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Even though I wasn't feeling up for an adventure, it had definitely been too long since I went kayaking last. So I tagged along with Kennet, Boris, and Jeremy to the Foss River. Since my rack was broken, I even had to have them pick me up at my place.

We got to the takeout around 11:15AM and since we only had two small cars, we couldn't drop shuttle, so we continued on up to the putin.  Along the way, we spotted some wood that we'd defintely want to scout. The consensus, since none of us had paddled recently, was to putin at the FS 68 bridge across the Foss River.  Once we got there, one of us, who shall remain nameless, realized that he had left all of his gear in his car at the Park and Ride in Seattle.  So he had to stay with the down car while we went down river.

Once all the shuttling was taken care of, Kennet, Jeremy, and I put on in class I.  In the future, I'm never going to putin at the upper putin. It was all class I with lots (3-4) portages due to log jams.  It's much better to do the quick bushwack at the FS 6830 fork.

However, once we got to the main section of the river, it was great class III boogy water.  The Skykomish gauge was at 8,800 CFS when we left and came down to about 7,800 CFS by the time we got home.  This is probably the lowest I'd run it with snow melt unless I was really desparate.  Below this level, I think it wouldn't be as fun.

The river started to pick up and we started haven't to eddy hop down.  We also ran into the wood we saw from the road.  The first portage is really easy (at this level).  It's just a single large tree across the entire river.  I found an eddy directly above the log on river right.  The next portage was not mandatory, but it look really risky.  You'll see a small try (10 inch diameter base) coming in from river left.  Definitely get out to scout.  There's another, larger, tree down stream of it on the right.  We ended up portaging the small tree, and sneaking the river right tree on the left.  However, we had to make a ferry back to the right to finish the drop.

We soon came upon Ken & Barbie, the hardest drop on the run.  Remember, there's a tree coming in on river left above it.  I went first and totally *$#@ed up.  I ended up penciling into a fold, getting flipped vertically, then I missed 1 or 2 rolls.  I hadn't really looked at the runout, but it definitely is not a pool.  I had a scary moment trying to get away from the rootball on the river left, but managed to make my way river right.

After we all collected ourselves in the eddy directly across from the rootball on river right, we continued on down.  It definitely would have been worth a scout though.  I ended up going center and would most definitely have pinned at lower water.  The cleanest line is running left, but there are some holes there, so watch out.  I suggest finding an eddy, getting out, and having a look for yourself.

After that though, the river calms down quite a bit and returns to class III boogy water.  We decided to take out at the railroad bridge to save on time, but it was kind of moot because we had already taken so much time with the upper section.

Overall it was a very nice run.  I definitely need to check my outfitting though, because I did not feel snug in my boat.  I used to look down on this run a bit, but now I think it's a really good class IV section.  If you putin at the lower putin and take out at the railroad or car bridge, then you can definitely do a couple laps in a day.  It's not worth going to the Tye River, if you want to make it a longer trip, just run it again.