[EAR]

WOW! That was fun! It was like a 2 hour thrill ride with little time for relaxing. We took a short break to portage the "ford", and now I understand why it's called that. They built the road into the riverbed. It's a stepped concrete design with about a 6ft drop on one side. No one was trying to ford the river today, although we saw several cars come down and look.
The river level was just under 3ft, which Mike said was perfect (for a skirted kayak!). I think I was pushing the limits with the 16ft Mad River canoe. I have never had to stop so many times to bale out water as I did on this run as we crashed big wave after big wave. The old Clorox bottle I use to bale got a real workout today. I had a little trouble with some of the angled ledges that we went over but the 2 big drops (3ft+) were easy enough.
At the end I was completely soaked but I didn't go in, though I came close when about 20 gallons of water came in the boat going over a ledge.
This will be a section I'd like to do again at a water level between 2-2.5ft. Mike said a low limit is 1.5ft and over 3ft it gets tricky. Especiallyfor guys in open canoes.