El Dub Headcam from Dave Hoffman on Vimeo.

The Little White Salmon River is heaven on earth for whitewater kayakers.  It has it all – technical boulder garderns, fun ledge drops, an epic waterfall, the clearest and bluest water I’ve seen and complex never-ending rapids, all set in a beautiful remote gorge that tumbles down to the Columbia River.  Many kayakers have moved to Hood River, OR for this river alone.  The Little White, LW for short (say “el dub”), is an addicting stretch of water.  I have several friends that pretty much refuse to paddle anything else;  if they can’t kayak the LW, they might as well not kayak anything at all.  I put together this short little video to show how amazing this place is.

But the LW is very hard.  I believe it to be the hardest commonly run river in North America.  Pretty much every day the water levels are right, several people kayak this river.  Water levels are good generally from late fall or early winter through mid summer.  There are a lot of days with many river miles being logged on this run. And the LW is dangerous, with nasty spots lurking in nearly every rapid.  At least five kayakers, and probably more, have broken their backs running Spirit Falls, the signature waterfall of the river.  This summer, a local paddler and all-around awesome guy, Ryan Morgan, lost his life on the LW.  Unfortunately I had only paddled with him once and didn’t get to know him well, but he had a great reputation for being full of life and joy to kayak with.

The Little White is a special place.  Those who have paddled the LW know.  I hope many more get to paddle this river safely and know it like I do.