The Foss River is a steep, boulder-strewn tributary of the South Fork Skykomish. This river has some great mountain scenery mixed in with clear water and fun rapids, all of which adds up to a very enjoyable trip!

We ran the Foss for the first time on Memorial Day Weekend, 2002. We were all excited that our friend Jurgen was flying back from Germany to paddle in the states once again. This time he was bringing a German friend and two Scottish paddlers as well, and it promised to be a great couple of weekends of boating.

Our rather improbable plan was to rendezvous in Skykomish, Washington on the Friday of Memorial Day weekend, and it didn't get much more complicated than this: Steve and Josh were driving up from Eugene early Friday morning, Gabe and Brad were driving up separately on Friday evening from Eugene, and I was driving up from Wilsonville Friday night. Jurgen and Martin were flying in from Germany Friday night, and Mark and Ian were flying in from Scotland on Friday, (on different planes) and we were all planning on meeting in Skykomish on Saturday morning..

A simple plan..

I got off work on Friday night and drove excessively fast to the north, leaving Portland around 6:30 pm and arriving in Skykomish just before 11 pm, where I checked into my hotel. Gabe and Brad were camping upstream and had left a message, but there was no sign of the others...

The next morning I awoke and just as I walked outside Jurgen and Martin pulled up, fresh from Germany and all grins. It was great to see Jurgen again! Soon Steve, Gabe, Josh, and Brad showed up, so that only left the Scots. Ate breakfast at a restaurant of marginal quality in Skykomish, and just as we were walking back to the hotel the Scots (Mark and Ian) pulled up! This was something of a reunion for the Scots and Germans, as they hadn't paddled together in nearly a year...

The gang, from left to right: Gabe Flock, Jürgen Nickles, Martin Bauer, Mark Hargraves (from Scotland), Brad Cascagnette, Josh Knapp, Steve Stuckmeyer, and Ian Mckendry (from Scotland).

Soon we were on the road. We had originally planned on running Money Creek, but it was too low so we headed up the Foss. None of us had done this run, so it seemed like just the thing...

We set the shuttle and were soon on the river. The Foss started off very slowly, and the we rounded a corner to find a logjam. Of course, the guidebook had warned us about the wood in the first mile or so, but I still found it amusing that Mark and Ian's first experience on an American River involved portaging a pile of wood! (See the end of this report for an alternate put-in to avoid the wood)

"We flew halfway around the world to go kayaking in America, and the first thing we did was portage a logjam..."
Gridlock at the first logjam in the initial class II section on the Foss River...

Of course, just around the corner was another mess of wood, but Gabe threaded his way through it and then intentionally flipped to go under the last log, so we all followed suit..

Bottoms up on the Upper Foss.. Mark flips to squeeze under a log just downstream of the first portage..

Soon the wood disappeared and the fun began. We started eddy-hopping down the increasingly steep boulder gardens..

Typical rapids on the Foss. There are actually seven paddlers in this rather blurry photo, spread out upstream as far as the eye can see..

Soon we arrived at a rapid that appeared to be larger than what we had previously encountered. I was leading and caught an eddy upstream of the drop, which turned out to have a couple of logs jammed in it. (I think this rapid is called 'Ken and Barbie'.) Anyway, after watching Josh and Gabe make the difficult and scary move into the eddy just above the wood, everyone else portaged from further upstream..

Josh goes for the eddy above the only log-choked drop on the Foss. The pinch between the two large boulders just downstream has two or three logs in it, and the move into the eddy on the left was a lot harder than it looks in this photo!

Below the woody drop the river stayed fun for a couple of miles, with continuous class IV - IV+ boulder gardens, which eventually petered out just above the take-out.

I think we might have run the Foss twice that day if it hadn't been for the logjams in the initial class II section, and the wood in the drop towards the middle of the run. As it was, the wood made a second run undesirable.

After running the Foss we headed up to scout the Top Tye, which was running very high, but it was still fun to check out Monkey Cage and Crack in the Earth with a ton of water in them. The next day we headed up into the Wenatchee drainage, but that's another story..