Nisqually

I floated 8/21/2012 on a tube. I wouldnt float this section with a tube unless your a really great swimmer, in perfect athletic shape, you can handle extreme cold, and you have a full wrap around vest life preserver to protect your ribs, with some sort of hard shell helmit. There are three major rapid sections that will throw you from your tube inevitably. The first one is about a quarter mile past the first trussel at the beginning of your float, there is a huge log jam on the left side, so you have to circle to the right to avoid that and then the river funnels at this point into the rapids. The rapids come out of total surprise because you have to circle from the right. It appears that you need to stay to the left side of these rapids to avoid hitting boulders just under the water level. Iv done it twice now and both times we all got tossed, its very very dangerous. The next couple hours there is no real danger. The portion of the river after the Nisqually Pines River park is the worst section. There are trees in the river in various spots usually avoided if you stay in the middle of the river. There are areas where the water level is too low to float unless your in a Kayak maybe, but everything else is going to get hung. And then there is two sections of rapids that are also very dangerous with boulders under the water surface that will beat you up like a rag doll. And in the middle of one of those rapids is a huge piece of car wreckage sort of on the corner of a major rapid section, its very hard to avoid. Very Very Very dangerous who knows what would happen if you hit that, and for that matter what else is under the water right there. You better really know what your doing before passing up the Nisqually Pines River park as your last point of getting out. Cause from there down, there is no getting out of the river, due to high dirt bank cliff walls, and fort lewis military property, your asking for a death sentence in this section the river. No one is going to be able to help you at this point! This comment is to for warn people that this section of the Nisqually is far more dangerous then it appears. You better have real river experience before floating this area. Its not a kick back and lay in your tube and drink your beer kind of area. You will be on your toes the entire time. The river is loaded with all sorts of logs, metal debri, and boulder sections that can turn dangerous at any time. The float time for me took 5hours and 40 minutes, the 40 minutes is the time taken for getting out of the river to warm up. So plan that into your float time. Or else your going to have people wondering what happened to you, when you show up at the destination late. Also if your in a large raft its probably going to take even longer due too a lot of confined boulder areas and some low spots in the river where your going to have to stand and walk it out. I wouldnt float this section unless your in a kayak!! and you no what your doing.