Chuck Darwin on european vacation.

[smackaholic]

http://ukpress.google.com/article/ALeqM ... 4zHPfApUoA" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

I wonder what class rapid a hydroelectric turbine is? Class 5 is big water and quite dangerous. I'm guessing that turbine is about a class 46.

Rack those slovenian eurotard canoers for their final descent.

Maybe we'll see hydroelectric turbine kayak runs in the next X games. Or maybe not.

[Dinsdale]

They said the two magic words that Darwin so loves to hear:

"Whitewater"

and

"Canoe"


The Boy Scouts of America apparently think a canoe is a safe way to negotiate whitewater as well.


On a related note, rafters on the legendary Rogue River in Southern Oregon are being treated to the sight of a body from last week that can't be recovered. As they're emerging victoriously from a nasty Class 4, they get to see the lady laying on the bottom of the river that wasn't quite so lucky.


Shouldn't be too long before the crawdads and bottom-dwellers remove the body for them.

[smackaholic]

Actually, dins, a canoe and whitewater can be combined without chuck joining the party assuming you follow a few rules.

Don't try the real big stuff. Leave it to the rafts and really good kayakers.

Know the river. Know what a hydraulic is and stay the fukk away from them.

Wear an approved life jacket. Keep the BAC somewhere south of, well, south of where you probably keep yours when embarking on such expeditions.

Don't be too fukking lazy to portage around places like where that crawdad feed chick is.

I have done rapids in canoes and rafts. Rafts are fun in that you can do some pretty big stuff and, so long as you stay in it, you are pretty much invincible, but, for this very reason, I like canoes. In a canoe, you can have as much excitement in smaller water, which us poor easterners have in abundance. I also like the fact that you kinda got to know what you are doing in a canoe unlike a raft where basically, as long as the dude in the back driving has a clue, the crawdads will have to look elsewhere for dinner.

Another nice thing is that you don't need a big ass trailer and support team to get the fukking thing around or pay $$$$$$ for someone else to do so. You have the portability of a kayak with enough room for overnight trips.

[Dinsdale]

Wear an approved life jacket. Keep the BAC somewhere south of, well, south of where you probably keep yours when embarking on such expeditions.

Not once, but twice (sup Fubuclown) in my adult life, I've been pinned under falls with no floatation device, with a BAC that would make BBQ Jones type in Proper English...


Good times.


But I'll tell you what, holic -- you agree to come out here and canoe just the streams here in town, and I'll bucky up the airfare.


Deal?

[War Wagon]

Methinks smackaholic is getting canoes and kayaks confused with one another. The only whitewater rapid you'll negotiate with a canoe is a Class I, maybe a Class II, if you're really good and/or really lucky.

[Dinsdale]

There are "whitewater canoes"... that still kinda suck. But a lake style canoe is an instrument of Darwin.

Kayaks are the best, by far, but it's more adrenalin and less socializing/relaxing.


This shit is giving me the itch... and both the air and water are too cold today.

The Deschutes might be in my near future... bigboy rafting there. The Upper Clackamas just out of town here, up above the dams is some mighty gnarly water, too. But by the time it's warm enough outside to be less hardcore, non-drysuit fun, the flow is susually low enough that you're pinballing. But this year might be the exception. Might have to check it out... haven't been up there in years. Nothing like eating it on Carter Falls and getting ragdolled through the boulders.

[smackaholic]

a lake canoe is not an instrument of darwin....until you decide to do something stupid like take it down rapids. a lake canoe is actually pretty damn nice for paddling across a lake.

as for not taking it past class 2, that is bs. you can, but, it is a good idea to have a fukking clue in class 3. class 4 is pretty much for experts with paid up life insurance.

so dins, you guys have a shitload of hydro up your way. any of the locals ever decide to shoot the turbines?

[Wolfman]

http://www.oldtowncanoe.com/canoes/choosing.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;


Loved the Old Town Wood Classic for paddling around the lakes in the Adirondacks.
Heavy mothers for sure if you have to portage any distance !

[Jerkovich]

YIKES! BWHAHAHAHAHAHAHHHAHAa

[Dinsdale]

so dins, you guys have a shitload of hydro up your way. any of the locals ever decide to shoot the turbines?

While any sort of foamy, churning water seems to bring out the fucking dumbass in many a shallow-ender...


None that I can think of.

Hell, taking a large motorboat right up below Benneville is generally a pretty freaking dangeroud proposition, what with the tide blasting up the Columbia and meeting its match against the concrete beast -- makes for some pretty nasty currents. Don't like any sort of craft trying to go over the dams -- that's kinda why they built locks.


Although... when there's major flooding/high water every few years or so, the super diehard adrenalin psychos will suit up and shoot over Willamette Falls in Oregon City, which ain't such a good idea even in really high water, and not an option the rest of the time... which is why they built locks there, too, like 120 years ago or something.

Maybe the Slovenians should look into this technological marvel known as "locks"?

[Dinsdale]

Clackamas

Huh?

Did someone say

Clackamas

????




Why.... don't mind if I do.

As per usualm, it sucks to be you and rules to be me.

[smackaholic]

I believe you said clakamas.

Can't you even make up your own troll rather than quoting yourself?

So, humor us and tell why, exactly, it sucks to not be dins today.

[Dinsdale]

I thought I had explained this... although as a general rule, it goes without saying.

But since you want the Dinsdale version...


This afternoon, I will be a part of a rather large drunken armada floating the venerable Clackamas River below marginally-lovely Estacada, OR.

There will be a separate raft just to cart all the beer we'll eventually be under the influence of... which I'm pretty sure there's a law against, but babby-sitting legislation isn't valid in my world, so it's legal. And hopefully the water level is just low enough that the cops won't run their jet sleds up and down the river harassing us innocent civilians. Even if they do, a buncha 30+ dudes aren't going to get hassled when there's perfectly good young idiots to keep them occupied.


But it's not just about doing the drift (which starts off with a class 3-4, depending on water level, then is much easier after that... always nice to start the day getting eaten up by a big standing wave... gives the sea-legs early). The water temp was up to 58 as of 3 days ago, which means no hypothermia if one comes out of the boat and has to do the self-preservation thing.

Also, with the water warming so late in the season, it's created a massive charge of spring chinook and summer steelhead, which is a great set of circumstances for fishing. The hatchery below where we're putting in just started seeing decent numbers of chinook in the trap, and are expecting a few thousand over the next few days, and the steelies are coming by the thousands (my friend I'm floating with caught a monster steelie from the bank along where we're running today 3 days ago... and I'll outfish him 8 days a week). I'll be laying across a raft, mercilessly punishing my liver for... whatever it did wrong, fishing pole in one hand, a beer in the other...

admiring the hardbodies in bikinis that will surely line the banks, and interacting with some smooove old-dude game on an occasion.


It's an incredibly high likelihood that my afternoon will not suck. Since you're... well... you, there's a high likelihood that yours will.


90 degree weather, cool clean water, super-model hotties who may or may not be clothed, gallons of brew, kilos of maryjoowanna, and huge slabs of the finest gamefish known to mankind...


In T-minus about an hour.


BTW-there will be no PET. You'll just have to take my word for it.

[Dinsdale]

Sucks to have rafting adjacent to the city.

[Dinsdale]

Won't be doing Hole In The Wall today, it's farther upstream... but always a crowd-pleaser...