July 19, 2023
I am an experienced paddler of multiple types of watercraft, as is my wife who has accompanied me on this trip several times. Every year we take a group from the Oregon Airstream Club on the White Salmon River in Washington state using the local commercial guide service Wet Planet. This year, we had a group of six and decided to do the full day trip from the Wet Planet private put in on the Oreletta section to the mouth of the river at the Columbia River. The date was Saturday, July 15, 2023. Our show up time was 0930 AM and there was a half day trip in front of us departing at 0900 AM.
It was a beautiful sunny day as we put on with a group of seven rafts. The trip leader was in our raft along with our group of six and we were first in line approaching the first major rapid of the trip. This is Triple Drop, a significant Class 4 only about 200 meters below the put in. The rapid is approached by following a bend in the river, with limited visibility before the rapid. I remember on previous trips that guides said to always stay away from river right on the second drop as there is a sieve there. We went over the first drop and our usually calm guide became a little excited, telling us to back paddle hard so that we could catch the eddy river left right below the first drop. We caught the eddy and he snapped us in to a fixed rope already set at the eddy.
Looking downstream, we could see the 0900 Wet Planet group was stopped and obviously mid-rescue of something immediately below us just below the second drop of Triple Drop on river right. We couldn’t see the focus of the rescue, as a large boulder close to river right at the lip of the drop blocked our view. The rafts in this group in front of us were mostly pulled to river right well downstream, though one raft and some individuals were on river left. The rest of our 0930 group had eddied out upstream of the first drop in the eddies on river right. Our guide climbed the bank to view the situation and returned to tell us that a raft was pinned just below the second drop on river right, behind the boulder that blocked our view. The guides were working to release it.
We sat calmly in the eddy for a few minutes watching the rescue proceed. Within the next half hour, the guests from both the 0900 and the 0930 trip on river right were evacuated from the river right bank overland. Eventually, our guides decided to rope our raft to river right so that we could get out of the raft and be evacuated as well. I don’t know if this was the best decision. The current within the rapid was very strong, and there was no way for us to effectively paddle upstream. Our raft swung like pendulum across the very strong current but took on water across the left tube as we traversed the strong current. We struck the far cliff wall hard with a lot of water inside the raft. The left tube began to submerge under the force of the current, and two guests began to go into the current as the tube went down. One guest highsided, and eventually the other two on the left managed to sit up and cross to the high side as well, stabilizing the raft. From there, we were able to climb the cliff to safety one at a time with the aid of two guides on the top. The guides did a good job of getting everyone out of the raft and up the bluff.
From this vantage point, perhaps 30 feet from the rescuers, we saw guides pulling an unconscious person from the water and initiating CPR. Our guide came to us and told us that a lady had been trapped under water for at least 30 minutes. He let us know he did not know her current condition, but that the majority of the guests apart from our group were largely unaware there had been an accident with injury to a person. He asked us to honor the lady’s privacy as much as we could. The rescuers continued CPR the entire time we remained on site. We were there about another 10 minutes until guides asked us to move further up a path toward the road. From there we were eventually evacuated. We still don’t know if she survived. As of this writing, I haven’t been able to find any news online of this accident.
The trip ended for our group at this point. Wet Planet provided refunds and profuse apologies. Even though myself, my wife, and my friends who witnessed it didn’t know this person, it still brought a deep sense of emotion for us as we thought of her friends and family and also of the guides who tried their best to do a timely rescue. They were very professional and they have a hard job.
Bryan Stewart
The article below contains several serious factual errors. Corrections:
1) This was NOT Wet Planet's first trip of the season
2) The Woman fell out of the raft and lodged in a sieve downstream
3) Triple Drop Rapid is best rated Class IV at normal flows
Woman dies after getting pinned in White Salmon River on July 15, 2023
By Justin Brimer, Columbia Community Connection
BZ Corners, Wash., July 18, 2023 - A fun day on the White Salmon River turned tragic last weekend. A 58-year-old woman died during a commercial raft trip, guided by Wet Planet employees. On Saturday, July 15, the rafting company was floating its inaugural run of the upper section of the White Salmon when a boat flipped upside down while traversing the Triple Drop rapid.
The 58-year old woman died above this section of the White Salmon River in a rapid called Triple Drop. The woman, who was not identified by authorities or Wet Planet co-owner Jacomijn Klickenberg, fell out of the boat and was pinned under water for several minutes before guides pulled her out, according to Klickenberg. Klickenberg stated that once pulled from the cold water, “lifesaving efforts were undertaken”. She stated that the woman was then transported via EMS “to a nearby hospital,” where she died of her injuries. “Everyone at Wet Planet is devastated by what occurred. Our focus is on the family and the guides as we work through this tragic event,” she said. She and co-owner Todd Collins will be “reviewing the incident and communicating with the family, as well as appropriate authorities.”
Wet Planet used a private launch site for this particular trip, accessing a part of the river that they have not yet run on commercial trips this year. According to American Whitewater, an advocacy and conservation group that provides boaters with information about rivers and rapids, Triple Drop is Class IV or Class V depending on the water level. Rapids are rated from Class I-V, with V being the most dangerous.
Neither Klickitat County Sheriff’s Office, Fire nor EMS officials responded to requests for information about the most recent incident.
