Spring, around 2023, the Packsaddle run on the North Santiam at about 4,500 cfs, which is big water for that run. I was rowing our 14-foot SOTAR Classic with a frame: big and heavy. My mom was rowing her 14-foot Wave Destroyer cataraft with my sister in a back seat and Bailey, our chocolate lab puppy, not even a year old. My dad was paddling our paddle raft with friends, and a whole crew came along.
At Spencer's Hole, the channel narrows. I came in side by side with another cataraft. It took one half, and I took the other, the worse half. They went through clean. I got stuck in the hole. It surfed me, bucked me and threw me out. I broke a carabiner on the way out because I was holding an oar, and I pulled the oar out of its oarlock. I fell upstream into the hole, flushed under the boat, and popped up just above the next rapid. The raft sat in the hole until it floated out into the eddy.
A cataraft came by. I was only in paddle gear, with nothing warm. There was no spare room on that cat, so I somehow climbed onto a tube and straddled it.
Meanwhile my mom had flipped end over end at Spencer's. She and my sister had a bad swim, getting pulled deep. Bailey was stuck with the upside-down cat, whose high-back seats turned it into an upside-down sailboat racing downstream with no eddies in sight. A friend in a SOTAR SL kayak like mine got to it first and pulled Bailey off. We caught up, and I climbed onto the flipped boat, holding Bailey, gripping a rope tied to the cat I'd been riding, and bracing against the frame on the upside-down mesh floor. We finally wedged it against a rock outcropping a little way below Carnivore Rapid. It was cold, wet and drizzly. Everyone was okay.
The part I'll never forget
All morning, before we launched, I kept seeing the exact moment I'd fall out of my raft. It replayed over and over, and I couldn't stop it. I knew it was going to happen.
I grew up in a Christian household, but it wasn't until my sophomore year of high school that I truly found what it means to be saved. Looking back now, I believe God has given me spiritual gifts like wisdom, discernment, knowledge and, at times, visions. That morning on the Santiam is one of the clearest moments I can point to.
Runner-up crazy trip
The Grande Ronde at 16,000 cfs, rowing a 10.5-foot RMR Storm with a frame and dry bags. Full-grown trees, root balls and all, floated past our camp on a layover day. The waves were so big I hopped from eddy to eddy to stay out of them, and we made ridiculous time. It was a sight to behold.
