Riverboarding Experience - Nooksack River Pacific Northwest
For several years I wanted to try out river boarding. I read about river boarding and saw a few videos but I could not find any river outfitting company that taught it. I looked on message boards and finally found someone who had an extra board that was wiling to take new people out. I already had cold water gear and a helmet. I finally had something to do to take advantage of my gopro camera as well. I just needed to purchase some mountain bike shin guards. I borrowed fins and a board. This video is the first time I went down the river. Enjoy the video. It is a lot more intense than what the video shows. You are in the water as opposed to a river raft or kayak where you are floating up above. I found this to make the river more extreme and also more difficult to see what was coming ahead.
I headed up north to Bellingham, Washington to hit the Nooksack river. The river was at high volume. It was ripping. The section where we started looked gnarly to me. I was given instructions on avoiding certain types of holes, rocks and logs. There are some nice websites that have previous posts about the current river status and obstacles to avoid. I jumped in pretty nervous and got tossed around in a hole for what felt like minutes but was actually about 15 seconds. I was ready to quit after that. Being at the mercy of the river was not a great feeling for me. I did not have the control in the water I was hoping for. Navigating and seeing what was coming ahead was difficult.
The river run was around an hour. I was exhausted and most of it was me in fear and not much enjoyment. I did not quit after this first run, I did a handful of others. See my other blog on my other run. For anyone looking into doing this I suggest the following:
- Learn the dangers of a river and what to look out for, what to avoid
- Learn how to deal with dangerous situations like getting out of a hole
- Have a communication plan with your partner, I always carried a whistle. This came in handy when my board was pinned and I had to swim to the shore and try to hike down river and find my boarding partner.
- Always go with someone else, can be a kayaker or river raft.
- Scout the river first. Go with someone who knows the river. Read the latest information about the river.