Whitewater on the White Salmon

The White Salmon River the enters Columbia River just across from The Dalles. I ran it twice in the late 70’s. At that time to put your boat in you paid $5 to a guy to run the boat out on a cable that he had strung across the river. He’d drop it down to the put in and you’d hike down to get in and start. Now a days there is a rail to run your boat down. The put in is freaky enough and the rest of the run is one class three rapid after another with a few class 4’s and 5’s thrown in. This is a picture taken from a bridge over the river just downriver from the put in in at BZ Corner.

We were there in July when there was a competition going on so there were hundreds of boats.

The take out is at Husum Falls. There is another bridge there just below a true class 5 drop. The water flow was such that none of the rental boats would run it but I saw 6 people run the drop on small waterboards. I had never seen these things before. What a rush it must be for them though.

Here’s the drop.

Here’s a close up of one of the boarders.

One of the boarders was a middle aged woman. Gives me hope!

More photos here