The “Illi” in a Day

A quick update on the latest adventure of a west coast kayaker.

Written by Tom Peil

Last Friday, Matt, Gabe, Tim, ST, Adam Spanky and myself put together a trip to run the 32 mile section of the Wild and Scenic Illinois River in one day at high water. Got to the put in at Miami Bar at 8am and on the river by 8:30 . Bare Foot Brad ran shuttle for us, arriving at the take out just before we showed up at 3pm .

The gauge at Kirby read about 4000cfs and dropping. The river was higher than I have ever seen it, a murky green and hauling a#s. The night before we had all talked about the conditions and what to expect. What to take, a play boat or a creek boat. Well we show up the next morning and I'm the only one that decided to bring my play boat. All the others opting to use higher volume, larger boats that allowed them to overnight. I'll just have to spoon up to one of these boys if we get stuck out there. Hey, I like my small boat in big water, but I must say I'm a little nervous.

There are normally 125 rapids on this run, but at this high flow at least half of them were washed out or developed into juicy wave trains, one of the Grand Canyon size waves where you reach the top and sometimes you don't make it over and slide down the face of the wave, or do peak out but find yourself totally vertical and fall over backwards. Matt, the salty water dog that he is, takes the lead and we follow, dropping down some sick rapids, skirting around some other serious whitewater, looking back upstream on a few and being really thankful that we didn't just follow the flow and the tongue into a crazy mass of boiling head stomping, white knuckle mayhem. Adam stays true to his nickname Spanky and takes a couple on, solo, and yes got spanked. But always rolled up with a sh#t eating grin on his face.

Always on my mind is the infamous class 5 Green Wall at mile 17. How far have we come so far? Is this the lead in? Where is that eddy on river left? Well we have held it together pretty good so far, no mishaps. Matt spots Prelude rapid that leads directly into the Green Wall. There is an eddy on river left just above the Green Wall but below Prelude. Adam gives it a shot and just barely makes it. We adjust our angle a bit and shoot into the rapid one at a time. Matt, the old salty dog that he is walks his boat down. The Green Wall is HUGE. Normally it presents several chutes around large rock boulders to find your way through. Today there are scarcely any boulders to be found, just the tops of one or two. The normal run on river left is still there, but is interrupted with several meaty holes. The highlight of this drop is one of the largest serious wave holes I have ever seen. You know it is big if the old salty dog is taking pictures just of the wave. Two to three stories high and none of us want any part of it. Just to its river left is a small tongue that separates it from another bad boy hole. That's our line, then go left through some smaller semi-manageable holes and follow the whitewater to your salvation and the light in that river left eddy.

Tim is too nervous to scout any longer, so he takes off and leaves Adam and I in our boats in the eddy. Matt and Gabe give us the high sign as he makes it over the tongue upright and they are cheering him on, yeah baby, wait what is this? They don't look happy anymore, and the dreaded swimmer in the water sign from both of them. We've got a swimmer! That means we better hurry up and get our as#ses down river to help him out, or get out of our boats and run down river to help out. Adam paddles out into the fray, and I follow. I soon lose sight of him as he drops into the chaos. I find the precious tongue and make it over upright. There is Adam down to the left and getting worked over one of those few rocks, bump, bump, over and down the other side. That had to hurt, being that he was upside down. I learn from his misfortune and paddle right, through those more manageable holes, get dumped a couple of times, but roll up to find the light and Tim, self rescuing himself and his boat and paddle in that eddy of salvation. Adam is feeling his helmet for his latest battle scar. Looking upstream we see Gabe has an even farther river left line and is looking good, until he drops out of sight into one of those more manageable holes, comes up upright but backwards and rides the rest of the drop that way. He comments at the bottom that he lucked out, and can't make that kind of mistake in his next class 5 rapid.

Matt, the old salty dog that he is, ran the sneak far, far left line bumping over more rock than water.

The Little Green Wall rapid just downstream turned out to be more of a challenge for me. After getting knocked over by a good sized wave I struggled to roll up for the rest of the rapid, managing to get a gulp of air on a half a#s roll. Every time I attempt a roll, a wave or hole tosses me about. Finally rolling up at the bottom of the rapid I blew a cup of water out of my nose and belch up another.

The Illinois River took us through the area made famous a few summers ago as the Biscuit fire, the largest forest fire that year in the U.S. Bush, the Forest Service and BLM are trying to salvage logs in this roadless, wilderness area, under the guise that it is all destroyed and needs our help. Having seen this remote area, the fire burned in a sporadic manner, and my educated guess is that only about 20 percent burned hot and deadly. The rest has recovered nicely and is green and healthy. The fire is just what it needed to weed out the smaller trees and to replenish the soil with valuable nutrients. Well after less than two years in many areas the only sign of the fire is scorched bark at the base of standing live trees and the rotting carcasses of former trees. A layer of moss has covered the delicate soils and life is bursting out everywhere. A wild ride folks-a crazy blitzkrieg effort to run the entire length of the Wild and Scenic Illi, 32 miles, in southwestern Oregon . Six and a half hours on the water including a long lunch at Collier Creek, a short stretch of our legs, and some time scouting the Green Wall.

We had a blast.

Till next time. Rock on. Tom Peil

—Tom Peil