Today Jeremy Counceller and I hiked up the Russian River and floated 2 1/2 miles back to Bell's Flats and the truck. Drizzly weather - bad for skiing but great for boating (we still have great snow on Pyramid - you can even ski to the road). The first part of the float was a little daunting - looking down at the rapids I wondered what we were thinking. And climbing down into the canyon seemed crazy. It was very steep and the roar from down below drowned out all sane conversation. Once down there was no climbing back out either. We were committed. Two grown men in a plastic, inflatable tub and the mighty, snow melt engorged, Russian the only route back to the truck.
We quickly discovered that what looked like small drops from above are actually waterfalls. But the tub was up to the task. Apart from one tense moment when Jeremy flipped and lost the boat in a particularly large set of rapids while I watched from the base of the rapid, all went well. And after about a 1/2 mile we left the deep canyon and entered a lower, less steeply walled canyon with cottonwood trees by the river. Still some class 3 rips, but pleasant. And beautiful. A part of Kodiak that few people ever see.
If you go back to the archives for January you can see what the lower, less steeply walled canyon looks like in winter. in the past, I have skiied up to where we began to raft down. But it is a totally different place with out the snow and ice. Patrick
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