Tuesday August 26th 2014 was a scorcher, with heat in the mid 90’s.  So a group of us took to the river.  From Whitely Landing we paddled up the small side channel and made our way to the main flow of the river.  From there we paddled downstream and enjoyed the confluence of the McKenzie and Willamette Rivers.  What a magical place!  After floating down a bit more we turned left and went up the side channel again back to the put in spot at Whitely.  This made for an adventurous loop requiring no shuttle!  Here are some pictures that show us working our way up the shallow side channel.  We used a small piece of line attached to the bow grab loop to haul our kayaks up the most shallow sections.  There are about 6 places where we had to get out and do this because you simply can’t paddle upstream where it’s too shallow.  Our sit on top kayaks worked well for this.  We would paddle  hard up to the shallow places and hop out quickly.  Then we eased the boats up above the shallows to where it was deep enough to hop back on the kayak and continue paddling up the eddies!  The entire tour was 4 hours including a half hour long lunch.