We launched on 3-19-21 and we knew in advance that there was a dam repair project that caused flow changes.  For the first 2 days we had only 4,000 cfs which was technical but not too hard.  House was fine, everything went well.  Then they ramped up the flows to 20,000 cfs just in time for us to arrive at Hance.  We had 8 big rafts on our trip and all went along a chicken line on the left shore left of the big rock.  Of course I’m not taking a wood boat over there so we entered on the right, pulled left in what was left of the duck pond and then ran down some monster waves in the center.  I think they were as high as the boat is long but it’s hard to tell.  Three were especially big and one slowed our momentum a bit but it was easy to keep moving.  My bow partner hiked out at Phantom and it took me a while to realize how much he was helping.  I started getting slapped around a bit and it took me a few days to move enough load forward to pin the bow down.  Lesson one for me was learning just how helpful a good bow passenger is.  So the next big thing was Crystal.  We got there right as the flow started coming down a bit although it was still at least 19,000 cfs or so since it’s 20 hours flow time from the dam.  Someone in our group with 15 trips said it was the ugliest they had ever seen it.  The hole was gone, instead there was a huge wave.  The left side of the wave broke in an all foam diagonal that went all the way into the left rock wall.  The right side was a clean green wave, although very big and surging just a little.  All the rafters wanted no part of any of this and took the hard right chicken line.  They went through and over exposed rocks to hug the right shore.  Of course I had to go in on the main tongue because there were guard boulders all the way out to the edge of the tongue.  This was a very fast and hard tongue that fed quickly into the wave.  I fantasized that I would quickly pull right and avoid the wave.  I learned that while my dory is very “fast” it’s not necessarily “quick”.  Because I was at a total weight of about 1,700 pounds the first one or two strokes just wake up the boat, the third and forth strokes get it hauling and that’s when the amazing inertia and carving start to happen.  At any rate, I entered on the main tongue almost stern first because I wanted to pull hard to punch the line between the tongue and the slower water on the right.  In this position it was hard to gauge the distance to the guard boulders so I cleared them by a wide margin, which is another way of saying I entered well in the center of the river.  I tried a couple strokes to the right to no avail and then realized I was not making it so I quickly tried to spin the boat to face the wave.  Too late, I was already rising up the face so I quickly high sided and hit the monster fully sideways.  Amazingly I did not flip!!!  I took the wave sideways and got spun around backwards.  At this point I decided to try to stay facing upstream and just pull my way through the rest of the rapid.  I kept looking over my shoulder and squaring up to the waves as best as I could, and it was working, except I felt disoriented in the rapid.  I knew from prior experience that Crystal has a nasty left wall and a boneyard at the bottom.  I thought I was through the worst of the rapid and I decided to spin the boat for better visibility.  I realized a day later that I should have quickly switched my body around and rowed facing the stern.  Instead, I initiated a spin move and immediately found myself fully sideways again with an even bigger wall of vertical water about to pound the right side of my boat.  I quickly high sided again sitting almost on the gunnel but it was not enough.  The boat went up at a severe angle and I just got flooded with dark water.  I saw the light go away and felt the boat leave me, so I figured I’m flipped and started holding my breath.  I came up quickly, had another wave to go under, then found myself in relatively calmer waves.  I quickly looked around and was excited to see my boat upright 15 feet behind me and missing an oar.  I took just 3-4 quick strokes to get alongside the boat and hauled myself onboard using the gunnel and reaching in to grab the handrail near the rowers seat area.  At this point I had only a left oar and I was right above the boneyard facing river right.  I took 2 tentative strokes with the oar to push me just a bit more right but it soon became apparent I needed the second oar.  It felt like 20 minutes went by while I undid the one strap holding in the spare, but it was probably only 15 seconds.  Once I got the spare deployed I was already to the right of the boneyard and I easily moved around it.  At this river level the boneyard was only about a six foot square patch of exposed rock.  The rest was underwater.  I recovered my lost oar and learned a lot.  I should never have been trying for the chicken line on the right.  A loaded 18 foot dory will go over almost anything if you hit it straight, hell I took Crystal sideways at nearly 20,000 cfs and still did not flip the boat.  If I had simply hit the green side of those waves straight it would have been nothing but fun, just like Hance, instead I got caught running for the easy water.  After this the river was still big for a couple days but it eventually returned to normal up and down flows.  By the time we got to Lava it looked tiny by comparison and I had an easy right side run.  Overall the dory was eight times better than I thought it would be.  It was an amazing thing to row and live on compared to a raft.  The trip like many things was both triumphant and humbling at the same time. I only sustained minor damage from tying up overnight with the rafts, and I learned a great many things.  Most importantly never try for the chicken line.  I only needed to move slightly right of center and I could have hit all those big waves just fine.  I hit huge waves in Hance, Hermit, and lots of other places when the river was high.  One morning I got up to find the swim team sticker had been applied to my boat.  Luckily whoever applied it did a nice job of applying it straight and level so I think I will keep it on until I go through Crystal again.  I certainly earned my spot on the swim team.