This last weekend (11/12-11/14) I went over to Hood River for the first time with Seth Stoenner and Ethan McLeod from Boise, ID. We got there about a month too early for some of classics like the Little White to be going off, but we did happen to find a Money Drop that had a lot of water going and also the Green Truss was on the low side of perfect.

The first day we found our kayaking spot after following a logging road back up in the hills for a ways. We were all a bit freaked out, probably because it reminded us all of the Blair Witch Project. After a rainy night, we woke up a 5am after Ethan started talking voodoo language and went off to look at Money Drop. One thing that Idaho isn't known for is waterfalls, and with good reason, there are practically none. I had seen the video of this drop on Vimeo a lot, but looking at it was a entirely different deal, especially because my previous waterfall experience extended to Siete Tazas and a couple 15fts out in Eastern Idaho. Anyways, after getting down the hill to the Drop, we found that there was a ton of water. After a quick breakfast, we geared up grabbed the boats. Seth went first as he had run it before. His line was a little too far to the left (he was in the seem on the left side) and so he fell off the left side of the drop. There isn't too much of a boil over there, so he was hurting a little bit. Next up, I went.

What I had noticed from previous videos and talking to people about was that there were two lines: try to tuck at the right time to follow the water down (the water doesn't follow vertically, but rather shoots out flat and then arcs down) and hope that your skirt doesn't implode or boof it. With my limited running experience, I decided to go with the boof. Needless to say, off a (I think) 60ft, it hurt. No matter how much it hurt though, the view from the lip just as I was about to fall was well worth it.

Next was Ethan who did what I was worried about. He decided to chuck his paddle, but he did it too soon and off to the side of his boat, so he started to go over the handle bars and spin at the same time. It was pretty funny watching it from the bottom. Unfortunately, he got ejected from his boat on impact.

After our early morning sesh, we went over to the Green Truss to meet up with the 21+ guys who had been out partying the night before. In total, we got a crew of about 13 together.

Moving from a big-water river like the North Fork of the Payette, which is point to point kayaking and often requires bursts of energy to get you down in one piece, the transition to the precise kayaking required on runs like the Green Truss was a little confusing. Most everything on the Payette is either punch it, miss it, or get eaten. Everything on the Truss seemed like it was hit the line, and put your paddle in this tiny area, or get eaten.

As we got on the water, the first thing that struck me was the sheer beauty of the river. While Idaho rivers are beautiful, this was an entirely different brand of beauty. Everything was a dark, earthy green in a tight canyon, and far down below the rim the freezing water made fog literally dance across the water and the sides of our boats.

We made it through all good until Bob's Drop. I made the mistake as I didn't know the line of trying to go down the left side of the drop with too little water. My bow got bounced up and I lost all of my speed. So, I ended up for a nice little surf. I managed to do a lunar orbit and move my nose to facing the right side of the river and I then was able to work myself out. The rest of the run was good. Big Brother, Double Drop, and BZ are three of the funnest bouncy drops I think I have ever had the pleasure of running.

After we got off the water, we went back over to Hood River to grab some dinner (we went to "La Taquarilla," it was probably the best tasting Mexican food in the state). After that, we drove over to Walmart to set up camp because we didn't feel like going back to hang out with the Blair Witch in the woods.

Sunday morning we woke a little sad as it was our last day in Hood. I couldn't convince the other two to consider hiking in to Mitlako (Seth's girlfriend said that she would dump him if he ran it, and Ethan's parents said he could run it), so we decided to go back out to Money Drop with a couple of friends of Seth's from Montana.

Ethan decided not to run it, so the rest of us grabbed our boats. Seth fired it up again and got one of the better lines I have seen on the drop. His second line of the day was a paddle chuck were he went straight over the handlebars. DJ (one of the Montana guys) ran it next and had pretty much the same line that Seth did Saturday. I went next and I decided to go for the tuck and got ejected on impact. Not wanting to deal with tucking and going over-vertical again, I decided to boof the crap out of it, which ended up working very well. I have begun to think that the cleanest line on Money Drop is boofing by a long-shot. Yeah, it is going to hurt, but at least you're not going to get ejected.

Finally, the last Montana guy went. He had perhaps the most savage boof I have ever seen. He was completely off of the stream of water and landed with his stern first. It was probably the biggest boof I have ever seen off of Money Drop.

Looking back, our trip was awesome, but far from complete. I hope to get back over to Hood as soon as I can.

Here is the link to a edit of Money Drop: http://www.vimeo.com/16874931

-I'm in the green Dagger Nomad with the green full-face

Cheers,

Andrew