The past few years Bobby “The Dogg” Miller has been flying from his home in WV to OR in order to huck his meat off whatever waterways might have water when he gets here. This past summer was no different and Bobby flew out with a focus on going big. Much respect for your skills Bobby and I look forward to more Huckfests in the future. Please enjoy the following story by “The Dogg” in what can only be described as his unique writing style 🙂   -Bryon

http://vimeo.com/33957920

Pacific Northwest Huckfest 2011

by Bobby “The Dogg” Miller

As the summer droughts began on the East Coast, I decided it was time to take a road trip. The early summer had been good to the West Coast and I was heading out there. I was making a tour across the country promoting my new book, “Doggystyle: The Legend of the ZoneDogg”, stopping by various paddling shops for “Meet the Dogg” opportunities and autograph sessions. Through the years, I have accumulated a large fan base and, even though I am a big star, I still like to take the time to meet some of my adoring fans. Some larger companies are taking notice too. I have several offers on the table from various sports drinks companies and shoe and apparel manufacturers pitching a “Be Like the Dogg” promotion. With all this hoopla, my hand was getting tired of signing thousands of autographs each day and I needed to escape the hustle and bustle of superstardom and go kayaking. After all, I didn’t become the Greatest Show on Earth by sitting around on my keyster! No sir! I built this city on rock n roll! What? What does that mean?

My wife, Melissa, and I headed to Oregon where we met up with my good friends Bryon Dorr and Joe Stumpfel. I told them that I wanted to waste no time and go straight for the goods. Bryon was down and flashed me a brown claw to show his approval. We headed into Washington and to the North Fork of the Lewis River. With several cool drops and a hiking trail along the run, there is ample opportunity for video and pictures. We were testing out new camera equipment complete with a dual gyro stabilizer to ensure the highest quality shot. The trail also makes this run a friendly place for the thousands of fans who followed me across the country (known as the Dogg Pack) to view the show. The run starts off with a clean 20 footer with a nice boof and then a few small slides before dropping off the face of the Earth. Upper Lewis Falls is a two tiered 60 foot drop that has all sorts of danger associated with it. The first problem is that the river is wide and shallow above it so it is difficult to be sure that you are on line. The second danger would be catching your stern on one of the junky shelves on the first 30 foot falls and penciling straight in. A piton off this falls would really knock the honey off your stinger! Finally, the third danger is the massive hydraulic at the bottom of the second 30 footer that feeds into a terrible cave on the left. Bryon and Joe chose to walk it but I decided that I saw a line that I knew I could hit. After all, I have the Number 1 boof stroke in the world. Like Colt 45 malt liquor, it works every time! I headed to my boat and gave the signal that I was ready, a cry loosely resembling that of a bard owl. I floated through the shallow approach, lining up with a small boulder and a 6 inch curler wave to the right of it. Once past the curler, I knew I was golden and all that was left to do was to time the stroke. I waited until the lip came into view and launched a big boof, falling 30 feet and landing with a POW! I had 3 strokes and then I was off the second 30 footer where I timed another big stroke and landed flat with another POW! The vibrations from my boofs resulted in a shift in the tectonic plates which caused Mount Saint Helens to have a slight eruption! The celebration began, with all sorts of yelling, paddle throwing, high fives and chest bumps. I jumped out of my kayak and laid down a mat for an impromptu break dancing session! The fans on the bank went crazy as I’m sure it was a huge treat for them to witness their man in action. Unfortunately, I decided to drop the People’s Elbow on my boat in celebration and upon nailing the move, I suffered a major bruise to my wenis. The bruise was severe and caused me to have to hike out right there. I iced it the entire way back to Portland but it didn’t seem to help much. Finally, we headed downtown where luckily I was able to find a friendly lady who, for a fee, massaged my wenis until the all the pain was gone.*

After a day on the Little White Salmon, Melissa and I, along with Dogg Pack, headed down to the McKenzie River to meet up with Evan Garcia, Fred Norquist, and Ryan Lucas. The mission on this day was to drop Sahalie Falls, an 80 footer with the finest of lines. We scouted the falls extensively and Evan and I decided to run it. There is a Class 4 series of drops in the approach to the falls but a tree prevented us from running these drops. We portaged down to the eddy on the right bank just above the falls. The eddy feeds onto the entrance slope of the falls. This slope has a narrow line of blue water down the middle with seams on either side. The seam on the left would give you trouble but the pool is still deep over there. However, if you were unfortunate enough to end up in the seam on the right, you would be deflected onto boulders. Falling 80 feet into a piton would really knock the shell off your turtle! The other complication to this drop is that after a short pool, the river roars down a major Class 5 rapid, increasing the need to have a trusted friend at the bottom with a rope.

Now, please allow me, if you will, reader, to break character for a moment to describe the situation at Sahalie Falls. I was as nervous and scared as I have ever been. I know it may come as a shock to you that I get nervous, but, let me tell you, it indeed happens. In a rare moment of honesty, this account will tug at your heart strings, allowing you, the adoring reader, to experience the emotion of the event. I may be a crazy, brown stout runner who appears to have no fear but I didn’t sleep the night before because it is that intimidating of a drop. I had been thinking about the drop since my trip from the previous year and I was determined to run it. Standing on the right bank at the lip, the falls looked even more terrifying than our pre-run scout. I was glad that Evan decided to go first and he had a nice run, dropping smoothly into the pool. I slowly walked to my boat, contemplating every part of the drop. My heart was beating harder than the time I accidentally stuck myself with a real epi pen when I thought it was a practice one. I knew I could make the line but there was little room for error. I did one last practice tuck as I slid into the water and then busted out of the eddy into the middle of the flow. I was pleased to see that I was line up perfectly on the “blue highway”. I floated down the slope and off the edge. As I started to fall, I slid my paddle onto my deck and dropped into the tuck position. After what seemed like a very long time, I entered the water facing straight in and the landing was very soft. I went very deep and resurfaced upside down. I hit a quick roll and scrambled for the eddy near the right bank. At that moment, the celebration began! I had nailed the line on the stoutest drop I had ever run and I was on Cloud 9! What? Where the heck is Cloud 9 located anyway? And what is so great about the 9th cloud? After some yelling and fist pumping, I ferried over to the left bank and got out. I celebrated my accomplishment by downing a few shots of Kentucky Gentleman and eating a Charleston Chew. Fred decided that he was stoked about what he’d seen and also headed up to run the falls. Fred came over the drop and took a couple of strokes for stability as he fell. He ended up flattening out and entered the water at a 45 degree angle, causing him to hit his head on his cockpit rim. The impact cracked one of his teeth but he was otherwise okay. Luckily, he had his own personal dentist on hand (his brother’s best friend). A quick fix and he was back in business. Just downstream of Sahalie is a 90 foot waterfall called Koosah and there was talk of heading down there and firing that one up too! I was feeling good after Sahalie and was happy to help with safety and video. Evan and Fred were interested in checking it out and, upon inspection, they decided to run it. Evan went first and drove hard right to counteract the curler kicking left in the approach. He ended up driving too hard right and falling beside the curtain into hard water. The impact knocked him out of his boat and caused some swelling in his eye. After this, Fred decided not to run it so we headed off to get top this awesome day off with a stout megaburger.

That next weekend, we were wondering if there were any clandestine runs we could hit that the locals like to keep on the down low or hugger mugger, if you will. I asked a bunch of the Portland boaters for suggestions but everyone was drawing a blank. What? How can you draw a blank? Finally, we came up with a short list of seldom run creeks to choose from. With very little beta on any of the runs, selecting a creek was like a blind man picking out a nudie magazine. The Clear Fork of the Cowlitz sounded like a good choice so we decided to try our luck in its steep canyon. The gauge said it was too high and rising but Joe reasoned that the drainage was small and that the creek woud be running at a perfect level. I knew that he was grasping at more straws than a fat lady in a milkshake factory but I’m always up for an advanture. We headed out early since we knew that the run would take most of the day to complete. The directions to the putin were a little sketchy so we descended a trail that appeared to be in the right area. Luckily, I had download a map of the area off the computer and then got it tattooed on my back just in case we got lost. Upon reaching the creek, we puton and ran down some easy rapids. Bryon got out to scout the first decent drop, a Class 4 warmup drop. He flashed us a brown claw to show that the rapid was good to go and we all fired up schweeeet boofs as we made our way downstream. Immediately after this rapid, the creek fell out of sight. We were gorged in above a significant horizon line. I couldn’t see what the drop landed in but I could see some wood immediately below. After climbing out, we could see that the first drop fell 12 feet into a huge hole that fed directly into an impenetrable pile of logs. You couldn’t pick a good line through this rapid if it was up your nose! So we had to climb almost vertically out of the gorge up to a small flat area that allowed us to make some progress downstream before lowering our boats back down to the river. This process took us almost 2 hours and was nearly a disaster when Bryon dropped his kayak and it careened down into the river below. Luckily, it got caught in a tight slot below the first drop and we were able to get it back without any damage. I, on the other hand, did not emerge unscathed. I cut my left pinky knuckle open on a rock and was bleeding profusely. I tied a tourniquet around the wounded appendage to stop the bleeding. I hadn’t bled that much since I sliced my hand trying to cut open my Brita filter to check the ion exchange resin. Let me tell you reader, when they say “diamond sharp” they mean “diamond sharp!”

Once back on the creek, we were treated with several fun Class 5 drops as we traveled through this beautiful canyon. The water level on the creek was on the high side so several of the rapids had big holes. The walls continued to be steep, making scouting difficult but all the rapids in the next mile were clean. Soon, the run disappeared off another falls and around the bend in another vertical walled canyon. We couldn’t see what was down there so we climbed 100 feet or so up to get a good look. From high above, the holes in this canyon looked big and there were several trees in the way too. With the vertical walls, the verisimilitude of being able to help one another if anyone got into trouble was next to none. Facing a challenging portage and with the threat of more similar situations coming up, we decided to hike out. Even though it was the smart decision, I was still crestfallen over the fact that I wouldn’t see the rest of the creek. I hadn’t been that sad since the Pillsbury dough boy died of a yeast infection! The climb out of the gorge, which was at least 500-600 feet was extremely steep and loose, making each step an exercise in skidding and grasping for something solid. To make matters worse, Bryon swore that every green plant he saw was poison oak. Eventually, we made it out of the gorge, very tired and extremely thirsty. I found a field with some cows in it and decided to quench my thirst. I squeezed the teet of one of the brown cows and was very disappointed when no chocolate milk came out. But I digress.

I finished out my trip the next day with a great run down the waterfalls of the Wind River. Soon, it was time to go back to the East Coast. Like the trips before it, the Pacific Northwest had delivered many adventures that I’ll always remember. I’ll keep my ears open for talk of any new runs for next years trip. What? How can you keep your ears open when they don’t even close? Argh!!!

* wenis – noun – the skin on your elbow

-You can also read “The Dogg’s”  story about the 2010 Huckfest on the Fluid Blog:

PART 1

PART 2

2010 VIDEO

-To set the record strait I did not throw ANY brown claws. Thank you. -Bryon 🙂