Payette River May 2009
The Payette River is very popular for jet boats this time of year as the warm weather brings the river level over 5,000cfs. It is convenient for boaters in the Treasure Valley since it is only 40 or so minutes to get over the hill from Boise. It makes for a nice and quick early morning or evening river run with some really great white water (jet boater’s usually prefer these times of day on this river when the float traffic is lightest).
I made the drive over to Boise last Friday to pick up my boat from the repair shop after nearly 9 months of being out of commission. That is a long time to be boatless and I was overly anxious to get onto moving water.
Choosing the Payette though, for my fist trip out after 9 months, well I don’t know if it was the smartest move or not. All in all I am pretty good a reading water but I have had very limited time on the Payette, which is still a very rocky river at just over 5,000cfs, and running in the evening as I was the light is flat and those rocks can be difficult to spot, especially coming down at speed.
So once we got up there and going I got a little jittery with one thought that was constantly on my mind - don’t hit a rock! The idea of damaging the boat again did get a little nerve wracking for me. Fortunately I got a good guide to help me pick my way back down the river and we had no mishaps that evening. It was worth it, once back down to the take out ramp that jet boater’s grin was glued to my face.
The next morning, Saturday the 16th was the WWA Payette River Run. I decided to sit this run out, not really wanting to deal with all the boats and choosing instead to drive up the highway to film the inevitable rodeo at Landslide Rapid, a gnarly class III rapid with teeth near Banks.
The morning flow was near 5,500cfs - a little to low for many boaters to comfortably run landslide so only a 1/2 dozen made the attempt. But a couple of them put on a good show.
The first three boats through ran it like like pro’s, coming into the rapid with great control and knowing right where to cross the big waves near the top of the rapid, sneaking around the right side of the big hole.
The next boat to come up was this 21ft Custom Weld Storm which cut right a little to soon leaving him trying to climb over a huge roller, and failing. Now I don’t think this was any accident as this guy has run Landslide enough to know the right way out of this rapid, maybe he just wanted to put on a good show for the audience gathered on the bank.
You can watch the whole run here: