First Canoe descent of Husum Falls?
octripper
State) in June or July of 1980 (or 81) at the end of a day-long whitewater
run from several miles farther upstream. At that time, I was one of only a
few open boaters in the Pac NW, and after that run, several outfitters told
me that as far as they knew, no one else had run it in anything other than
kayak. Does anyone know of any earlier canoe runs of the falls? I'm certain
there must be some, as 1980 is quite recent., but if not, that'd be fun to
know....
--
riverman
rbp #2
"I think, therefore I thwim"
Brad Snow
over the paddys of South Korea, I managed to stuff that plane into my
stateside luggage, and when I got home I had enough aluminum to pound into
shape a serviceable 21 foot canoe. With it stuffed with sawdust for
flotation, a couple a seat-bottoms for paddles, and the plane's tires
wrapped around our middles for life vests, my bud and I launched off that
Husum Falls before we realized it was there.
Trouble was, with such a long canoe the bow got hung up in the bridge, while
the stern was wedged into the rocks at the top of the drop. Talk about
aluminum canoes getting stuck at the wrong times! We sat there until the
canoe filled with water, the sawdust got waterlogged, the hull folded in
half, and all dropped into the aerated water at the base of the falls.
Nothing of that trip, neither boat nor paddlers, were heard of nor seen ever
again.
BarnettW3
the first 'uns down that streach back in aught three. In late Spring, I thunk.
You see me 'n Big Boil on the Butt (BBoB fer short) .... wail we got ta lookin
at Hussiesum Falls AFTER Lil' Daisy Foot and Tiny Squaw with Big Mountains
started arguin 'bout 'Thar warn't NO Brave alive that'd take one uf our
birchees (these were sum early Dagger designs made uf this bark stuff, you see)
off dem Fells'
And they offered some "special incentives" to da 1st dumbass that'd do it !!
Wail, you can only amagine how'd this got to BBoB 'n me !!! Whewweeeeee !!!
I meant warhoppin and mustard greens down the pants couldn't a stopped us !!!!
Espeshully da thought uf ... Big Mountains in our own teepee/condo.
So ya see we made a race outta it. Wail I got to the lip first in my (dagger)
birchee only to look over my shoulder 'n see BBoB rite on my arse wid his
birchee .... but cause he's such a fat sob his damn canoe wuz almost takin
water over them popular gunnells .... that's when I realized I wuz gonna DIE if
I went over furst and that overfeed BBoB brave wuz to come down on toppa me
.... SO I guess yoiu knowd what I did ..... Yepp dat's right.
So U see Myron the Buck coodn't a been da fiurst 'n we everdently had you beat
by 50 sum yeras. ....BUT you'd a been da furst 'un in an aeroplain !!!
SINcerely
BW
Darth Rival
name for a hardware store, eh?). After we had to abandon our keelboats
in the upper reaches of the Misery River (a headwater stream known today
as either the Buttis or the Beaverhead; I cain't rightly remember which)
and crisscrossed the Great Divide at Lemming Pass, Lost Trail Pass, and
finally into the Bitterroot Mountains at Lolo Pass (on Forest Service
Road 500) where we took almost a month off waitin' fer the snow to melt.
Once Spring had finally set in, we cobbl'd us up some of them big ol'
thirty-foot hollow-log war canoes and headed down the Clearwater, the
Snake, and the Columbia, and finally found the Pacific Ocean, just right
about where it should have been.
But what I'm gettin' at is this: we took a lotta side-trips and detours
(I mean, "Discovery" was our last name, eh?) and on ONE of THOSE trips,
(I remember it was just like yesterday -- 'course, I cain't remember
just what exactly it was I had for breakfast yesterday) I was paddling
bow, Meriwhether Lewis was in the back seat steering, and ol' Bill Clark
was kinda hunkered down in the middle, hangin' on fer dear life.
Well. As the bow paddler, I was the first one over the Falls, so it
seems perfectly clear to me that ***I*** made the first descent of...
what was the name again, of that little rapid?
-Ol' older-than-he-looks Darth
==========================
May the Farce be with you!
==========================
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BarnettW3
>***I*** made the first descent
Wail now jest a darn hour !
Wid all dew reespec >-Ol' er-than-he-looks Darth, I knowd fer sometime you've
sawd more sunsets den me 'n most uf them rocks out thar,,, BUT are yee sure
that dat wuz the REAL Hussiescum Falls er could you 'n da boys been paddlin
over Lolo's Pass .... she'd a let cha !?!
( \"/ -- i knows about the "stuff" yall wuz surely smokin while paddlin down
tha Beaverhead !!... it'd cornfused enyone)
You's is a slick devil, Darthy...
BW
George J Mackris
>
> Well now, back in '53, after getting out of a stint flying a Grumman Goos
>
> Brad
> pad...@mosquitonet.com
Husum,WA?
Paddleman
Darth Rival <the_do...@my-deja.com> spun some outrageous lie to
follow Barnett's ridiculous diatribe. Of course, this post is the
truth...
I'll have you know that one of my ancestors - "Oarman" went over that
drop with Leif Ericson back in the middle ages. Naturally, they did it
canoe made Viking style out of heavy oak with broken oars as paddles.
They did, however, have the same motivation as Barnett, as there were 2
beautiful fire haired wenches, and a native American Princess offering
their gratitude to the successful runners of the drop.
Sorry guys, my great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-
great-great-great-great-great-great-great-Grandaddy beat y'all!
--
For the Best in Paddling Videos:
http://www.whitewatervideo.com
mcc...@umbi.umd.edu
hollow logs and oaken longships.
Me and my pal Ugh crossed over the Bering Sea during the year of the
"big ice", chasing a herd of mastodon. Chased them shaggy bastards all
the way to what yer calling Husam Falls before Ugh managed to bring one
down with his pointy stick. I'd always thought them pointy sticks was
just a passing fad, and stuck with my trusty rock, which never needed
sharpening.
Anyway, Ugh drops this 租on right up near the lip of the falls, and
while we're skinning it out and tussling over who gets the liver, Ugh
gets this strange look in his eye. I thought maybe he'd eaten some of
those funny mushrooms again, but he commences building a frame outa
saplings, tying it all together with mastodon sinew.
I'm just kicked back on my haunches, scratchin' and watching. You never
know just what ole Ugh is up to. I remember when he caught that
lightning strike and set it in a pile of wood shavings. Pretty yellow
dancing magic. I don't think he really knew it could jump into his beard
like that. Ugh looked better cleanshaven anyway.
Then Ugh commences wrapping that mastodon skin around the frame he made,
chanting the mysterious words "Planing hull or displacement
hull?...planing hull or displacement hull?". Soon he's got a giant bean
pod with a round opening on the top.
Ugh picks up a long piece of wood that is flattened at one end, carries
the shaggy bean pod up to the edge of the falls and gets in, kneeling in
the middle. He pushes the bean pod around on top of the water with the
stick. Now that I see how this is working I find a longer stick that is
flattened on both end and offer this to him. He looks at me disdainfully
and twirls his single flattened end stick over his head. Ugh is kinda
quirky like that sometimes.
While Ugh is twirling his stick the bean pod floats down to the edge of
the falls and, to my horror, Ugh disappears over the edge.I run to the
base of the falls to find see the bean pod floating upside down. Ugh is
nowhere in sight. Suddenly the bean pod flips over and I see Ugh, still
floating in the pod with a shit eating grin on his face.
When he gets to shore, I'm so impressed that I give him my half of the
mastodon, and offer to keep him in victuals and provide skins for more
bean pods if he'll keep going over falls like that.
So, you see, not only did Ugh make the first descent of Husum, but he
was the first C1 paddler and the first sponsored boater too.
Darth Rival
>
> So, you see, not only did Ugh make the first descent of Husum, but he
> was the first C1 paddler and the first sponsored boater too.
Did you say... NOOOOooooooo you didn't say... Oh. "SponsoRed." Never
mind.
But, dang it all, I had an ancestor on The Ark, and you just cain't get
any better sponsorship that THAT! (Puh-leeeezzz. Spare me the "simian
ancestor" jokes. I've heard 'em all before, and they're all true.)
-Darth
==========================
May the Farce be with you!
==========================
Sent via Deja.com
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mcc...@umbi.umd.edu
Darth Rival <the_do...@my-deja.com> wrote:
> But, dang it all, I had an ancestor on The Ark, and you just cain't
get
> any better sponsorship that THAT! (Puh-leeeezzz. Spare me the
"simian
> ancestor" jokes. I've heard 'em all before, and they're all true.)
**************
Welllll, shortly after what is know commonly known as the "Big Bang",
back when I was but a single-celled organism living in the Pacific
northwest, I happened upon Husam falls...
octripper
after the year... sorry, guys.
riverman
octripper
<mcc...@umbi.umd.edu> wrote in message news:961d7v$ck0$1...@nnrp1.deja.com...
>
> Welllll, shortly after what is know commonly known as the "Big Bang",
> back when I was but a single-celled organism living in the Pacific
> northwest, I happened upon Husam falls...
Pretty amazin...I must say. And you could easily have been the first...
'Xept, there I was, back when the PREVIOUS universe was here, before the
last Universal implosion of the space/time continuum from the gravitational
pull of all that cold, dark matter in interstellar space...
riverman
Darth Rival
My youngest brother always was the smartest one in the family. We used
to get pissed off at him, fer being so danged... well... *creative* is,
I s'pose, the best word for it. Dude was really talented. But we were
mighty proud of the l'il squirt too, and let anyone outside The Family
get pissed off or jealous, and there'd really be Hell to pay -- trust me
on that.
So. I remember the time -- he was still an undergrad in engineering
school; musta bin a junior or a senior -- when he took Advanced
Cosmogenesis 426. He bet the whole family that he could build a
self-contained, self-sustaining universe in less than seven days!
Well, we were all over that bet like crows on a cross, but dang' if the
son of a [no offense, Dad] didn't do it. Kid woulda bin the pride of
Georgia Tech, and in addition he NAILED the physics, chemistry, and
biology. But, of course, as we now know, young Jehovah was sadly
deficient in ethics and psychology. Nyahhhhh, what the heck. What's a
small mistake here or there? He's my kid brother! Besides, he let his
siblings canoe all the rivers in his new universe! Evvvvery dang' one,
while "man" and "woman" were still confined to that zoological park he
called Aden, or Edam, or whatever.
-Darth
==========================
May the Farce be with you!
==========================
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http://www.deja.com/
Wilko
>
> So. I remember the time -- he was still an undergrad in engineering
> school; musta bin a junior or a senior -- when he took Advanced
> Cosmogenesis 426. He bet the whole family that he could build a
> self-contained, self-sustaining universe in less than seven days!
>
> Well, we were all over that bet like crows on a cross, but dang' if
> the son of a [no offense, Dad] didn't do it.
Hmmm, when one of the clients at the crisis-centre (that I worked for
some time ago) told me very sincerely that he was the "father of god", I
thought I had heard it all, but you guys sure know how to beat that poor
guy by several leagues! :-)
> Evvvvery dang' one,
> while "man" and "woman" were still confined to that zoological park he
> called Aden, or Edam, or whatever.
If they got good Dutch cheese there, it's Edam!
--
Wilko van den Bergh quibus(at)europe(dot)com
Eindhoven The Netherlands Europe
------------------------------------------------------------------
"Look Mum: No sense!"
------------------------------------------------------------------
BarnettW3
Somethin tells me you never were a single cell orgasm !! You jest made that
UP .
Oci-One Kanubi
> [snip] Pointy stick or trusty
> rock needs to be properly directed.
A-men, brotha!
-Richard, His Kanubic Travesty
========================================================================
Richard Hopley, #39, OC-1; concise and to the point, as usual.
Rockville, Maryland, USA, BBM; (301) 330-8265
Nothing really matters except Boats, Sex, and Rock'n'Roll.
Brad Snow
relative?
I guess I was beaten by a millennium or two being the first, but I suspect I
actually was one of the last in 2000. When I drove through the Portland
area in November I hooked up with the folks from OutdoorPlay and ran the BZ
to Husum stretch. Only one other boater and myself ran Husum Falls (never
did figure out why everyone else took out above), and he ran it first. It
was my biggest falls to date, at least double what I'd run before, and the
landing was the last paddling I did in Y2K. What a rush, and a great way to
end the season! With such an unusually cold winter in the Portland area, I
suspect few headed for the White Salmon after that before the beginning of
this year.
octripper
Brad Snow <pad...@mosquitonet.com> wrote in message
news:t8a3mk9...@corp.supernews.com...
> Well Myron, just look what you started! You sure you're not a spamson
> relative?
>
emergencies in case I miss my shuttle on remote trips!
> I guess I was beaten by a millennium or two being the first, but I suspect
I
> actually was one of the last in 2000. When I drove through the Portland
> area in November I hooked up with the folks from OutdoorPlay and ran the
BZ
> to Husum stretch. Only one other boater and myself ran Husum Falls (never
> did figure out why everyone else took out above), and he ran it first. It
> was my biggest falls to date, at least double what I'd run before, and the
> landing was the last paddling I did in Y2K. What a rush, and a great way
to
> end the season! With such an unusually cold winter in the Portland area,
I
> suspect few headed for the White Salmon after that before the beginning of
> this year.
>
Yeah, its by far the biggest vertical I've ever done. I'm not, in general, a
'stunt' o-boater, but there's a tale behind that run that I posted here
maybe two years ago.
riverman
> Brad
> pad...@mosquitonet.com
>
>
>
>
Darth Rival
(that would be late November, 2000, in case you are unclear on this) I
was with a group that ran... oh. You said Holsum Falls. I ran *Wonder
Falls* on the lower Big Sandy Creek that weekend. Dang, I always get
Holsum and Wonder mixed up when I'm makin' my white(bread) sandys.
-Darth
> ... I suspect I actually was one of the last in 2000 ... With
> such an unusually cold winter in the Portland area, I suspect
> few headed for the White Salmon after that before the beginning
> of this year.
==========================
Brad Snow
octripper <myro...@yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:9639et$mi3$1...@milzis.latnet.lv...
-deleted-
> Yeah, its by far the biggest vertical I've ever done. I'm not, in general,
a
> 'stunt' o-boater, but there's a tale behind that run that I posted here
> maybe two years ago.
>
> riverman
Care to post that again, Myron? After fiddling with the brute, I'd enjoy
the read and it would go well with the current thread. If you do, I promise
not to acuse you of spamming ever again (including misaccusations, as in
this case!).
Brad
octripper
Well, I doubt if we can find the old post, since it was pre-split, and my
domain name has changed since then, as well as deja.blues and it seems like
everything else. But (if'n I recollect correctly...)
I was hanging out in the Pacific NW, working a few commercial rivers and
doing some exploring in my BlueHole, when my east-coast river buddy Billy
Snape and a friend of his passed through town and contacted me up in Index,
wanting to do some whitewater. I had run the Sky a few times (putting in
right below the airplane turn in Boulder Drop) so I felt up to spending a
few days with some dependable kayakers who were good aims with a throwbag.
We worked our way down, running some of the more fun rivers (Nooksack,
Nisqually, and several others I forget) and did some stretches of the
Deschutes, then decided to end our week with a run of the White Salmon. We
scouted Husum when we were putting in, and decided to take out right above
it, as it looked pretty unrunnable for me and my BH, seeing as how I was
running everything without flotation (mostly skirting whatever I could and
bracing through the rest. Like I said, I'm not in to stunt
boating...survivial boating was more like it).
It was a great day on the WS. I haven't done it since, but I remember the
put-in was down some vertical goat trail, and the river had lots of
suprises, including one place where it was narrower than my boat, and I got
turned around and just managed to find the only spot where it was exactly
wide enough to do the fastest 180-degree eddy turn in history as I got swept
through! When we got to the falls, there was a river company portaging their
rafts around, so we eddied out river left to avoid the traffic jam and
waited, The yaks reconsidered their decision not to run, so after a few
minutes, one after another they disappeared over the lip. I waited above for
them to come back up the shore.
A few minutes later, Billy comes running back up, yak over his shoulder,
tosses it in the river, paddles over to me and says "Wow, that was great!"
"I bet," I said. He said "We passed about 50 of the clients on the way back
up, and told them all that you were going to run it!"
I looked downriver, and could see all these people lining up on the bridge,
running up the banks and getting their cameras out of drybags, and jockeying
for position. "Jeeeeezzz Billy, thanks a whole hell of a lot!!" I said. He
said, "Welllll? They're all watching..."
"Oh, well...what the heck.." I sighed.
He just grinned and held out his helmet. I rolled my eyes and took it, and
the crowd on the bridge let out a whoop. Cars even started to pull over. I
figured it was all show and go now.
Since I had no flotation, I turned the canoe around (When I paddle solo, I
run it backwards and sit on the bow seat) and tied in my bail bucket. Since
I had no thigh straps, and knew the bow would dive down as I went over, I
decided to sit <behind> the stern seat, with my thighs jammed under it like
wings on a saddle, to keep the bow unweighted. Then, with the front of the
canoe about a foot out of the water, I pulled out of the eddy.
If memory serves, I entered just right of center, maybe a little more. The
water funnels together there and there is a rock right at the lip just on
the left of the entrance line which provides a bit of a kick off. I went
just over the right shoulder of this kicker, leaning back and pulling up on
the seat with my legs to keep the bow up and taking one last power stroke.
The bow of the boat went way out over the lip before it started to drop,
smoother than I ever could have imagined, and for one brief glorious second
I was falling..falling...and frozen in space. It was such a sweet, scary,
floating feeling.
Then, just before the bow was down 45degrees, it hit the bottom, and from
where I sat in the way back, I'll never forget seeing the water splash to
each side as the canoe nosed in deep, first the bow then the stern, then
popped back up just as the water closed back in. It was as smooth and
comfortable as silk, no jarring or crash at all (to my suprise) and I
remember that for one second, my low brace was up at about my earlobes. Then
the the boat bobbed back up as the water closed back around it, with out
even a cupful of water in it. I took one or two strokes away from the falls
behind me, and suddenly someone turned the sound back on. People were
cheering, flashbulbs were popping, the water was splashing, Billy was
paddling out beside me (he had run right behind me) and I felt jazzed!
Never did another waterfall, but I sure know where the addiction comes
from!!
riverman
Brad Snow
>
>
> A few minutes later, Billy comes running back up, yak over his shoulder,
> tosses it in the river, paddles over to me and says "Wow, that was great!"
> "I bet," I said. He said "We passed about 50 of the clients on the way
back
> up, and told them all that you were going to run it!"
>
Ah, the joys of friendship! Great story, Riverman; thanks for the post. I
remember that floating feeling, but it seemed to last only a moment or two.
Maybe I can find something just a little bit higher....
octripper
> octripper <myro...@yahoo.com> wrote in message
> news:969r9k$8e8$1...@milzis.latnet.lv...
> >
> >
> > A few minutes later, Billy comes running back up, yak over his shoulder,
> > tosses it in the river, paddles over to me and says "Wow, that was
great!"
> > "I bet," I said. He said "We passed about 50 of the clients on the way
> back
> > up, and told them all that you were going to run it!"
> >
>
I
> remember that floating feeling, but it seemed to last only a moment or
two.
> Maybe I can find something just a little bit higher....
Trust me, Brad. In 20 years, your memory of that floating feeling will be
that it lasted an hour. :-)
riverman
(...and I promised myself I would never include the phrase '..twenty years
ago..' in a sentence.)