2015 Moving Water Class
Saturday, June 27th
By Steve Reutebuch
This
year we only had 1 tandem team (Nate & Becki Johnson) sign up for the Moving Water class. We usually do a 2-day class, but since we only had 2 people in the class and almost no moving water anywhere, we decided to only do a 1-day class on the Skykomish. Ed and Grace Kane graciously agreed to be the tandem instructors. Steve Reutebuch, George Wilhem, Linda Newman, and Erich Volkstorf came to assist and be safety boats. We started the day working on boat rigging, forward strokes, eddy turns, peel outs, and ferries at Big Eddy. The water was only 500 cfs and the temperature got up to about 95 degrees. So, the occasional dumping/jumping in the water was a nice cool off for all of us!
Nate and Becki were real troopers and worked very hard to get their Wenonah Spirit-II to turn. After many tries with some success, they test drove Ed and Grace's Mad River Synergy and immediately were whipping into the eddy with smiles on their faces.
After lunch, we "attempted" to paddle on down to Sultan, but grounded out on several occasions on very low drops. It was heart-breaking to see all the scratches that Nate's beautiful kevlar boat sustained during the trip. The going was slow, as we had to walk boats down several drops. So by 5:00 pm, we took off the river above Sultan as Ed and Grace paddled on down to Sultan to get their shuttle vehicle. We convened for dinner at a Mexican restaurant in Sultan where Nate commented that this trip would be the last river trip for his kevlar boat. Next time, he and Becki will be in a plastic boat!