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When it was all said and done, and the last piece of equipment hauled
away, a very different "Staircase" rapid remained. There is currently a fairly
large section of slack water stacked up behind the top of the slide. At the
entrance to the rapid, there is loose cluster of desk-sized boulders with no
clearly defined route. When you reach the location of the old Whale Rocks, you
will only find the top of the first one, as the rest is buried. A new pair of
rocks which dwarf the Whales lie dead center in the river, one after the other,
spaced about ten feet. At higher flows, I envision this as a room of serious
doom should an unsuspecting boater find himself unable to decide -- left or
right. Immediately after said 'room of doom' are several more randomly
scattered boulders the size of VW's, which can only add to the appeal of
this location for carnage hungry photographers. By the time you reach the
end of the old parking turn out, things have regained some of their former
appearance. The bottom half is largely the same, excepting the addition of
several sand/gravel bars braided throughout its length. So what will the
new rapid be like -- Staircase, or Escalator? While the major features are
unlikely to show significant further change, higher flows will scour the
fine and smaller gravel from the riverbed and a good many smaller features
that remain buried at this time will surface. While the name may remain the
same, the face will almost certainly continue to change at least through
the high water season, making it the middle of July before we'll know what
we've got. In any event, it's out with the old and in with the new - a
brand new rapid, against which to test your mettle!
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