I ran kayak safety for a Wet Plant guide training on the Wind.  The river was about the same as it had been two days earlier, but a bit higher.  All of the rapids were awesome and I am constantly impressed by the beauty of this area.

I had a scare on this run.  There is a MUST CATCH eddy above Shippard's Falls (multi-tier, unrunable waterfall at this level) that I almost missed.  I was coming into the eddy and was too far to the right, so I blew it.  There is a grate for the fish ladder that sucks in a lot of water, so I felt that pulling me and I paddled away towards the falls.  There is one small eddy pool in the middle that I ended up catching and being able to ferry back across, but it was really close.  The guys on shore were pretty scared for me, but I was pretty calm about it.  I knew I wasn't in serious trouble because I saw the eddy in the middle.  Andy told me a story of one guy who tried to fight back up into the eddy and got tried and ended up swimming the waterfalls and weir below.  He survived, but I'm glad that it didn't happen to me.  I don't think I'll be catching that lower eddy anymore...

What I might have swam over.  Bad news...

Camera ran out of batteries so there are no photos for this one.  Sorry.  Check out these other reports for better details and more photos:

Wind River, Stabler to Columbia, WA - IV+ (V, P) (5.67 ft, full report)
Wind River, High Bridge to Columbia, WA - IV (V, P)
Wind River, Stabler to High Bridge, WA - IV+

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