The Molalla Debacle of 11/17/24

By Chris Meinke

I don’t know how to be concise with my telling of this story. There was a lot that transpired in our own group’s decision-making that left us vulnerable to worse outcomes, and I am thankful that everyone made it out okay. Thankfully, in our group of 11, six people decided to put on below Papa Bear (the site of the accident in the group behind us). However, we still underestimated the power of Mama Bear and had many near-misses in that one rapid.

To start from the beginning, we were debating running DLF of the Wilson River that fateful morning, but flows were looking too low. We saw that the Molalla River was runnable at 1300 cfs, but we wanted to see it going up before we headed out there, as none of us wanted to run it below 1500 cfs. Well, the flow was going up fast, and we thought we’d have time to get out there and run it before it got too high. This was mistake #1 of many. The physical gauge is 5.5 hours downstream of the run, so it was likely much higher than 1500 cfs by the time the online gauge reflected this reading.

Our next mistake was observing the flow being very high and deciding to run it anyways. To be honest, I thought that a good roll is all that would be required for this big water day, so long as people made their lines. The lines looked wide open from the view up at the road, so I figured there was lots of opportunity to line up. Looking back, it should have been more obvious that at river level, it’s easy to get pushed around and lose sight of landmarks, which could land you in a monster hole on a day like this.

As the 5 out of 11 in our group put on above Papa Bear, we knew that the left lateral at Papa Bear could push us to the right, into the undercut cave, but we were all confident that we could make the move. The other possibility was getting pulled into the boils on the left side of the lateral, where there is often an eddy between two house rocks. Unfortunately, getting caught in those boils could mean flushing further left towards a giant pinned log. It looked like you could probably go under it, but that’s not a chance I was willing to take. The water was huge, and I was relieved that some of our crew was avoiding Papa Bear. I ran sweep through Papa Bear, and the person in front of me flipped on the lateral and slammed against the rock at the cave, teetering between the point of flushing back out into the current and getting stuffed into the cave. My heart skipped a beat, but he flushed quickly and rolled up. Three of our initial group caught an eddy nearly out of sight down below, and Lance and I were able to catch an eddy on river left where the remainder of our crew was to put on.

As the other 6 were putting on their skirts, a member of the initial crew was seen hiking up the opposite side of the river through the forest. He began to flail and signal contradictory information. In an attempt to signal “big eddy”, he decided to signal with both arms outstretched, then twirls his finger for eddy. These universal signals indicate “stop” and “eddy out”, causing a lot of panic in our group. We signaled to him questioning whether there was wood, and he signaled with his arms crossed, another non-verbal form of “stop”, and then made the signal for wood. After much confusion and deliberation, we thought that there was no hazard and he was just making up nonsense, and I later found out that he was trying to signal that there was no wood and that the water was bigger than we thought. This created a lot of stress, and many people discussed walking off the river before even putting on. This probably would have been a good idea for many. It also set an unpleasant tone to the start of the trip. I paddled down to the eddy with the initial crew and verified that there was no imminent danger. I signaled to the remainder of the crew that they were okay to follow my line. A few people flipped in the rapid on the way down to us, but everyone rolled and made the eddy.

Soon, we arrived at Mama Bear, and we eddied out above to discuss staging of people and the line we had scouted. I followed the first half of the group to show my brother the line (who definitely shouldn’t be there with one year of experience, but thankfully a seemingly bomb-proof roll). A couple boats ahead of me, I saw someone chundering against the face of the right boulders, which have a narrow slot between them at these elevated flows. That is a very bad place to be, especially considering how much wood collects on the face of these boulders. Thankfully, they flushed far right around the boulders and rolled up. I also realized as I’m going through the goal post move (the typical mid-river line at Mama Bear) that the lateral feature seen from up at road level is much bigger than I had thought. I believed that there was going to be a bunch of carnage due to this feature, but I completely miscalculated where the problem might occur. My brother was barely able to follow me down the main line, but the 4 boats behind him all missed their lines and went through the previously mentioned narrow slot. I was able to slow myself in an eddy and watch people coming down, and the first person lost all their speed going through the slot and fell into the large hole behind it. They disappeared into it, and I saw the next three people barely make it through, some of them flipping and nearly getting caught in the hole themselves. The person in the hole found themselves doing unintendos and cartwheels, and they soon swam out of their boat. I immediately raced towards the swimmer and she grabbed the back of my boat.

As we were heading down through the canyon, Lance had caught an eddy and swiftly grabbed his rope. He threw a rope to Allie, who was riding the back of my boat. He apparently realized that an additional hazard had been introduced by throwing the rope, which would have helped if Allie had been swimming alone, but he quickly let go when the rope began entangling me and Allie. I soon found myself getting flipped and now wrapped in rope with a swimmer on my stern. She later recounted the rope being wrapped around her leg as well. I rolled up and quickly made the next eddy with her still on my stern. Thankfully she’d had the presence of mind to let go during the flip, and grabbed back on after the roll. One member of our group was pushing the swamped boat into the nearest eddy, but there was nobody around to get the boat out at the eddy which was short with nearly shear-walls. I told him to move out of the way so I could get the swimmer out of the water and he persisted with his futile attempt to push the boat into the eddy until I more forcefully insisted that we need to get the swimmer out first and he allowed the boat to go around the headwall where the boat was immediately recovered by our group just below.

We debriefed after the recovery of all the people and the gear, and two people decided to walk off the river. I was about to walk off, but I decided to stay with the group as support, especially once I saw one of the less experienced members being left in the sweep position. We headed down river and it was relatively uneventful for the remainder of the run, aside from very fun and exciting big water with some concerning wood requiring avoidance. We all made it through Baby Bear just fine and soon arrived at the takeout. We got up to the cars and started to plan the shuttle and change our clothes. 

Just as some of the group departed to run shuttle, we heard a whistle blast.  A couple of us ran down towards the river (me without a PFD or helmet) with ropes in hand. We saw a hardshell kayaker floating without worry and his paddling partner swimming next to their inflatable kayak not far behind. On shore, we were ready for rescue, but the IKer climbed back into their boat and they paddle on without a care, not stopping or waving or addressing us on shore. We were very confused about the whistle blast and decided to wait near the water for a few minutes. 

I decided to run back up to my gear to put on my PFD and helmet, and just then, my brother Brandon (who had walked off the river after Mama Bear) pulled up in my car. He immediately alerted us of a distressing situation upstream where a group of paddlers swam Papa Bear, and said that one paddler was missing and location unknown. At the same time, an empty kayak goes floating by our takeout, and one of our crew hopped in her boat and began the chase (alone and without support, and not knowing what lies downstream), and another member of our group quickly decided to launch close behind as support. My brother asked what was going on, and we thought that everything (the whistle blasts, the two boaters that just cruised by, and the empty hard boat floating by) was connected, and again he explained that there was a separate group upstream that has lost multiple boats, and one of the 4 members of their party was missing.

Apparently, after Allie and Brandon walked off from Mama Bear and were walking back to the car they witnessed the other crew running Papa Bear without much success: three out of four of them swam. Allie and Brandon were unable to help rescue being on the road high above the rapid and without ropes, so they ran to the car to try to race after the crew and see how they could help. They found Lance, a member of our crew, who was on the side of the road. He relayed to Allie and Brandon that a member of that other crew was missing following the swim. His boat would later be found in a pile of wood in Mama Bear rapid. Brandon drove downstream to find us dealing with other problems, while Allie stayed to help Lance.

Brandon discussed whether to alert Search and Rescue using his Garmin InReach, and in poor judgement, I talked him out of it for a few reasons: I didn’t want to jump to conclusions as nobody seemed to know the full story; I knew it would take at least a couple hours for any meaningful crew to arrive, and time was of the essence (I didn’t want to rely on S&R); I’ve only heard about poor judgement and actions taken by Swiftwater search and rescue in challenging whitewater (see N. Santiam Niagara rescue where local Swiftwater S&R had to be rescued from their own rescue by helicopter, also see rescue on the Lava Island section of the Deschutes where they shut down the scene and turned a 20 min rescue into an overnight rescue - they are often extremely ill-equipped and under skilled for real swiftwater rescue). The problem with my decision was that we were ill-equipped to deal with severe injuries and hypothermia or any advanced life support following recovery, and we would need professional help for anything more than an ordinary swim. In addition, we could have cancelled the call for search and rescue if it became unnecessary. Spoiler alert, nobody remained in mortal danger, but we did not yet know that.

Brandon drove back upstream to the scene to communicate that some of us were on our way up, and I started loading up my boat and asked another skilled paddler to follow for support. At this point, we had multiple people chasing a boat downstream, other members of our group upstream running shuttle without gear, and another unknown crew with a missing paddler and most of their gear. Things seemed to be falling apart, and it sounded like a worst-case-scenario. Thankfully, Brandon soon returned to alert us that the missing paddler had been found, but he was stranded on the other side of the river. I raced upstream, and I arrived at Mama Bear where I found the other crew and part of my crew. They alerted me that the stranded paddler was on the opposite bank just below the crux of Mama Bear rapid, above the canyon runout.

I spent a brief moment talking to Kim, a member of the other paddling group, and she said that Eric, the stranded paddler, was going to have to jump in and swim the remainder of the rapid to exit. Unfortunately, nobody was setting safety yet and everyone still seemed a bit disorganized and confused. I told Kim that I could paddle over to Eric for him to ride on the back of my boat. She was right to question my comfort and skill level, and I assured her that I was perfectly comfortable on this water, albeit concerned for any unforeseen outcomes or injuries sustained that may impact Eric’s retrieval. I asked Josh to set downstream boat safety and Brandon to be backup with a rope. Allie and another member of their crew were to set rope safety a little further upstream, as well. 

I walked upstream and spot Eric, and I assessed my path to the river. By this time, it had only been a few minutes since I arrived, but I could see a clear solution coming together. I scrambled down the treacherous bank, which was probably the cause of my own injuries. I considered lowering my boat using a rope, but I ultimately found a decent path to scramble and slide down. I made it to river level, and I began a more calculated assessment of my path to Eric. The water was huge and eddies few, but I could see a couple waves to assist my ferry and micro eddies to slow my decent, and I had no doubt that I could execute the moves. I signaled to Eric that I was going to paddle to him and he would have to jump in to grab my boat, and he seemed to understand the plan. I spotted a seal launch a little ways upstream, just below the main move at Mama Bear, slid in and ferried over to him. I stopped for a second in something resembling an eddy, yelled for him to jump in, and he committed to a well-timed jump to grab my boat.

We rode through the canyon, smashing through big waves and boily eddy lines, but we arrived at the planned eddy without issue. Two people with ropes were ready, and I swung my stern around for Eric to land in the best spot, hoping that they would grab him. While Eric was riding the back of my kayak five feet away from shore, already in an eddy, I could tell one of them is going to throw the rope as he starts to swing his arm, so I yelled to him “don’t throw the rope” (which I realize now may also sound like “throw the rope”, and should have said “stop”). He threw the rope and I told Allie to grab his PFD for support as Eric weights the rope. They grabbed him and as I peeled out against the boils on the wall, I was not excited about the remaining 50 feet of rope that was swirling all around me as I was trying not to flip in the seams. I turned the corner and the other two people were waiting, thankfully unneeded. 

We were all relieved, but there were still questions about the folks downstream and whether they had safely recovered the boat near the takeout. We soon found out that all boats and paddles had been recovered, but we started debriefing the many mistakes made that day, and we haven’t stopped since. Eric made it back to the car in one piece, but he would need stitches in his hand from a slip on shore.

This all could have ended with worse outcomes, and it wouldn’t be the first time I’ve seen a near-miss on the Molalla river. The worst swim I’ve ever seen on the river included a swimmer being recirculated multiple times in a hole in Mama Bear for probably a minute. I’ve seen another person pinned on wood across their chest who skillfully tried to work his way off the end of the log until his PFD got snagged (this story ended okay). The Molalla doesn’t have the hardest whitewater that I paddle, but does share something with some of the harder runs. It’s mostly only runnable in the winter, which means it’s cold, and the flows are shifting constantly and quickly, so wood moves around a lot. It’s easy to say that this river is challenging or deserves respect, but it’s really our judgement, planning, preparation, communication, and skill that are necessary to navigate this sport safely. And maybe, on this day, a little bit of luck.

Editor’s note: there is another gauge that should be in use for assessing flows on the upper Molalla, and it is HERE. The gauge location name is WILHOIT. Please save this gauge link!!