Spring trip baby!!!!

Spring trip to Colorado for a wedding and then all over the west with the lovely Rebecca Harris. It's going to be ill...

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RAIN RAIN RAIN! And maybe a first descent....

I'm back in NC and holy crap has it been raining. As Kanye West Would say, "I'll let you finish in a minute Noah, but I just have to say that NC just had the greatest rain event of all time. Just saying."

Paddling buddy Hunter Davis and I were recovering from our annual Gauley Fest hangovers when we got a phone call informing us that it had been dumping rain in NC and creeks in the area were exploding.

We blazed back to NC as fast as we could and managed to get onto Courthouse Creek before the sun set on us that evening.

Hunter firing up one of the first rapids on Courthouse Creek

Courthouse has some great rapids, really tight and technical and a great run. Wood is a big concern because it is so small, but the creek is a blast and if the North Fork of the French Broad is ever high enough, fire this little darling up...

Me and Dace on a fun little boof at the bottom of Courthouse Creek

The next day we skipped up to brevard only to find most things way too high to run.

Looking Glass Falls was throbbing water.

So we skipped off to Dupont State Forest for what is possibly a first descent, Grassy Creek Falls.

Me on the possible first descent of Grassy Creek Falls

After hiking in a mile and scouting for a bit we fired up what turned out to be a super big, super clean slide. There is a piton spot on river right and an undercut at the bottom left, but other than that the slide is good to go. The rest of Grassy Creek feeds into the Little River right above the park and huck Triple Falls, but it's covered in rhododendron and I would not paddle it again unless I absolutely had to.

Hunter busting down Grassy Creek Falls

After Grassy Creek Falls we rushed off to the Green River Dries which had plenty of water.

The Dries, which practically never run thanks to the dam that has dewatered them, have plenty of fun slides, cool boulder gardens and one big drop that lands on rocks at the end.

Green River Dries Slide

One drop had a pretty scary looking cave on river right, but it ran pretty clean.

Hunter gets ready to book it left to avoid the cave

There is lots of wood in there because the run doesn't go very often, but we never had to portage a rapid.

Hunter on a Green River Dries Slide

The highlight of the run is a big clean drop that lands on rock at the end. It takes a pretty solid boof to make it happen, but the drop runs really clean.

Final drop of the Green River Dries

The next day we got out to the Brevard area again for a run of the upper North Fork of the French Broad, which has a great 20 footer, and then a gorge section that we hiked out of because it looked way too high. After another trip up to Courthouse Creek, Hunter and I headed to the West Fork of the French Broad to fire up some big slides at a huge level.

Firing up the second big slide.

Hunter giving er on the final slide.

The West Fork level was huge and Hunter and I each got a little hole ride on the first slide but everything turned out ok. Hunter took a lot of video and as soon as I get a copy I'll post it up here...

BIG WAVE

SPRINGDALE WAVE

This summer I spent some time on the Yellowstone River surfing the Springdale wave, it's big, friendly and cool. My buddy Mike and I took some pics, here they are...



The wave was awesome a killer shoulder for big blunts and any cool move kick ass playboaters could do. I was confined to blunts attempts and spins, but it was still amazingly fun...



Unfortunately there was no eddy access for the wave so it was a hike and surf, resulting in some curse words for flushed surfs...


My dog Sammy loved the arrangement, chasing us up and down the river and watching all of our surfs...

It was an amazing wave....

Last blast in the northwest for now...

With no job, and no money, I've decided to return to NC to reevaluate my career decisions (apparently newspaper writer isn't a super high paying gig). But before I did, kayaking buddy Leif flew out for one last road trip through the northeast...


I picked Leif up in Spokane and we started our journey across the country, stopping first at the Wenatchee River for some class IV creeking.

The Wenatchee has got some great fun creeky rapids at its low summer flows, and at high flows it is apparently some of the scariest big water in Washington.

As it was when we were there, the river consisted of boulder choked class IV, with some great boofs, pushy rapids and fun stuff all around.

After the Wenatchee we booked it to Seattle for a killer night on the town with paddling buddy Shevy (see out of town booty beer post). After that we booked it to British Columbia because Callaghan Creek was running.


Callaghans has some great drops on it, including this 15 footer that drops into a rollercoaster class IV rapid. But the highlight is this clean 30-footer.


My first lap down it I broke my paddle and swam, but I got two more clean runs on the drop before we left. Although I don't have a picture I took a tequilla beer for this one...

Nate getting it done...

We also performed a little Canada improvement project, cutting out a nasty looking log on a otherwise easy rapid.

Doing work...

Although creeking and river running is my bread and butter in kayaking, No trip to Canada would be complete without a visit to the infamous Skookumchuck Narrows...



Skookumchuck is absolutely one of the most unique places to go kayaking in the world, apart from the fact that it is a world class surfing wave...

There are purple starfish...


and other cool sea creatures like seals and sea anemones,


We spent a while feeding mussels to the sea creatures...



but once 4:30 hit, and the tide came in, we watched the water in the river channel change directions and one of the biggest waves I've ever seen form right in front of our eyes...

The locals that came to playboat there were all throwing HUGE moves, and while the wave itself was a blast it was really cool to see some folks who had it dialed in throwing down in a big way out there.



Wavesport's new prototype carbon playboat was also out at Skookumchuck, getting passed around by some of the local boaters, you can tell how light that boat is because it practically flies off the wave.

After Skookumchuck we barreled back down to Washington for what turned out to be an epic creeking mission on Thunder Creek in Cascadia...

Thunder Creek involved a four mile hike in and paddle out. What we thought would be some manageable class IV -V turned out to be some gnarly high water V. With just myself and Leif most of the adventure turned out to revolve around epic portages and bushwhacking nonsense.

There were some crazy big trees on the hike in

Some of those trees fell across the river...

There were some great drops in there that would have been great to run with a bigger crew to help mitigate the consequences of messing up, but all in all we portaged a lot.

We did get to run a really cool double drop called Dem Sum, but we were super excited to be finally out of the gorge when the time came.


We then took a little playboating trip to Missoula, no pictures but I did manage to swim in a silly little class III rapid, I still can't explain it. No pictures, but I eventually drank my booty beer for that one as well...

LOCHSA SEASON!

This summer I managed to land one of the best jobs ever. I was a photographer for ROW Rafting on the Lochsa River this season and I got to kayak my freaking brains out. Big water has been a challenge for me ever since I started kayaking and this season I got a chance to push my boundaries in a big way. My job required me to start taking picture around 1 in the afternoon on days when there were rafting trips, allowing me to spend my morning on the river or hiking with my dog, and experiencing some of the coolest big water I've ever gotten to paddle.

The Lochsa is around 24 miles of big water class IV that flows in one of the most beautiful wilderness areas in the country. The entire run is roadside and has some incredible whitewater that has its way with the rafts on an almost daily basis during rafting season.

Lochsa Falls...

going...

Going...

Going...

GONE!!!!

Not only did I get to paddle big water everyday, but Fish Creek, a busy little nonstop class IV creek that runs into the Lochsa. Not only did it provide some great creeking for me before work, it also gave the raft guides a nice change of pace on their days off...

Raft beat down on Fish Creek, they took this one like champs...


Playboating down Fish Creek...

While there was great creeking and big water, the big draw of the lochsa is some huge surfing waves...

Big bounce on a big Lochsa Wave

I also learned during my summer on the Lochsa that raft guides are not immune to the booty beer, check out Ben taking one to the face...


ROW held a few overnighters on the Lochsa, allowing guests to campout and drink a few at their schwanky campsite on an island in the river. They forgot the satellite telephone one night and that gave me an opportunity to give my dog Sammy her first whitewater experience.

Jess hanging onto a nervous Sammy Dog...

Navigating the ducky

Jess's infamous costume bag provided some entertainment for the evening...

On Memorial Day there is usually high water on the Lochsa and throngs of river rats descend on the gorge for some craziness. Near the end of this video our manager for the season, Jess Evans-Wall, flips her raft and dumps her customers. Enjoy the carnage

Catch up, Virgin River narrows

I've been out of touch for a few months, with a new job and shabby internet connection, but never fear, I'm back to catch up on my latest trips, starting with the most epic fail of my kayaking career so far, the Virgin River Narrows, BUM BUM BUM BUUUUUMMMMM....

A big strainer...

So on a phone call with my little brother back in April I received an exciting bit of news, we were going to be paddling the Virgin River Narrows, a section of river that spends much of its time in a nasty shriveled dried up state. However, lucky (or unlucky) for me and my adventurous little brother, snow melt had cranked up the flows on this little Utah gem and we were in for the ride of our lives.

Rick getting amped for the Virgin River

The Virgin River is a stretch of whitewater in Zion National Park in Utah, about 950 miles away from my former home of Superior Montana. It winds for 17 miles through an inescapable canyon with some great whitewater and stunning scenery. It is literally the most amazing place I have ever been in a kayak.

But in order to make it through 17 miles of whitewater in a single day, one has to do a lot of planning, and get up really early in the morning. Our crew of three took off at around 8 a.m., early for my beer drinking tastes, but not nearly early enough for the Virgin. With the drastic changes in river levels that come with desert temperatures, we missed the morning high water and spent the first half of the day dragging our boats through barely enough water to float.

Rick, hoping for the Deep Creek Confluence

The Virgin River meets up with Deep Creek seven miles into the trip, changing the class II -IV creeky section into a big water romp through a steep walled in canyon. After our epic struggle through the low water hell that was the first seven miles of the canyon we finally arrived at the confluence of the Virgin River and Deep Creek. It was 6 p.m. and we still had 10 miles to go. We all chowed down a few cliff bars and started booking it down some class III big water rapids

Adding a little flow to the Virgin River before reaching the confluence

At one point in the river, we stumbled across a river wide log just underneath the water, despite screams and signals from Rick and I, our third boater did not see the log and didn't boof over it. He was sucked underneath it and swam. Luckily for him he was able to slip underneath the log and swim to shore. Unluckily for him his boat was long gone before any of us could do anything about it. Our poor pal was forced to spend the next two nights stranded in the gorge because without a kayak, there is no way out.

The canyon walls look like this, it's amazing, but committed...

Leaving someone stranded in the Virgin River Narrows was one of the hardest things I've ever had to do on a kayaking trip, but Rick and I decided that best thing to do at this point would be to push to get out of the canyon as quick as we could so we could do something about getting our stranded pal out asap.

Rich seal launches off a rock on our only portage of the mission

Unfortunately for our plans to make it out of the gorge that evening we ran into another crew of boaters in duckies stranded at a campsite without a paddle for one of their boats. We stopped to help them get two of their boaters across the river along with their ducky and by the time the rescue was complete we had to spend the night in the gorge with the ducky crew. The next day we paddled out with the duckyers. They snapped a few pictures of the gorge for us while we booked it out and notified the park service so they could send in a team to extract our stranded paddler...

The one 15 footer in the gorge. Easily portageable. I ran it. It hurt. More water would have been nice...

Rick warms up by the fire, it was a cold brutal night

The Virgin River killed my jefe grande, sad story...