we have been paddling at the coast so much, we have gotten a day or two's opportunity to surf the waves without a crazy riptide.





Glenn Dalgleish hangin' out (Photo by: Christina Russell)





For the past few weekends, swells have been mostly around 9.5 feet at 14 seconds. This past weekend though, they were about 13 ft at 14 seconds. It was epic! Every wave that came in was big and PERFECT!!!!! There's no feeling like the one you get dropping down the steep wave face bouncing high in the air, only to get pummeled when the wave breaks on you. It was pretty funny after awhile, actually.. it got to the point where it was fun to get trashed and see how high your boat woudl explode into the air, haha! I remember Todd and I getting pitched onto our heads on the same wave, getting worked together, tumbling down the wave face and once the wave slowed down, ended up unintentionally sternsquirting each other and flipping to our own respective sides. It was pretty funny...

Connor and Glenn had a few good beatdowns too! I remember watching them paddle out, almost making it over the wave, only the wave crashes and they get hucked 3 feet into the air like ragdolls! And then they roll up smiling and shouting! Who would have thought beat downs could be so fun!!! YEA!




Check out the photos!








Connor Ross and Todd Baker dropping in (Photo by: Tamson Ross)






Todd mid flipturn. wohoo! (Photo by: Tamson Ross)









Kim mid bounce...Yee-haw!!! (Photo by: Tamson Ross)




Syncronized blunting. Todd Baker and Kim (Photo by: Tamson Ross)






Todd massive airblunt (Photo by: Tamson Ross)





Kim airblunt..wohoo! (Photo by: Tamson Ross)





Todd (Photo by: Tamson Ross)




After surfing for 4 hours straight, the riptide began to get pretty strong, so we decided it was time to get out... hmmm. That was tricky. Let's just say between being pulled out to sea and surfing as far in as we could on the waves that broke into the jetty (these were the only ones that would take us in far enough), it was slow going.




Glenn getting out at the South Jetty (Photo by: Todd Baker)




After three awesome weekends at the coast, we'll see what this weekend brings. Hopefully we'll have some rain. The forecast says we should expect some.Wohoo!








Tamson Ross's evening run in front of the yota'... RUN RUN RUN!!! (Photo by: Kim Russell)

Hope you have a wonderful weekend!


Kim Russell

Rain, Creeks and Toasters

Quartzville Creek, Oregon (Photo by: Kim Russell)





Throughout the week, after biking through rain in the morning, rain in the afternoon, and rain in the evening, Todd and I were going crazy watching the river gauges. Every day we would check the internet about 20 times to see what was happening with water levels. Needless to say, things weren't looking very good for a weekend creeking expedition. UNTIL... dun dun dun, we woke early Friday morning to the gauges GOING OFF! EVERYTHING WAS IN! Creeks that were at 500 cfs jumped to 10,000 cfs overnight. Wohoo! We had water! We were dying to go creeking, and we were going creeking TONIGHT... ASAP!



At around 4:30 pm, Todd and I loaded up the car with my Habitat 74 and his 80, picked up our friends, Conor Ross and Glen Dalgeish, and headed out for some wicked gnarly Park and Huck on a local creek known as Sweet Creek.





Todd running the ledges (Photo by: Kim Russell)

Sweet Creek is a class V creek about an hour away that consists of 3 falls and a funky series of chunky ledges, of which you can run laps on... and when I say chunky, it is the definition of chunky......stay upright if you don't want to get your face beat in....




Lead in to Falls 1 (Photo by: Kim Russell)



We left town around 4:45, arriving at the put-in around 5:30pm with 3 boats and 4 people. The idea behind this was to save roof space and trade boats each lap. Anywhoo... First lap was Todd and Conor. Everything went smoothly. 3 waterfalls and a little canyon... sweet. Second lap was Todd, Glen and I, of which Todd and Glen cleaned everything while I proceeded to get worked twice. haha. No swims though. wohoo! Lap 3 was Todd and Conor once more and they kicked ass!




Todd boofing Falls 1 (Photo by: Kim Russell)


After about an hour and a half of some good park and huck, we loaded up and began the drive home through a crazy downpour. Did I mention we almost hit a black bear on the drive home. yea...it was close. It was running alongside the road and all the sudden decided to dart across the road in front of us.... and we thought squirrels were dumb! We made it back in one piece, and so did the car. Friday's are cool.






SATURDAY:




Quartzville Creek, Oregon (Photo by: Kim Russell)



After such an epic Friday evening creek sesh on Sweet Creek, we had to get out for more. Saturday, we woke up to the gauges even HIGHER than they were on Friday! After a few phone calls (try 8), we managed to rally up a crew to hit up Upper Quartzville Creek, a class IV+ creek about an hour and a half from Eugene, Oregon.


Sweet Curves (Photo by: Kim Russell)


Today the crew consisted of Karl Moser, Todd Baker, Kyle Dickman, Conor Ross and I.




L to R: Karl Moser, Conor Ross and Kyle Dickman (Photo by: Todd Baker)


According to guidebooks, Quartzville Creek is a Class IV+ Creek at levels around 2500 cfs. Today the level was primo, reading about 2700 cfs on the gauge. We were fired up for the first true creeking mission of the year, particularly the 30 miles of super curvy road you get to drive to get there. mwuahaha! Sorry Karl...


Anywhoo... we rolled up to what we thought was the take-out, dropped a bike and proceeded to head up to the put-in. After a few miles, we came across about 20 other kayakers who kindly informed us that we were now at the take-out. Oops. I guess we'll get the bike later!

Once we put on, the trip mostly went like this: Wood. sweet. Portage. grrr. Weird drop. Todd probes. cool. Trashing. oops. rain. fun. Crap Karl that looks gnarly. hmmm. More rain. yay. Shuttle. wohoo!

In other words, the trip was rad. We made one lap, hitched a ride back to the top with a crew from Corvallis, and the boys managed to swing a second lap while I ran shuttle and took cool pictures... Needless to say, my photo-taking skills for the day were a little shoddy, so bear with me on the slight blur...







Karl Moser in his Habitat 80 (Photo by: Kim Russell)






Todd Baker (white helmet) and Karl Moser (blue helmet) below one of the bigger holes on the run (Photo by: Kim Russell)



The crew above a broken-down bridge (Photo by: Kim Russell)






Karl Moser (blue helmet) and Todd Baker (white helmet) dropping together (Photo by: Kim Russell)





Karl Moser hiking out (Photo by: Kim Russell)




Sunday:



By the time Sunday rolled around, Todd and I decided we needed one last paddle sesh before the school week started back up, so... we went to Neil's, a play wave on the Mckenzie River, Oregon. Let me say, initially, Todd and I had agreed to do schoolwork all day Sunday, but ended up getting a very persuading phone call from Karl Moser telling us to go kayaking. He was good. Too good. So, we gave in. We had our schoolwork mostly done anyway. Two minutes after the phone call, Karl came and picked us up in the trusted Epicocity Project Subaru, and after a quick smoke break for the Suby (it smokes when you turn it off--we don't know why), we were off to the McKenzie River





The Trusty EP Subaru (Photo by: Kim Russell)





Kim Blunting (Photo by: Jason Offett)




Kim and Todd Surfing (Photo by: Jason Offett)




Todd Clean Blunting (Photo by: Jason Offett)





Karl goin vert' (Photo by: Jason Offett)






Til' next time!






Kim Russell



Team Wavesport






Photo by: Kim Russell

Dillon Falls Park and Huck

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Kim Russell hucking Dillon Falls in her Project 45



October 13, 2007:


This past weekend, while Todd attended Cali Burnfest in Arcata California, I went home to Bend, Oregon, to pick up my car, which last weekend, broke down. Apparently, my heater hose to the rear had swollen due to old age, which resulted in my car successfully dumping 2 quarts of coolant in about half an hour. Sweet! Not really...Anywhoo, it was a nice excuse to head home, get in some good paddling and try out my new Kokatat/Snapdragon Designs Drydeck and AT2 Superlight paddle, not to mention, see if my Project 45 will fit in the new Thule box on my roof!





Christina came to pick me up on Friday night around 9pm, and we ended up getting home around 12:30 am after a night of some awesome singing, an hour long conversation about ...Britney Spears (don't ask--it was random. haha. and we know...it's Britney. Ouch.), and some hiding from cops (A cop turned on his lights, we thought we were speeding. Turns out we really weren't, but we pulled off the road anyway...the cop never turned around. Interesting.) We were tired chickies in the morning.



DILLON FALLS THROUGH LAVA ISLAND FALLS...


We met up around 11:30 with Adam Craig, mountain biking extraordinaire, and put on to run Dillon Falls through Lava Island Falls.





The run itself is about 5 or 6 miles long, with a fair amount of flatwater and boogie water in between drops. The beginning of the run starts off with Dillon Falls, a Class V waterfall about 12-15 feet depending on flow. At low flows, such as Saturday, about 730 cfs, the falls is higher. Below the falls, there is a riverwide meaty beat-you-down for minutes upon minutes hole that is STICKY. You can get through it, a majority of the time, on center-left.



Below Dillon, you get a little bit of boogie water in Dillon Canyon, then hit flatwater for about 2 miles. This is where it sucks to be in a playboat. haha. Let's just say Christina left Adam and I in the dust (She was in a creekboat). Ugh. It was rad though! Beautiful views though... If you love Aspen trees, go to Bend right now. They are bright yellow-gold right now!!! The flatwater also provides plenty of time to determine if gills or teleporting would be a better superpower. Needless to say it was two to one, Christina and I going for teleporting, with Adam sticking to his guns and going for gills. We figure teleporting would be badass for kayaking. You would never have to walk a portage, you could go "poof" and be in an eddy farther downsteam. If you were going over a 100 foot waterfall you didn't want to teleport over, it would come in handy. You could even teleport to China. Yea! Gills sound pretty rad too though, and Adam makes a pretty convincing argument for them.

Anyway.... After all the flatwater, you have one class 3 rapid, some more flatwater, and another class V drop known as Lava Island Falls. It is broken down into two class V rapids (Lava 1 and Lava 2) with a pool and some boogie water in between.







Lava 1 has this cork-screwy entrance with a gnarly entrance eddy that slopes backwards into massive boils that . It's almost a 100% chance you are going to do at least a 360 in them or get sucked down a few feet or end up in a stern squirt. Making it through this eddy you are pretty much paddling "uphill," it's the shit!!! After the eddy you have more cork-screwy stuff and the river splits. River right is a slide with a massive hole on the far right, and river left theres a few holes to go through.



Lava 2 is hard to describe. Let's jsut say there are tons of laterals, lots of wood, lots of water, the river narrows down and ends in a massive hole that is known to trash people for minutes in a creekboat. We run far right... sweet.



Our run went well. Everyone hucked Dillon once, made it through Dill Hole and had a nice relaxing float down to Lava. Lava went well with all of us making it through the death boils successfully. Although on the drop below I think Christina and I both got kicked into the river left wall and spun around. haha. sweet. Playboats are fun!

And so are drydecks! With the Snapdragon Armortex Skirt and Kokatat Rogue Drytop combination, I should have worn my pajamas in my boat! It was completely dry by the end of the 6 mile run! wow! For all of you who have never tried one out, I highly suggest it! I was hesitant at first because I already had a drytop and figured I would save some money, but eventually gave in and tried it out. Let me say,there is no comparison. The range of motion is amazing! There is nothing binding around your waist, you are super comfortable, and stay really warm and dry! It's definetely worth checking a drydeck out!!






LUNCH BREAK



...at Longboard Louie's! The most badass burrito joint ever!




You have to go there if you are in Bend. Not only do they have the best burritos ever, they have kickass Horchata too (a bad ass rice, cinammon, milk drink)!!! It's also not a bad place to people watch...hmmmmm...




PARK AND HUCK!!!



After lunch, my sista and I decided to go back up to Dillon Falls for some park and huck.



Run 1


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Christina, my sister, and I took turns taking pictures. We normally shoot from the river-left side, but the falls is angled towards river right and you can't really see the drop in the picture. Saturday evening, we decided to shoot from river right, which was a pretty good idea. The pictures came out great and shows Dillon at its best! I hucked twice while she shot and she hucked once while I shot. Cool. It was a beautiful sunny day and we had an awesome time...even while we scrambled over loose lava rock and through scary super thorny bushes to get a good shot. It was worth it!! YEE-HAW!



My new AT2 Superlight paddle performed awesome. The flex, to me, seemed a little bit softer than the AT2 flexi, but the fulll carbon shaft seemed to transfer more power smoothly to each stroke. For paddlers who have trouble getting 100% power out of their first stroke, this paddle eliminates those concerns! You get 100% power 100% of the time! It's aweosme! It's superlightweight, allowing you to get those strokes in and is very fluid. This paddle it the shit! And its strong. Let's just say I hit a shelf pretty hard off Dillon Falls...



Run 2








See ya on the water!



Kim Russell



Team Wavesport



P.S.- A Project 45 can definetly fit in a Thule box!!!