Christmas and kayaking...good times!!

Just finished up a great 3 days of visiting with family for Christmas and even got on 2 new rivers while I was at it. Pretty good time!!

My break started with me driving over to my buddies house where we decided enroute to the Skykomish to instead head over to Canyon Creek of the Stilliquamish,  a run I had never been on with some nice steep whitewater and a beautiful gorge. We had such a good time on that run that we decided to head over to the Sultan for a lap on another new river. Here's a little edit I threw together of the Canyon Creek run.

After spending the night at Nick's another buddy and I headed up to the Sky but decided levels where far too high so we had a beer instead and went over to check out Sunset falls....which was raging!!

Soon after the beer I drove to my aunt and uncles house on Mercer Island for a nice dinner with family that lasted until 10 when I drive to my cousins house in Seattle. I arrived just in time for them to arrive back at home from Johns parents house so it worked out perfectly. After preparing the house for the arrival of Santa I was off to bed.

I woke up at 7:30 to Allie yelling, "He came!" at the top of her lungs and from there my door was opened and the present opening started.  After an hour of opening presents it was time for me to head back to the river for me and they were off to the grandparents house in Spokane so we parted ways. 

Sisters knows me well

I got on the road and soon ended up at the takeout the Skykomish for a nice christmas run with a great crew. Boulder was stomping high so I took a sneak line that I didn't even know existed on the right side the whole way...not a bad line for when it's too pushy.

After that awesome run I made my way to North Bend for dinner with a family and friend from REI that I got invited to. We had a nice dinner and enjoyed some nice conversations, and ended up playing games at the end of the night.

I had a great christmas break with friends and family but I was definitely missing my family.... I guess when we do reunite it will be an incredibly good time this spring in Montana!

Love and miss you guys,

Owen 

Long time update

It's been a long time since I updated this blog so here are the main things that have happened since I last updated this thing...

• I have two jobs, one at Nintendo doing warehouse stuff and another at REI working the cash register and helping customers in the ski area. The pay isn't good but REI has excellent pro deals on gear so I'll suck it up and deal with it.
• I also just got a third job as a lifty up at Alpental for the winter season so that will be a nice change of pace from doing warehouse stuff and will get me out on my skis I hope.
• I moved out of Doreen and Scotts house on Mercer Island and now am renting out a room in a house in North Bend with a couple and another guy who is a ski tourer so hopefully we will be getting some turns in this season.

I've been kayaking a bit on the Snoqualmie, Skykomish, and Green river but haven't really got on anything hard but just keeping muscles going so I can pick up near where I left off in spring. Here is video from a high water run of the Green river when it was around 6000cfs

I'm going to try to update this blog more regularly so keep posted!

-Owen

Missoula visit

Grandma pit stop

My sister and I drove out of Seattle on August 12  and after a few hours of driving and a small rest break in Spokane to visit my Grandma we arrived in Missoula.
We had a day to relax in Missoula to go check out the parks and see some stores before Nick arrived in the afternoon and crashed on the floor.
The next morning we (Olivia, her roommate, nick, and myself) got up and made our way out to the Alberton gorge for a day of rafting, kayaking, and above all else drinking beer. Nicks friend "Tiny" who was a raft guide on the Clark Fork hooked us up with a raft and guided the girls and us down the gorge. It was a beautiful run with fun surf waves and some of the best looking canyons I have seen. Before long the beer was gone and Nick and I were sent on a mission to go get some more beer that turned into a fiasco with a huge rainstorm and with Nick, Tiny and myself hunkering down under the rafts as the rain went over head. After a while the weather cleared out and our shuttle arrived so we made our way back to the guide warehouse.
Next on the agenda was beheading a few chickens so of course we had to stay for that before we headed out back to Missoula.

Overall a great day and we met some cool people out on the river!

Summer kayaking Wrapup

The best summer I have ever had has come to an end so here is a small update and some video of how we rounded off this summer.

After my second to last trip on Sunday we (Kelly and I) packed up the car with all of our gear and waited for Nick to finish his trip on Monday. After a quick bite of food at Chavos we got on the road to White Salmon. At some point we lost track of where we were and ended up taking a 100 mile scenic route detour that ended with us all sleeping under the stars at a rest stop around 20 miles outside of Hood River.
The next morning we woke up bright and early and made our way into Hood River to grab some breakfast in town before crossing the Columbia and making our way up to the BZ Corners put in on the White Salmon. We were all pretty tired after the drive and a not so sleepy night but still excited to get on the river. After getting the gear on we made our way down to the river and had a great lap on one of the most classic rivers in the world. We did two laps before calling it quits and trying to find a campsite.

We decided to just try different dirt roads that exited right side of the main road once we had entered Mt.Hood national forest and ended up finding a great place in between a few pay campground that all had Robin Hood themed names. I think we passed Nottingham  and Sherwood campground before finding our turnoff that dipped into the woods.

We got another full day of kayaking in before accepting that nothing else was running and packing up the shit and heading to Seattle to crash at my aunt and uncles before heading to the Skykomish river which was running at a low level but still a runnable level.

After a night on Mercer Island at my aunt and uncle we headed to the Skykomish river where we ran boulder drop once and continued on our way over Hwy 2. Around 20 miles after Stevens pass the road became so smokey we could barely seen the next car in front of us. After 20 miles of dense smoke it finally cleared and we scouted Tumwater canyon for the remainder of the trip. After scouting Tumwater I knew I wanted to run it but knew the smoke wouldn't let us do it that day.

We rolled into Wenatchee soon after scouting Tumwater and Kelly's dad immediately asked if we wanted to get out on Tumwater the next day. We all had commercial trips so we decided to get out on the river on Sunday before I continued on to pick up my parents at the airport. It all turned out perfect and Sunday was some of the best kayaking I've done in the last couple weeks.

Here's a little edit I put together of the year our here raft guiding...it's been as good as I could have imagined!

Westside rally

Nick and I decided to take a break from the Cashmere life just as the 3 forest fires peaked around Leavenworth and the whole valley was raining ash. Our plan was to head over highway 2 and do the Skykomish followed by a fun day checking out Seattle. The run on the Sky went excellent with boulder drop being really fun at a lower level with almost too many eddies to catch. Good fun!
The day after the plan was to get out on the Sauk because it would be new for both of us but after doing some research it turned out hwy 2 had closed down because of the fires so the Sauk would add a lot of time to our drive so instead we headed back over I-90 and dropped into the Cooper for another lap on this classic creek. The top part went excellent but as we got closer to the bottom my run started to get a bit sloppy. I swam on s-turn on a shallow rock bed and soon after pitoned on the mankiest rapid on the river and hit my hip as hard as it's ever been hit. My immediate reaction was that I had broken a rib but on further inspection it was just a very large bruise. It was a fun trip but I could do without the swims and hard hits!! Here is a short video of random clips from the trip, enjoy!

-Owen

Cooper River Kayaking

Finally got on the Cooper river just outside of Cle Elum for the weekend and got three runs in on this classic. The Cooper has been on my river radar  for quite sometime so it was nice to get a few runs in on one weekend with Nic, a new raft guide for blue sky that just got out here from Colorado. This run has just about everything that you want in a class 4+ river and it's in a nice gorged in setting with beautiful views in all directions. Here's the edit I put together from the run. I walked 2 rapids as it was both of our first time on the river so making an error was less of an option than with a bigger group. Enjoy!

Middle of June Update

I've now settled into living at the raft guide warehouse in Cashmere and guiding for the summer and thus far it has been excellent but here's a little recap of events...

1. Finished raft guide training
2. Quit job
3. Got on Pashastin Creek
4. Got on Lower Icicle Creek
5. Went on Chiwawa river overnighter
6. Got on Entiat and portaged 12 times in 2 days....sucked
7. Got 2nd in Wenatchee River games raft surf competition with Henry
8. Got on the Upper Upper Icicle for a nice easy scenic trip
9. Playing kickball every Wednesday
10. Got a free playboat and starting to actually enjoy play boating
11. Life is good....

Van shuttle 

Colin came out for a quick visit

Upper Icicle 

Pashastin Creek

                                                              Upper Upper Icicle

FITW- South Fork of the Snoqualmie

Just got back from a day on the South Fork of the Snoqualmie (Fall in the Wall) which as it turns out is a super fun run. The run is short (5 min) but packs in a lot of action in those 5 minutes. As you make your way in the direction of Alpental you just loop back and take a little forest service road directly under the I-90. The put is a little 30 second hike down through some trees and the take out is further down at the tail end of a clearing of trees with a small parking spot on the right. It seems that every three runs I make one will end interesting. On this section on my third run I got stuck between two sets of falls and had to get throw bagged out....good times anyways!! Here's a little edit of my second run on this nice section of water.
-Owen

April 29th update

So a lot has happened...

I made my way to Seattle and landed safely on April 9th where my cousin picked me up at the airport drove me to my aunts and uncles house on Mercer Island. It was a great flight and landing except for a little hick-up in Seattle where I was K9ed up hard. I had all of my bags emptied out and drug searched hard. I obviously didn’t have anything but it was kind of nerve racking anyways.

Since arriving I have been hard at work accomplishing different tasks like getting a job, setting up bank accounts, getting a phone, getting my insurance going, getting a kayak, and most importantly finding people to kayak with in my new home so here's how it went.

 On the Sunday after I arrived my cousin Heather and I drove to Spokane to pick up Alley who had been visiting my aunt and uncle. I also got to visit with my Grandma, which was nice. It was a good visit and I got a few items for car camping that I need like a stove and some plates and utensils.

After arriving back on Mercer Island my cousin Allison and I made our way to Bainbridge Island to celebrate Brendan’s 21st birthday at a local restaurant on the island. It was a fun night that we finished by playing card games and eating cake back at the house.

After Brendan’s party Allison and I made our way up to Canada to a kayak shop in Abbottsford where I had picked out a Liquid Logic Stomper and paddle for an excellent price. I drove up to the shop and picked out the boat and paddle and drove straight to the slalom site on the Chilliwack. 

First run in the new boat

Quickly after arriving and suiting up I realized I had forgotten to buy airbags so we drove the 15 miles back into town and picked out some little kid beach volley balls that were and adequate substitute. On the trip back into town we also picked up some food, beer, and firewood for our night at the Chilliwack campground right on the river. After three laps on the slalom section walking the shuttle I decided to call it a night and we drive to a campsite. 

Campsite on the Chilliwack

We made some hot dogs and built a small fire quickly finding that we should have bought more firewood…next time! After spending the night at the campground we made our way back to the kayak shop, bought some airbags and head back to Seattle.

When I arrived at the house on Mercer Island I had a bunch of calls for job interviews so I called all of them and went to a few job interviews but came out empty handed.

Once I had a kayak on hand I continued to fill out job applications but now finally got on the water a few times on the Skykomish, Snoqualmie, Wenatchee, and the Green River 

with a nice gorge at the end of the run. 

Getting on the Wenatchee

I met a bunch of people of all different abilities and am still meeting people to kayak with. The kayaking community here is super large and from I hear the season doesn’t ever end so I’m happy to be here!

After a few more job interviews I found a job at a freight company in Kent that liked me and hired me so now I’m going into my first day of work tomorrow to get trained. The email I got when I got hired stated that I was getting hired as a Warehouse Associate but when they talked about training me it sounded like I’ll be getting trained on the cash machine so I’m not too happy about that but I’ll wait it out and see.

Green river

I also have the raft guide training coming up on April 12^th to the 18^th so if that goes well I should be getting a job over there and that would be a far better lifestyle than working in Kent and driving 20 miles to work everyday. Hopefully all goes well!

Forgot to mention the Robe kayak race that went down last weekend that was a blast.

One of my best shots!

 I was just going to just spectate from the hiking trail that goes alongside the old robe railroad but ended up get tossed a buddies camera and got a few good shots of some of the competitors coming off of a rapid called last sunshine. The sun was out in full force so it turned out to be a great day sitting along the river drinking beer and taking pictures.

So there it is, the first little bit of me landing and trying to survive in the US of A. Hopefully the next update is just as good as this one and hopefully my job is okay!

See ya next time,

Owen

Plans for spring!

My summer plans are in in the making and I'm actually getting pretty excited!! So here's the plan as I have it figured out now.

An absolutely horrible spring ski season (can't ski to the bottom of the mountain!) has turned my instructor hours into hours spent at the hotel getting ready for the Edelweiss employees move to three  separate wings of the hotel. We have moved 42 refrigerators and too many pieces of furniture for me to given a certain number but I can say that everyday I leave the only thing on my mind is drinking a beer, eating dinner and crashing.

My last day moving furniture at the Edelweiss is March 22 so that leaves my friend and I exactly two weeks to go on a little hitchhike trip around Europe. We are thinking that we want to go all the way to Portugal and back but only time will tell if that is a solid plan. I know I just need to be back in Garmisch by April 5th or 6th when my mom arrives from Portugal for her spring break My friend has a few friends in Italy and France that are cool with us staying with them so we might take advantage of that but other than that we have no set plans.

Once I get back to Garmisch on April 5th or 6th...maybe earlier. I should have enough time to pack up my bags, ship out some boxes and disguise my kayak like a surfboard for getting it on the plane. Visiting with friends will also be nice.

On April 9th I fly out to Seattle on a Delta flight which is kind of nerve-racking because I've done a lot of research on what airlines are good with bringing kayaks and it looks like Delta is one of the worst...they don't accept kayaks. It looks like all I can do is package it like a surfboard and really hope it gets on. I have purchased a kayak bag and I'm going out to grab a bunch of  plastic wrap from the commissary that they use to wrap pallets so hopefully that makes it hard to tell that it's a kayak and not a wind surf board! I'm hopeful but I really don't want to have to sell my kayak her and buy a kayak when I arrive in Washington.

I think all of this summer is possible and totally within grasp but I'll just have to wait and see how it all unfolds so here goes!
-Owen

Fasching Hut-Hut

Just like last season (and the one before that) hut to hut during fasching went great. This year I had some of my best turns of the year while dressed up like a ski kid along with Alex. Here are a few shots that people took during a great night!

-Owen

Pete was our instructor 

Ski kids on a little hike for some freshies!

Brooke and Brian Visiting

Just dropped Brooke and Brian off at the train station on there way back to Munich where they will both catch flight back to CO. They had a great trip despite the worst winter in Garmisch that I have ever seen so here's a little recap with pictures that I took and pictures that I have stolen from Brian.

The first tour we got on was a small one to the Stuiben hutte which is the best tour in the area to go on with a bunch of jet legged friends and it actually turned out to have some good snow in near the hutte. 

Pretty good turns in the shade!

After this we spent the night drinking beer at local restaurants around Garmisch and got a little practice in slap dancing in.

Great band!

A few days later we headed to Austria for what was thought to be at the time 4 days of ski touring around the Silvretta but which turned into a 2 hour skin to the Heidelberger hutte for 2 beers, dinner and breakfast before we made our way back down. We did make some turns on a slope above the hutte but to say we skinned over 400 meters would be a stretch. I made 10 turns, skied up to Brooke and Brian and said,"fuck this, lets go to Italy".

You can see the hutte to the right of the big rock down there

Two hours after skiing out of the Heidelberger hutte we made it to the car, packed everything in, and got on the autobahn Italy bound. About an hour and a half in to the drive we realized we had no idea how to get to the place we wanted to go so we sucked it up and bought a map (people used to use these before gps) 

After a few hours we started rising up a pass right outside of Bozen and almost immediately it started dumping hard. I hadn't see the amount of snow that was there in a long time. There where roofs with over a meter of snow sitting on top of them.

One broken front light later (guard rail) and with nerves fried we rolled into the parking lot of the tourist information and got hooked up with a room with breakfast and dinner for 40 Euros a night. Perfect! 

We crashed hard the first night and woke up the next morning not knowing exactly where we were but happy that we had made it to a place with snow. We wandered out of the hotel and made our way for the bus stop and actually got the chance to ski down between hotels to the road. Once at the bus stop the owner of our hotel, Maria drove down and dropped us off our bus passes that we had no idea we would need. It all worked out and before long we were ski touring up some random road that was supposed to be made for snowshoers heading in an uncertain direction with tons of snow. An hour later we stumbled into a little village with a few restaurants that in summer even had a bus stop. We were in shock...

Some village....

Bus stop is out of commission.

 We ate a little food sitting on the patio and soon after were skinning towards a small grouping of trees that looked like excellent tree skiing about 100 meters from the huts. After 45 minutes of skinning we finally ripped the skins and started skiing and the snow was excellent! It felt like around 3 feet of snow and it was very light. The only thing that could have been better was having a little bit more of ski for how much we were skinning but it was fun anyways and we ended up doing around 4 laps before calling it a day and heading out back to the hotel for dinner and card games.

Lots of snow...that was a car.

The following day we headed towards Passo Pordoi which turned out to be an excellent time and a place that I would love to spend more time in the future. There was excellent snow in the shadows and almost too many lines to chose from.

Passo Pordoi skiing

After skiing back down to the hotel from Passo Pordoi we got the car gassed up for the trip ahead of us and drove back to the hotel to eat some dinner. We got to sleep early and got on the road after a small breakfast cruising all the way to the base of the Rauth Hutte on the Hohe Munde for a small ski tour to a hut to enjoy some food before heading back to Garmisch.

Group shot next to the Rauth Hutte with a friendly dog

Once back in Garmisch the two got their stuff together and I shuttled to the train station the next morning in order to catch their flight at the Munich Airport.

Overall a good trip even though the snow at the start was less than ideal!

-Owen

Ski Season thus far....

As I sit in my bed after working my second 2 hour shift on a day that I should have worked all day I realize that if Garmisch and the surrounding areas don't get a ridiculous amount of snow very quickly the ski season will be over just as quickly as it has come. It doesn't help that is has been raining for the last two days with no signs of slowing down and as an insult to injuries the rivers hasn't gone up at all. I'm already starting to drift off and plan out my steps for coming back stateside at the end of April or as early March due to the low snow and low crowds that have been coming in lately. Looks like I might have to start getting more job applications in because it's looking like the move could be earlier than later...
-Owen

December Update

It is the first time in a long time that I have felt too sick to get out of bed so I might as well use this time away from work to update my stagnate blog. 

When I last wrote I was in Seattle visiting friends and family in November. The Reason for me being stateside whover was solely for the purpose of getting hired back in Germany for a ski instructing job with the Edelweiss Lodge and Resort. Now I'm back in Germany and have just survived my first month of ski instructing and am actually really enjoying it. Some kids are easier than others but by the end of the day everyone is throwing up high fives and asking if they really have to stop skiing. If I finish the day with everyone happy and asking their parents of they can go "just one more time" I feel like I have done a good job.

New Years this year was just at rowdy as previous ones but this year stated with the first three fireworks almost taking out an entire gluewein stand in the center of Garmisch. A few people saw me holding the end of a bottle rocket pointed at the sky and gave it a go. The problem was the little knitted gloves they were wearing... the wooden stick got stuck on the gloves and ended up dropping the final bang that should be let loose 100 feet in the air right at the feet of 150 old people sipping gluewein. It wouldn't have seemed so intentional if it hadn't happened two times...well it was a good time anyways. After all the fireworks everyone ended up in Pub 33 enjoying the night with friends.

The next couple weeks look like more of the same (ski instructing) but I hope that the rivers around here will rise a little bit so I can get some kayaking in before I head back to the PNW for what I hope to be one rowdy summer. 

-Owen