Leif and I just got back from our Thanksgiving break. We tried to pack as much boating into the nine days as humanly possible, given a 22 hour car ride from Colorado to the west coast. We left Fort Collins at 8pm on Thursday night and managed to make the 7pm ferry on Friday out to the Sunshine Coast, BC by NEVER stopping except for gas. Amazingly, when we got to the ferry we were only a few cars away from the second half of our group who drove up from Arcata, CA. Anyways, I'm quite proud of our team driving effort which allowed us to get up at 4am to surf Skookumchuck in the pre-dawn light on Saturday. We spent four days surfing that beauty of a wave. Leif was killing it with big airblunts, some clean blunts and quite a few nice helixes (really it should be helices). I got some really nice airblunts and worked on the donkyflip/faceplant. Below are some photos.

SKOOKUMCHUCK

Leif clean blunts, Skookumchuck, BC. Photo by Natalie Kramer Double Surf, Skookumchuck, BC. Photo Arla Yost Natalie air blunts, Skookumchuck, BC. Photo by Leif Anderson

I highly recommend renting a cabin at the back eddy marina. They aren't too pricey and you can fit six people in one cabin if you don't mind being comfortably close. They also have a shower and a kitchen. The cabin was awesome for softies like us who didn't want to camp for four nights in the rain.

Back Eddy cabin Sleepy time in the Back Eddy cabin, photo by Leif Anderson.

After saying goodbye to our sweet cabin which kept us warm in the chilly rain, we packed up the playboats and got out the creek boats for three full days of awesome creeking. We started off with a fun run down the east Fork of the Lewis, then stepped it up and ran the Green Truss, then stepped it up once more and polished off the trip with a run down the ever so classic Little White Salmon. I then spent the whole car ride back grading intro geology labs, ugghhh.

GREEN TRUSS AND THE LITTLE WHITE

Natalie stomps Spirit Falls, Little White Salmon, WA. Photo by Russell Kramer

Leif, Little White Salmon, WA. Photo by Mike Long Leif on Big Brother, Green Truss, WA. Photo by Natalie Kramer Natalie on Stovepipe, Little White Salmon, photo by Mike Long Natalie, Little White Salmon, WA. Picture by Mike Long

A fuller write-up with more photos can be found at our blog.