Flow: about 4500 at Foss OR
Weather: sunny at first, then rain, about 45'
People/Boats: Chris S in 15' Kestral, & Chris N, in self-made wooden kayak, the "Albert Hall".
Thought we'd try our hand at some white water, so we went out to the Nehalem. Scouted from the road, and it didn't look so bad - except for the falls, which looked easy to portage. Boy were we wrong!
Put in about 2 miles downstream of Tin Shack Rd, and took out at Roy Creek Park. The rapids were MUCH more than we expected (Class 3, funny how they didn't look so bad from the road), and our boats were not the right tools for the job. We realized pretty quickly we were in over our heads and were as careful as possible. Thankfully, neither of us tipped, as that could have been disaster.
The portage around the falls was worse than expected, not hard to get around the falls proper, but nowhere to put in right after them. We ended up climbing up to the railroad with the boats to get downstream a bit more.
Arrived at the takeout after dark and missed it. Had to backtrack upstream. We apparently were granted one free pass by the gods of the river, and I don't count on a second one. We had no business being out there with that level of preparedness, and are lucky to have made it out safely. Lesson learned.
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