Nisqually River Mckenna to Yelm 12/29/2011

Nisqually River
Mckenna to Yelm
class II-III
~2000cfs

How I love that slightly nervous feeling of not exactly knowing what's around the bend as you embark on a new adventure. I could live without the not knowing if you can see the wood in the river or not through with all the muddy water... Overall it was a fun adventure, nothing hard by any means, but I'll definitely go back for all the surfing now that I know what the river is like. Kahuna at 2000cfs had plenty of spots to play, and you could easily hike back up and play for a few hours.

So I have this list of random beginner runs I really want to explore, and this is the second river to check off. The Nisqually is a class II-III, really it's only a II+ overall with one class III. But there is wood here and there to be aware of, and at 2k there was some in play, but nothing a beginner can't avoid if you know a little bit of boat control and water reading.

After a few hiccups, we finally made it to the take-out around 11am to see a sign on the gate that appeared to say closes at 3pm, while down below it says 8pm... By far this was one of the easiest river take outs ever, you are greeted with a nice paved boat launch. So knowing that we had 7 miles to paddle with a few flat water stretches we took the gamble that we would be done in about 3 hours and parked the car down below. If we didn't park below it was a decent uphill hike to the gate that we didn't want to hike with gear for only some beginner fun. So we rushed down the road to the put-in and again greeted by a nice boat ramp with a grassy knoll alongside it to put on the river. After putting on we paddled the muddy water across the first ~mile of flat water to the first II+ rapid. From here on the river weaved between some nice class II for a few miles before the river took a sharp left and the easy lead in to Kahuna began. At the 2000cfs flow Kahuna was actually starting to look like a class III- rapid. After that there was a really short rapid, Little Kahuna, and then the river continues meandering through class II in a beautiful little canyon like setting before hitting another long stretch of mostly flat water before the takeout.

We made it with time to spare, shuttled cars and went on our way to deal with I-5 traffic back to Seattle. So here's the video now that you are tired of reading my ramblings!