Upper Tualatin: Not Really Recommended

By dave | Published: December 29, 2008

Saturday was going to be a good day. Christie Glissmeyer, Jesse Becker and Jason Schroeder were coming to PDX from Hood River to get some goods. With warm temperatures melting the snow and rain falling we expected the Coast Range to have good flows. They were just too good- our original destination, the Grays River in SW Washington, tripled in flow between midnight and 6 am. We got a good(at the time) tip from Luke Spencer to check out the Upper Tualatin. He let us know that there was a class 4-5 section above some know waterfalls that he had not had a chance to check out. So time for some exploring. Or as I really should call it, disastering.

We ended up with a complete Mission: Failure and still had a great day.
It was a good day because:
None of us had been paddling in 3 weeks
It was beautiful day for a walk in the snow, with nice temps and with the snow could drag the boats instead of carrying them.
We got to run a sweet 12 footer to start the day.
We had plenty of water
And I was especially stir-crazy after the Portland’s Arctic Disaster and eating about 100 Christmas cookies.

It was a failure because:
The road was snowed in so we hiked 5.5 miles up hill and didn’t make it to the unrun part.
After the first drop only paddled half a mile before we gave up. The wood was bad. I learned to paddle on the East Coast and this was the woodiest run I have every done.
The half mile we did do was class 3 with terrifying strainers all over the place. Not really enjoyble.
Then we hiked for 5 miles back to the car. 10.5 miles of hiking for .5 miles of boating. Grrrr.

So pay attention for the next few weeks. There will likely be tons of wood from the storm on just about every run. Be careful everyone.

Enjoy the photos!

Jesse, Christie, Jason