The Truss section of the White Salmon is a classic north west creek. These pictures were taken at a low level, right around 1.7ft at the Husum guage. At this level it's a bit scrapy but is definately runnable, elbow pads recomended. The put in to start off is tough, easily a class IV put in, you are going to need to be sure footed and have a caribeiner to lower you boat with a rope to get down to the water. After putting in you will have some nice class III creeky water for about a half mile, then you come to the first class IV section, called Elbow Basher. Here the water splits on a rock at the top of the drop, both sides can be run but neither one all that clean. On the right line you want to run it fairly straight with maybe a little left angle and once you are at the bottom of the drop try to prevent yourself from being slammed into the left wall. On the left line you go in with a right angle and again once down the drop to to prevent yourself from being slammed into the left wall. I have seen this rapid show me how it got its name. You will have some more class III-IV rapids until you get to Bob's Falls. At a low level like this you can run it far left or far right with a good boof, at higher levels you should run it far right or else the hole at the bottom will trash you. Bob's falls into a medium sized pool with another 3-4 foot drop that exits, run this right with a good boof.

You will go through a couple boulder gardens until one of them that ends with Big Brother, a 25 foot technical waterfall. Make sure you eddy out as soon as you see a big horizon line to portage or at least scout. Going over Big Brother is very technical, their is a 3-4 foot boof flake that you really want to hit and you want to go off with a slight angle to the left, but not a lot, and whatever you do don't angle right. It is very shallow below this drop so you really want to boof it, I have seen one person break their foot from pitoning on the bottom, he was to far left and missed the boof flake. The farther left you go the shallower it gets and the right side goes right into a cave that can be extremely dangerous, especially at higher water. Here is a pic from the view above Big brother in the next pic you can see the boof flake you want to hit, it is the green water going fartherst down the drop. The portage is on the left side of this drop and you can put in at two different places, one you again have to lower your boat with a rope to get down or you can find a train that goes all the way down past Little Brother. Little Brother is a 12-15 foot drop that at higher flows gets really sticky and you want to run usually the right side to avoid the hole, but at lower water it is a great place to boof. Go off of it fairly straight and land in a great big pool, you can also hike back up and run it again and again.

You will go down a little ways and come to a section called Double drop, it is an 18' drop with the first one being around 10' and the second one about 8'. Many people portage this one because of the hole at the bottom, very, very sticky but if need be you could swim out of it. On the first drop do your best to boof it (very hard to do) and try to stay straight to go through the second one, in order to punch the hole. Good Luck! After double drop you have some more stretches of class III-IV until you get to Upper Zig-Zag, in my consideration the hardest rapid on the river and also the hardest to portage. I don't have any pics of this section yet but the basic line is to start center to avoid a hole and a pin spot and then go hard left down the slot and then go hard right to avoid the rock that takes up the left and middle of the river. After that their is a very short and fast moving flatwater and you will see a rock in the middle of the river, go right or left of that rock, then you are basically out of the rapid. Next will come Lower Zig-Zag, agiain no pics yet, just a description. This one has a four foot boof into a pool, at higher water where you are supposed to boof can get really sticky and you may want to run it on the right side down a rock slide. After the boof go to river right and angle left, go down the fast pushy rapid and you will be able to see the rest of the way down, be careful though their is a cave on the river left side, it would be tough to go into right now but its good to know that its there. After the Zig-Zags the river gets easier. You are now entering the section called the Orletta, extremely fun class III-IV creeking. You will go down a couple miles of this fun creeking until you come to BZ Falls, be sure not to run this without at least looking at it. It is tough to see coming up to it until you are right there and then there are only a couple one man eddies. Portage this or scout it on the left side, and to put in you can either seal launch from about 10-12 feet or follow the trail all the way down to the river, the seal launch is so much fun I have never walked downt to the river, the seal launch is on the right hand side of the last pic below. From here it is about a half mile to the takeout with only class III rapids left.