High Water Hits the NW!

Over the last few days a strong storm hammered the NW and although we love the rain sometimes the drenching rain can be hard to correlate with river levels. The rivers can go from being too low to being off the chart and things definitely went off the chart!

Sherars Falls on the Deschutes 

 

Trestle from High up on the cliff

The Trestle Wave on the Deschutes R. in Eastern Oregon is a place that few have surfed because it rarely reaches optimal levels. I have been told it comes in between 12,000 and 18,000cfs but I have not had the opportunity to experience it.

The only people I know that have actually surfed the wave are some of the old school playboaters who I learned with. Lucky for me the guys that I to looked up to then are know great paddling buddies of mine! When I received a call  from Todd that Trestle was in I loaded gear and headed east 2.5 hours to see what Trestle Wave is all about.

2.5 hours later we arrived at the spot. Its a short steep hike down to the river and a short paddle down river to the wave. Where you park is high above the wave which makes for a tough scout. When we arrived the parking spot was empty and my friends were no where to be found. We looked at the wave and it looked huge the river was full of debris with large logs floating down river.

We thought to our selves is it too high?? Dan informed us that there was another wave/hole a few miles down river that they may have fled to. We decided to go check for them and see what was up. When we arrived at the other spot known as the Sissy Wave the boys were already playing. The wave looked very nice big fluffy and steep!

Sissy wave is a very large wave/hole with a reasonably steep left shoulder and a very retentive pit in the middle. At this level the ferry out to the wave was very difficult, one of the hardest I've been to. Once you made it on the wave it was sick!

Despite the sweet play at Sissy Wave we were all a bit disappointed to not surf Trestle. We sessioned at Sissy Wave until it felt like we could session no more and headed up to scout Trestle Wave again.

Our scout was from high up on the cliff and from here it looked burly. We knew if it looked stout from here it definitely was.

 Scouting from high on the cliff

Sissy Wave a few aprx 2 miles below Trestle Wave

 Debris in the river

 Todd surfing Sissy Wave and dodging logs

 Dan R.

 Bryan C.

 Me

 Me

If running creeks at high water is running the brown, then this would be considered playing in the brown!

Trestle Wave at over 18,000cfs from 150-200ft up

Till next time!