Russian River
from Steelhead to Guerneville & Back
On Sunday, on a hazy, overcast, slightly drizzly day I launched my plastic kayak at Steelhead Park, about 8 miles above Guerneville's Johnson Beach. I was told the river is very slow and paddling up is about the same as paddling down and at first glance it looked that way. My plan was to launch and be back in time to meet my significant other at the Half Vineman Triathlon. The water was reasonably clear and almost a lake, the current was so slow. The web sites list the depth at between 1.5-6' and I believe it. Interesting paddling an 18' sea kayak on even a slow moving river. At places that one of the local sporting goods stores classified as a class 1 rapid it was sometimes an unexpected effort to push the boat properly into the current but I shortly got my "river legs."

At that time and weather had the river basically to myself.

A couple of miles downstream I caught up with a paddler who had launched from Steelhead as I arrived. He was paddling a beautiful wood boat that had shallow draft and looked more like a small rowboat set up to paddle like a kayak. I never did get his name but he told me he had built this boat himself to fly fish from. He is a retired builder from Maine who now makes kayaks and canoes from wood strips and/or plywood and he is 3 years backordered. He fells the trees himself, etc. Very interesting old guy who has no telephone and no web site. Believe what you will.

Along the way we passed turtles on a log, a couple egrets and a great blue heron. Several large brown trout jumped as we paddled along. As we approached Guerneville the water became more still and deeper due to the summer dam just below Johnson Beach. At Johnson Beach I landed for a "rest" and a snack while he continued on around the summer dam to the ocean which he says was just 3 miles down and he would hitch a ride back to his car at Steelhead. Again, believe what you will but he did continue on. The map shows the ocean about 5-8 miles down according to my visual extrapolation.

Starting back up was not problem. I met some of the folk that had rented SOT's that paddled up a half mile or so on the way back. As I got to the end of the dam back up the current picked up. I noticed the water level had risen on the shore as well as a slight increase in current as water was let out of the real dam above Healdsburg. Paddling was not difficult as long as I kept to the deeper part of the river though sometimes the channel was hard to find and I wound up in the shallows.

The weather had improved and I was starting to see aluminum canoes coming downstream. These are rented in Guerneville and shuttled up and the tourists are given the standard 30 second training, a paddle and a PFD and set loose. While I can understand adults not worried about drowning in 3' of water the river is rocky and protection is a good second use in the shallows. What I cannot understand is people with 3 and 4 years olds who put their kids in the bottom of the canoe without any protection. Back to clearing out the gene pool. Most folks were friendly and I exchanged greetings as we passed.

Some of the class 1 or <1 "rapids" were now a little hard to paddle up. The channels were running a little faster and sometimes undercut the river vegetation. After working my way up one of these channels using white water traverse technique with an 18' boat and a Camano paddle I got to meet one of the brain surgeons in a canoe who hit my bow pushing me into the overhang between branches while I was hearing the scraping noise of his aluminum on rocks as they scraped bottom and fell out. Twice I had to portage a few feet; once because the river had spread out there was no place deep enough to paddle up and once because the deep channel was so narrow and fast I couldn't make it all the way up.

What took about 1 3/4 hours to go down took 2 1/2 hours to come back up. The rise in the water made my original landmarks hard to read. The sun had come out and it was beginning to get hot and I was getting a little tired of paddling upstream dodging aluminum torpedoes along the way. I finally reached Steelhead which was now about twice as wide as before. I landed, loaded up and took off knowing I was not going to be at the finish before Ines. Life is a learning curve and this day was no exception. There is an easy was to paddle upstream and I learned how to keep in it. White water traverse techniques work for paddling up against a fast current even with a sea kayak. Sometimes the boat knows where to go and just letting it go while keeping forward motion is the best way to avoid the shallows.

I was late to the finish; I would have been late had I been on time.

    Mike Brown

Submitted on August 03, 2004