Gorge report
Denise Weeks

Aug 18 #29875
Sorry that the smoke and dull winds kept some of you from going down last week. We were lucky to be able to shift our dates back a bit and got to participate the SIC Gorge race and then had some good wind and clean air Sun/Mon/Tues. There still might be some left if you can get down there!

Here's a bit of what we had to play with . . . Paul and Wilson have their own stories to tell.
https://youtu.be/Vue1YfgkD7k

David Scherrer

Aug 19 #29880
Lakes? Or where was the actual race

Denise Weeks

Aug 19 #29881
The SIC race was a Viento to Hood River park downwind run.

There are a ton of great photos here:
https://www.facebook.com/pg/PaddleChallenge/photos/?tab=album&album_id=4969267539766986&ref=page_internal

And results here.
https://paddleguru.com/races/SICGorgePaddleChallenge2021/results

You can see that surfski and OC paddlers were a tiny minority of the racers.

John Rybczyk

Aug 19 #29882
Hmmmm, it appears that there were many, many categories and even two different courses…however…if I'm reading it all correctly then, well done Denise, you were the first woman surf skier across the line! Also, if I'm reading the results correctly, it appears that the fasted paddlers, by far, were the foiling SUP racers. Is that correct?

Denise Weeks

Aug 19 #29883
Yes, a lot to keep track of. There was a downwind race on Saturday and then course races on Sunday. We who sit only did the downwind races.

The fastest WING foiling downwind racer came in at 25 minutes, in half the time it took the fastest surfski paddler (Wilson). They clearly need a longer course to make it worth their while!

Paul Reavley

Aug 19 #29889
I think that Denise is underselling our downwind runs after the Saturday race. The air quality was so-so on Sunday and we were apparently kind of wiped out so we only did one Drano run on Sunday. But the wind, air quality and temperature were all looking good for Monday and particularly good for Tuesday. We did a morning Drano run Monday then drove east for a Celilo to Rufus run (13-14 miles) in the afternoon. The Celilo run was really good, particularly the big rollers on the Washington side of Miller Island. The one moment of concern for Denise and me was a bit of confusion about which way an approaching barge was headed.

But the prize run was our 14 mile downwinder on Tuesday from Mosier (Rock Creek Beach put in) to the Taylor Lake take out just below The Dalles. Wilson said it was the most filled in he had seen that stretch. There could be some bumpiness and multi direction stuff at a bend and/or narrowing but for the most part it was just miles and miles of excellent surfable waves.

Mosier 8 17 2021 Video at the take out the wind made 2 person boat carries to the car mandatory.

The trickiest part of the run for me was a brief section here: Mosier Cross Waves (short clip) where I briefly started to paddle more like I was in an OC - on just one side.

Paul Reavley

Aug 20 #29890
Sorry - the second link should work now - Mosier Cross Waves

beau whitehead

Aug 20 #29891
The wing foil times are impressive, but they should be being they are propelled by the wind…. Even more impressive is the SUP foilers who only have a paddle and no wing/sail. A 43 minute Viento run is legit.