With cold dry weather for the last couple weeks, I was really happy when we finally got a bit of rain and it looked like there were a couple possible boating options. All the low elevation snow we’ve had this year has really limited the options as a lot of runs are inaccessible right now. Megi wanted to demo a boat in Hood River so it seemed like the Farmlands would be a good run to do. As I drove into Troutdale I was surprised to see that I84 seemed to be shut down. I made a call to my sister to find out what the deal was. She confirmed from the ODOT website that I84 was indeed shut down but SR14 in Washington might be good option. I called Megi and we decided the Farmlands was probably out as it was going to take us too long to get there and the roads where probably pretty bad up there anyway. We decided the Wind might be a good 2nd option so we called everyone and changed to the Wind. As we were getting changed at the take-out it started dumping snow and didn’t let up for the rest of the day. I’m used to kayaking with snow at the put-in and along the banks but this was a bit different.

The roads weren’t too bad getting back to the put-in but we had to chain up Megi’s car after it couldn’t make it up the hill from the take-out. I just about fell down the hill at the put-in because of the slick conditions; dropping my kayak on the way down. The Wind was just beautiful with huge icicles along the walls and snow on the banks. The river was at a fun, technical flow so I tried to catch as many eddies as possible; keeping warm in the process. Everything went smooth and we eventually made it back to Portland where it was just raining.

Wind River put-in

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