Test Paddle – Sammamish River

This afternoon I went to Redmond to test paddle the Sammamish River for the adventure relay race I am in at the end of the month. I found the start of the paddle section no problem. Right off the bat I can see parking is going to be a problem. Definitely going to use the bank's parking across the street. That is where I parked today, but only after checking the parking signs and asking if it was ok with the bank.

I sure did not want my car to have been towed after coming back from my paddle. I check out the put in area for the race, it is going to be real tight. They say there is room for 6 boats, I don't think so. Maybe 3 if you are lucky. The first bit of strategy is to take the ski down to the launch area stern first. There is no room to turn a boat around at the water.

This race is 20 kilometers, and all of it with the current, which was moving pretty good. The river is deep enough not to have to worry about my 6” rudder on my ski. The tricky parts are in the first 500 – 800 meters, after that I did not find any large rocks, trees, or drain pipes hiding just below the surface.

My paddle was an easy one in the Thunder K1. I can see why people like to paddle this river, it is very nice. It is clean, peaceful, and meanders from Redmond to Lake Washington. there is a paved path way on the side, that had a lot of cyclists using.

My original plan was to paddle 5 kilometers down and back, but as I got to 4.5 kilometers, I decided to turn around and head back. Now I realized just how much current there was. I had to work going back. I had to paddle non-stop the whole way, or the current would grab the boat and quickly turn it down stream. I was sideways going down the river a couple of times. Just to try things out I would paddle in the middle , jump over to the side, observing how the boat handled and what kind of speed I was getting. You sure do want to paddle close to shore and out of the current to maximize the speed.

During my paddle, I was checking my speed with the GPS. That way I can estimate my finish time, and report it during our team meeting next week, so we can plan our race.