Fun in the Gorge

[Blue crab]

Amazing conditions last weekend in the gorge. All of this footage was from our first run. The second was actually windier.

[coldsup]

That looks great fun. What is the water temp?

[Blue crab]

That looks great fun. What is the water temp?

At this time of year, I am guessing mid to high 60s.  Not cold at all.  I've only been once in the early summer and it quite chilly at that time

[DavidJohn]

Looks amazing.. 

[Muskoka SUP]

Four thumbs up...thanks for sharing Blue Crab!

[PonoBill]

Nice run. You handle that board really well. I see you found my favorite wave on the inside line near Mitchell Point. When it gets really howling that's a big hole in the river.


Hmmm, that didn't come out right. Fixed it.

[covesurfer]

Looking really good on the F16 Blue. You have sure racked up a lot of experience since our run in the Gorge together back in 2013! You look like Jeremy now! Thanks for the vids, they came out great.

[Blue crab]

Looking really good on the F16 Blue. You have sure racked up a lot of experience since our run in the Gorge together back in 2013! You look like Jeremy now! Thanks for the vids, they came out great.

You are too kind Cove.  Jeremy & I are tall white dudes from the mid-Atlantic who like to stand on SIC boards in windy conditions. Sadly the similarities end there.

I still think of that 1st Viento run often.  You were beyond patient.  I've now taken a decent number of folks out for their first time on the Columbia.  There definitely is an art to it.  Say too little & the noob will keep falling in over & over. Say too much & risk irritating them to death.  The pace also has to be just right. My new strategy is to hang around at Viento for 30 minutes & watch until they are almost out of sight. Then I catch up, do some very low key coaching & then relax again until they are almost out sight. Then repeat. It pays dividends down the road as it is so fun to watch people catch the bug.

[covesurfer]

Seriously, don't sell yourself short, you look pretty darn impressive on that F16. Damn nice riding.

Taking people down the Viento run was a lot of fun  Taking you guys was a pleasure because you had great attitudes and you were willing to put it all out there and make it happen. Obviously, you got bit by the bug and you've racked up a lot of amazing experience. It shows in how you ride your board.

I got an SUP teaching credential this April from ACA. I learned a lot about how to teach, which I'm sure would come in handy if I were still guiding. I find guiding to be full of too many wildcards however, especially in the ocean. At this point, I would just like to help get people comfortable with the fundamentals of SUP. A lot of those skills can take people much further than they realize.

Anyway, those are great vids BC. Even makes me a little homesick. I can't make it to the Gorge this Summer and I'm bummed. Nice to watch the vids, really takes me right there, I can almost feel the sharp rocks on my feet launching at Viento, hahaha!

[dk78]

Amazing conditions, very nice!

[PonoBill]

Totally smoking today, some of the biggest drops I've seen on Viento runs, totally wild. My 17' Bullet felt likie the wrong board for all the excitement. I'm usually pretty good at keeping the nose out of the wave ahead, but everything moving so fast, and the waves were so steep, that i was pounding into everything--out of control, standing on the pulley. Passenger. I must have fallen 20 times, most of them full-on catapults, and I still did 1:26. Lousy time for the outrageous conditions, but knock off 30 seconds per fall (which is conservative given my wobbly return to standing) and 20 falls and it's 1:16, which I think would have been about right. Some of the guys I was staying with until I started pounding in did 1:17. Art Acquino probably broke 60 minutes. When I was standing my speed coach constantly read between 8 and 9 mph and I saw 9.6 for a long powered-up run that ended with a face plant after at least 100 yards of bouncing off the tops of waves.

It look like it was well over 50mph at the Hatchery.

[laszlo]

Yea it was pretty windy. Another day I chose to run on the Oregon side rather than my usual Northshore run. At one point on the Wells express I wanted to wait for my buddy to catch up so I stopped paddling entirely. My board continued to catch swells, all I did was stand there and steer!

[Admin]

Sailed the Wall today.  4.0 then 3.3.  Solo sessions.  Switching off with Chan (alternating playing with Grandson on the beach).  BeeYOUteefull swell.  All that after Baked eggs,  fresh croissants (and a great tuna melt) at Petite Provence in The Dalles.  Oh, yeah.

[PonoBill]

Swell city and he hatchery looked like explosions in the water. I wanted to go over and play in whatever that was, but I figured with 17.5 feet of Bullet it would be nutz. Should have taken my surfboard. It was a perfect day for eleven feet of fiberglass.

My upper thighs are killing me--all that work staying on the board. Nothing much in the fridge since we start our road trip tomorrow, so we had dinner at Three rivers, which is about 300 yards from my house. I could hardly walk home.

[burchas]

When I was standing my speed coach constantly read between 8 and 9 mph and I saw 9.6 for a long powered-up run

Bill, What's your speed readouts on Maliko?