Green River

The Green River Gorge is one of the best whitewater trips close to Seattle. Challenging and nearly continuous whitewater, some fun play spots, and incredible scenery make this a place you can't get too often enough. The catch is finding the river with water in it. The ever increasing demands of urban growth and endangered salmon come before paddlers, but after a day or two of intense winter rains you are nearly always guranteed to find the gorge with water.

Another trick to this run is figuring out what the engineers will be doing with the gates--will they open the gates and let more water in or will they shut them down by the time you arrive? Although discharge from the dam often remains constant through the weekend, the engineers do adjust flows over the weekend at high flows of most interest to boaters.

Once you get to the river the action starts within the first 50 yards at Ledge Drop 1. At higher water Ledge Drop 1 can be a fun play wave. The river then snakes along the edge of the park, you pass a second access point at a nice set of surfing waves, and then enter the gorge (marked with warning signs). There are several fun rapids (class III and IV) in the gorge. At the lower limit of flows rapids are less continuous with plenty of space to collect yourself before the next drop, but at higher flows these rest spots start to disappear and the class III sequences start to push class IV and the run becomes more continuous.

After about a mile and a half containing several class III rapids you'll reach Pipeline. This rapid can push class IV but if you're on your line it's fairly straight forward. The drop is at sharp right bend with a boulder bar that extends out from river right. As you round the corner head back hard to river right to avoid the large reversal on river left--the Pipeline which can be hard to see until you're right on top of it.

A few bends after the Pipeline you'll come to the most significant class IV sequence on the run at Mercury and the Nozzle. You can recognize the approach from the powerlines overhead followed by an island with most of the flow going to river right. From this point it's one class III rapid down to the top of Mercury. It's a bad place for swims so be sure your skills are solid if you enter the gorge. If you swim at the entrance to these drops, rescue is very difficult until you've gone through a rather long sequence of rapids and there have been accidents here. The drops are a hoot if your skills are up to it, but can be a real drag if you're chasing swimmers. Be especially careful at low water levels (under 1000 cfs). Although the gorge is sometimes run at these levels some dangerous sieves begin to appear.

You can normally boat scout Mercury and the Nozzle. As you come around the right side of the island head left and you'll quickly be in Mercury. After going through Mercury, which is a fairly open rapid, there is a good eddy on river left to get set up for the Nozzle at flows up to 4000 cfs. As flows increase you'll probably want to grab the eddy to river right. The Nozzle is a chute between two large boulders and the preferred line is to take this center slot. At high flows (above 5000 cfs) the boulders form two large holes. You can still thread them but it's a little intimidating as the drop is very hard to scout and has few landmarks (it pushes class V). The hole to the right is particularly sticky and rescue is basically impossible. At higher water (around 9000 cfs) another option is to run the far right slot, but there is a dangerous sieve here that becomes a death trap at low water. After running the Nozzle there are several challenging class III+ rapids through a large boulder field before the river settles down for a brief recovery and more good class III rapids  all the way to the take-out at Franklin Bridge.

As Franklin Bridge comes into view far overhead  you are nearing the end of the run (note that rafters typically continue on down through the class II and III rapids to Flaming Geyser State Park). Paradise Ledge is a fun playspot that comes shortly after the bridge to the river right side of a large rock  You can hike up to the parking lot on river right at a muddy trail just below the ledge. Alternatively, you can continue down through the next set of class III rapids and pull out to the lower access. Pay attention as you boat through this section as it's easy to miss the take-out. There are a few spots where you can climb up and your choices are basically a long gradual climb or a steep muddy scramble.

The run from this point down is a fine beginner-intermediate run, and many kayakers use the Franklin Bridge access as a put-in for the scenic float down to Flaming Geyser State Park.