Smiling effortlessly, you ride into wave after wave on an endless glide, literally surfing your stand up paddleboard upstream against the current on the Columbia River. Surrounded by the 3000 ft vertical basalt walls and feeling the rush of the water under your feet, you have nothing but pure joy and stoke-filled energy filling every cell in your body. You hear hoots and hollers from your paddling partners, who appear and disappear as they drop down into the next trough of swells in front of you. A gust hits you from behind and pushes you over the edge of the next wave, and you feel the drop as your board accelerates against the freshwaters of the Columbia River. This is what the classic downwinder feels like on a SUP in "The Gorge."
“Since the sport of stand up paddling began, paddlers have been putting the Gorge on their bucket list of destinations to experience;”
A major factor that makes paddling a downwinder in the Gorge so magical is that you're traveling upriver against the current with the wind pushing at your back. The speed of the water moving beneath the board accelerates,
