Umatilla

The Umatilla is the backyard run for much of SE Washington and NE Oregon. It flows right through downtown Pendleton, past the rodeo grounds, and offers a great early morning or after-work run with a bit of surfing, a bit of floating, and some waving to the people on the bridges. The river is generally runnable down to 600 CFS and is fun up to about 2,000 CFS, but we did find it runnable with a huge bouncy wave / hole at the takeout at a it over 8,000 CFS.

This last week the run came up to just over 1,000 CFS on the Oregon Levels gauge (http://www.wkcc.org/levels/?P=Oregon.html), so we headed out for a quick friday morning run. To reach the put-in, take 17th St. (by the hospital), from Court Ave (the main st.). Go north to at T intersection. Take a right at the T, pass the baseball fields, and you'll find a dead-end with parking right by a paved walking trail. If you walk upstream to the end of the paved trail, you'll find a nice spot to access the river. The put-in has some wood near it, so be careful, probably not the best spot to practice eddy-turns. There is a major hazard of wood throughout the entire run, so be very careful, especially around the bridges. As you head downstream you'll find lots of nice waves. Right after the first bridge there will be a trailer park on the right bank, and some of the best waves are in this section. Just downstream is a broken down weir. Run on the left (don't try to run over the weir, it's got rebar in it). You can eddy out safely behind the weir and play on a great wave that is just off the end of the weir where it has fallen down. The next stretch has a lot of fun waves and eddies, and the river is flowing adjacent to downtown. The biggest rapids are just below downtown. You'll be able to see the roofs of the rodeo-stadium and there is a gauging station of the left in the biggest rapid. Run down the middle and punch some holes. Not a great place to play as there is lots of rip-rap in the river (a grocery cart spend most of last winter in this rapid). Continue downstream to the take-out which is a park on river left under two really big overpasses.To reach the takeout from the put-in continue down Court Ave through downtown, until it takes a gradual right onto Westgate. Just before the road heads up onto a bridge, take a right into the Sears parking lot. If you stay to the left, you'll end up at a dead-end with a city park and bathroom with river-access. Another option is to use the paved trail that runs the length of the run to either walk, run, or bike the shuttle.

This is a fun, and quite short run (just under 3 miles). Watch for wood and crap that people have thrown in the river, and have fun on all the fast little waves!

Pictures can be found at www.cohophotography.com/2010/umatilla