An even quicker Middle Middle (Snoqualmie)

Since it was on our way, we stopped and did a quick run on the Middle Fork of the Snoqualmie River: the section known as the Middle Middle. It was a good fun level, about 2500 cfs, so it went pretty fast. We put in at the place I believe is called "First Island Drop" though I may be mistaken. It wasn't an easy put-in, and the take-out is a long carry (for a raft), so we only took the cat with Sparky rowing. This was good trip to help build her rowing skills and confidence for the Selway.

Putting on my scarily inadequate life-jacket:

One of the many boulder gardens that comprise the Middle Middle:

Some even bigger boulders: this may be the bottom of House Rocks rapid, the only class IV rapid on the river, but I honestly don't remember.

Sparky at the take-out learning self-sufficiency (or maybe just me being lazy):

Careful, that water looks deep:
Sure, I made her carry the boat out, but I had to do the bike shuttle: surely an equitable distribution of labor.

Shortly thereafter we were back on the less crappy side of the mountains, and it was all good: we even went on a short hike up the Cooper River:

Many kayakers are said to run the Cooper, but there weren't any there when we were.

Perhaps I'm mistaken, but to me, the Cooper looks very R-2able. There may be rapids that I didn't see that would make it unraftable, but they weren't along the section I scouted. I probably wouldn't be able to get Sparky to go with me though, generally I can't let her see the tougher rivers we do before taking her on them. Now that she's seen the Cooper, I don't think I could get her in my raft.