Middle Cherry

June 20, 2009.
I am sitting in my boat, alone in an eddy. Cliffs on both sides, and a 40' waterfall roars below. Double the expected flows are pouring over an unexpected drop.
Everybody else ran it and was fine.
I've never run a drop this big.
The portage has poison oak and wet cliffs. Even if you manage to seal launch in by yourself, you might get spanked against that wall, and in the hole below. You don't wanna be the guy that swam out of a seal launch.
I don't want to run this.
I don't really have a choice.
I'm gonna run this.
Line up here, get to the edge, and send it home...

We had an adventure on Middle Cherry Creek. We put on at the confluence with Eleanor Creek, and found ourselves with 750cfs or so. A lot more than the 300 we saw at the take-out, that the groups the day before had paddled. Guess they turned it up while were running shuttle. It was a bit more of a day than I was looking for, but it was also an experience I won't forget. Middle Cherry is a classic granite mix of bedrock and boulder pile, sieves and waterfalls. I hope to get back someday.



Hiking in. This was referred to as the Ewok jungle. As in, it would be a lot easier to navigate if you were an Ewok. If you hike in at the confluence, DO NOT get down in that ravine.


First Portage. Bad hybrid of heavy water and mank. Adam Johnson photo. I think the river right portage was better, the wall Shannon and I are walking along was slick and exposed.

Jay Moffat boofing into a Big Boulder Garden.

Early Portage. Not sure where/if this gets run at lower water. Adam Johnson photo.

Jay Moffat on a nice clean bedrock falls.

Shannon Carroll on a sweet ramping drop right below. Gorgeous Place.
I drove too far left here, and smeared off the rock with no speed. Fell into the hole below flat, disappeared into the foam, and then hit the green water behind it. It stopped me immediately, and I buoyed back up into a short surf. I'm not sure I'm explaining that well, but it was a unique experience. Enough so that I was laughing as it happened.


Shannon Carroll right above the big waterfall

Shannon Carroll on the big waterfall. (Freebird? Quarterpipe?)

Jay Moffat on the same. I asked what his line was gonna be, and he succinctly replied, "I'm gonna boof the s**t out of it. " He did. Worked well.

Late portage. (Crazy Train?) Boil in the landing area was too aggressive for our mix of time/level/injuries.

Other notes:
1. Observing the others contrasting paddling style was interesting. Don't know why it stood out that day, but it did.
-Jay took hard, precise strokes, like he was literally punching holes. Strong, intense and in control.
-Adam paddled with the efficient, fluid style of a playboater, and of a youngster who already has more days boating than most will ever log.
-Shannon boats with grace and comfort. She tends to glide through the chaos like she's dancing. Even when we made her sit in her boat, in an eddy, for fifteen minutes while we portaged across/through a sieve, next to a huge complex drop. Which she cleaned.

2. I was an extremely happy, relieved dude when, shortly before dark, I saw a diversion dam with a small shed next to it. Building=Access=Egress. Below the diversion dam was a huge slide into falls that we wanted no part of, but has gone nicely at lower flows for other people.

3. There was a lot more I originally wanted to talk about when I started writing this:
-Differences between vacation paddling and expedition paddling (and paddlers),
-Coping with loss and fear, as this was right after Ed Gaker drowned in Colorado. He was supposed to be with us on this trip. My head was all messed up.
But, I could never find a tone I was comfortable with, so you are stuck with some bullet points and a notion.

4. There are more photos from our day at my picasaweb, and Adam's
The Caliproduct crew has several photos from the trip the day before. Start here and click previous to browse through on chronological order. They also have one of those new fangled motion pictures from the same run.
Geoff Calhoun ran it this summer at low flows, but still had a fun time. I'm glad to see his reaction above the big falls was similar to mine. I may be alone on this, but I enjoy his running commentary on go-pro clips.

The art of Porte Crayon

I've always been drawn to the sketches of David hunter Strother, who wrote numerous articles for mid- 19th century periodicals under the nom de plume "Porte Crayon".
Strother covered a wide variety of topics and places, but his words and sketches of the Allegheney Highlands, in particular, appeal to me. You can read about him at the WVU library, and see a huge catalog of his sketches here.
You can read his book Virginia Illustrated on Google Books. I conveniently linked it to open on a page with what looks a lot like Pendleton Falls, a tributary to the Upper Blackwater. The story contains themes familiar to anyone who has boated in the area. Logistical uncertainties, hiking under hemlocks, scrambling through seemingly endless rhododendron thickets.
Another visit to West Virginia, entitled "The Mountains" was written about for Harper's New Monthly Magazine, in April of 1872.

So how does this relate specifically to boating? I took a good hard look at several of the sketches I really liked, and tried to figure out where they were, and even from what perspective they were drawn. In particular, I chose two shots from the North Fork of the Blackwater; one of Douglas Falls, and one looking up toward Double Indemnity.

2011 Big Sandy Race (when C-1's attack!)

While running the Big Sandy on Friday, a light bulb went off about the coming weekend: The forecast was for a little bit of rain, and then sunshine and 80 degree temps on Sunday. The rain would hold a nice comfy level on the Big Sandy, and what better way to enjoy the sunshine than a race down our mainstay run? (The times are at the bottom if you have to skip ahead)

A bakers dozen showed up Sunday afternoon, with the usual suspects out of Morgantown, plus a few new faces. The agreed upon format was a mass start sprint race from the put-in bridge at Rockville to the pool below Wonder Falls. The course is easy class 3-4, and 1.2 miles long. The day of the race, we had about 6.2' on the gauge at Rockville.

We had ten longboats and three shortboats in a pretty tight bunch. I was behind all the longboats, but could still see the leader, Ben Ledewitz, all the way in to the rapid above Wonder. He had a pretty comfy lead, with Eric Henrickson and Jack Ditty battling for the second spot as they came to the lip of Wonder Falls. Which is when things got interesting.
We had debated whether to end the race as you landed Wonder, or to move it to a rock downstream to allow for final second passes and carnage penalties off the falls. I'm going to let the photos from photographer and artist Annie Simcoe do the talking.






Do note that Jack is looking back to check on Eric.

Hey look, here comes Brad and Brian!


At this point Eric is downstream of his boat swimming hard for the finish line. I imagine Brian (green Green Boat) had quite a view as he came over the lip here. Charlie Walbridge was standing next to Annie when she took this photo, so that makes it all okay right?

The above series all happened in about 10 seconds, and included but not shown was Eric Nies running the falls and passing a swimming Eric Henrickson to claim third place.
The remainder of the race was pretty tame. We had less than 90 seconds separating the first and last finishers, which made the jobs of Mike Vanderberg and Ty Miller, our official timekeepers (translation: buddies I conned into helping at the put-in) VERY busy. No further wrecks or carnage, however.
Thanks to everbody who came and raced, Thank You to Ty and Mike for helping keep times and finishes, and Thank You to Annie for letting me use her pics from the day. Much appreciated.
More of Annie's photo's in a chronological order slideshow below. Note the race winners attire, obviously drytops make you slow.

Ben Ledewitz 9:10 LB Jack Ditty 9:43 LB C-1 Eric Nies 9:48 LB Eric Henrickson 9:49 LB Brad Buddenberg 9:50 LB Brian Menzies 9:51 LB Art Barket 9:52 LB Dave Gore 9:58 LB James Fogartie 10:08 SB JB Seay 10:10 SB Brad Romano 10:19 SB Kathrin Allen 10:37 WLB Lila Menzies 10:37 WLB

2011 Top Yough Race

Almost 40 kayakers came out on a snowy, chilly April morning to race down Maryland's Top Yough . This was the largest turnout by far for the Isaac Ludwig Memorial Race. This year we had about 250 cfs on the gauge in Oakland. Not as much as previous years, which is reflected in the times. Speaking of times, here is race organizer Jon Harmon announcing them to the crew:
Roger Loughney provided start times for everyone and ran sweep on the race, and Walter Augustine went out in front and recorded everyone's finish time at Suckhole rapid. Thanks Fellas!
Jason Beakes won for the 2nd straight year, and Charley Bartlett won the shortboat class for the 2nd time in 3 years. Jack Ditty was the fastest C-1 as usual. We had a ladies class this year, which was won by Paula Knochel in her inaugural race.
Full spreadsheet of times is at the bottom.

The pre-race HQ and post race party were held at Streams and Dreams rental cottage, which was perfect for getting ready beforehand, and for partying after the race. The cottage is a great location to stay if you wanted to paddle in the area. Sleeps 8+, right at the Top Yough takeout, and close to a whole lot of other boating.
We got to eat great food, and check out several hundred photos of everyone's run at Swallow Falls:
Kayakers Love Pictures

Zach Yomboro shot this video of all the racers on Swallow Falls. Pretty cool, and much appreciated. You can see a mix of lines, with a lot of the longboats choosing to go left of center.



The snow on the course made it extra beautiful out there. Good for snowballs at the finish line too.

Full times for the 2011 race:

Jason Beakes	10:26	Overall Winner
Ben Ledewitz	10:34
Jack Ditty	10:42	Fastest C-1
Jon Harmon	11:01	AwesomeOrganizer
Geoff Calhoun	11:05
Matt Fithian	11:08
Andrew Robinson	11:10
Charley Bartlett	11:45	Fastest Shortboat
Bobby Miller	11:51	#2 Shortboat
Micah Weglinski	11:51
Art Barket	11:52
Travis Coles	12:07
Martin Wick	12:09
Justin Teague	12:10	#3 Shortboat
Randy Greidever	12:16
Blake Huber	12:26
Jeff Blood	12:31
Roger Loughney	12:35
Seth Chapelle	12:37	#2 C-1
Andrew Miller	12:38
Andrew McCauley	12:38
Chris Schwer	12:38
Dave and Rob Fusilli	12:48
Matt Burnstein	12:49
JB Seay	12:56
Nori Onishi	12:57
Matt Sloan	13:04
John Stephens	13:15
Paula Knochel	13:18	Fastest Womens
Sean Chapelle	13:27
Max Harbert	13:39
Chris Heim	13:44
Mackenzie Hatcher	13:49	#2 Womens
Bob Norr	13:56
Nico Zegre	14:02
Laura Lindzey	14:26	#3 Womens

If I HAD to leave

The smarter, better half has been interviewing for a Residency position in various locales. I tagged along and got a chilly run on the Green.
If I had to leave West Virginia, I could think of worse rivers to have in the backyard:


Dave from Johnson City on a lap of Gorilla, Scream Machine, and Nies's Pieces.

2010 Top Yough Race

Sunday, March 28 just over a dozen boaters got together for the Isaac Ludwig Memorial Race on Maryland's Top Yough.
We had about 550cfs, which made for a very fun race course, and quicker times than last year.
Reigning champion Geoff Calhoun was unable to make the race, so this year Jason Beakes came in and claimed the title and a sweet Limited Edition GreenVest. Geoff also missed out on getting chased again by the angry goose next to the hydro plant, so I took his place as the outlet for the wrath of that particular Branta canadensis.

I really appreciate Jon and Roger getting everybody rounded up for the race, and Thanks to Walter Augustine for timekeeping.

Paddler	Time	Boat	Note
Jason Beakes	8:45	Green Boat	That is Fast
Matt Fithian	9:30	Green Boat
Brian Menzies	9:32	Green Boat
Sam Kane	9:35	Green Boat
Jay Ditty	9:44	Response C-1
Jon Harmon	9:45	Green Boat
Adam Johnson	9:54	Magnum	Fastest shortboat
Charlie Bartlett	10:00	Karnali
Nathan Sass	10:06	Green Boat
Clay Warren	10:23	Green Boat
Nori Onishi	10:39	Jefe	Fastest Asian
JB Seay	10:41	Burn	Slowest Asian
Roger Loughne	10:45	Jefe
Billy Clipper	10:50	Nomad	Handpaddle Champ
Cody Walsh	11:09

High Ridge Run

In WV, the Allegheney Front is the boundary between the Blue Ridge Mountains and the Allegheney Plateau. It also helps to divide the Potomac drainage from that of the Ohio River (which the New, Gauley, Cheat, Youghioghney, and Tygart all join) in our State. The various branches of the Potomac have been boated for years, and are well know for their scenery; soaring Seneca Rocks, the wildlife and fishing of The Trough. Seneca Creek, a major tributary flowing off the highest point in the state, is one of the traditional Canaan area steep creeks, and was a proving ground in the infancy of vertical waterfalls and steep creeking. Exploration of other, smaller creeks has been minimal, with access, tiny streambeds, wood, and small flow windows deflecting a lot of effort. It is understandable, particularly when there is great class V boating ready to go on the other side of the escarpment. Interest and exploration has revived along the front however, and this past weekend I got to enjoy a great new creek.
High Ridge Run collects itself in a small drainage below one of the steepest parts of the Front. At the put in, the creek is tiny, and grows slowly as it drops 1000' in two miles toward the North Fork of the South Branch of the Potomac.
Harpers Ferry boater Mike Moore has been scouting this creek for years. I knew it as "Mike Moore's Secret Creek" long before I knew its name or location. He has scouted, checked on access, chatted with landowners and fisherman, and spent weekend after weekend clearing logs from drops and learning the creek. He must have a good Tom Sawyer speech too, because he drafted his friends to help him get things boatable. The hard work paid off, and I can't thank those guys enough for their effort.
Saturday morning found nearly twenty people hiking up a forest road to the top of the creek.

Sometimes the gate is open, but this was not one of those weekends. We climbed 1400' in two miles before turning left and crossing another mile down into the very top of the creek. I was soaked in sweat and hurting by the time it was done. I am terrible at pacing myself, and currently have sub-optimal fitness. (which begs the question of why I did it again the next day)

The hikers filtering down into the put-in, at the highest runnable portion of the creek.



Chuck Morris on the put in rapids.

The second significant drop: a transition onto a slab and then out.

Busy Busy Busy.
Whoah. Long day for this man, but he did it with a smile and a game effort. Big boat on a little creek.

Sam Burke in one of the more boulder filled rapids on the upper section of creek. The rock to Sam's left dished out a lot of abuse, from scraped knuckles to full on swims. Above this drop is a 12' falls, and a 10' slide, and some other stuff all in sequence with no real stop. I ran it on verbal directions from Chuck, who got them from Mike Moore, who spent much of the day standing on various perches giving out directions like an air traffic controller. (or a mountaintop guru of rapid lines) Beta from Mike, and from Don Smith, who had also been on the creek previously, made for confident probing and bombing away.


Chuck Morris keeping his bow up in a tight LZ. Just below this ledge is a large, broken tree spanning the river. While you portage around the tree, you can take a moment to scout the confluence canyon.

Don Smith runs the second of three drops in this sweet little crux gorge. 20' entrance falls, a 12' or so kicker in the middle, then a twisting slide to exit. At this point on the run, you have traveled about 1/2 a mile and dropped 400'. Awesome.

Geoff Calhoun finishes up the third slide.
A decent sized fork of the creek is entering on the river right, directly into the bottom slide. Beautiful place. The pace eases up somewhat from here down, and our large group of nearly twenty ended up stretched over several hundred yards of creek. Eventually, a handful of us, (chasing Jason Beakes) started moving really fast out in front and we split into two groups.

By really fast I mean we didn't scout here.

Or here. Or countless other ledges and turns. The work Mike and crew did, the super friendly nature of the creek, and some very comfortable probes out front made quick work of the bottom 1 1/2 miles of creek, which were still dropping at a 400-500fpm pace.

Mild mannered elementary school teacher Robert Miller genteelly makes his way down a babbling brook.

Don Smith loads up for the best boof on the creek. Taller than it looks.

Eric Amason charges around the corner and prepares to log dodge.
The creek quieted down even more below here, and was straightforward read and run to the takeout. These photos are by no means a complete representation of the creek, there is lots more I didn't have time or angles to photograph. Think of this blog post like a movie trailer, it tells enough of the story to get your attention, but by no means is it the whole thing.
High Ridge Run is an incredible combination of friendly streambed and gradient. Every drop is runnable, with countless 6-10' ledges and unique falls and rapids. It is a busy creek; there are no real pools anywhere along the run, and an out of control line can take a long time to recover from. Eddies were minimal at times, as can be expected for a micro-creek with this kind of gradient.
More pictures from our run can be seen on my picasaweb album. Hopefully I can add more pics and some video as the media other guys shot becomes available.
For Saturday's run, the NFSB Potomac crested near 11,000 cfs at the Cabins gauge. I don't think there is a direct correlation, but that gauge climbing high combined with heavy local rains is the best indicator that High Ridge Run is flowing. Seneca Creek was also bankfull in nearby Onego, WV on Saturday. A group of us went back in on Sunday, and while the creek was fun, it was really too low, the watershed is quite small for this creek, so catch it on the way up and don't delay, it won't hold it water for long.

Update: an addendum from Mike Moore himself. I'm just gonna quote his e-mail:
"Tim Gavin felt that the Allegany Front held secrets that us kayakers ought to know about, but we were all pre occupied with the Blackwater and North Fork @ the time, and could not be distracted with other things!

Jeff Cogle and I renewed the interest, flyovers on Google Earth and poring over the raised relief topo map Jeff has.

I was the 1st to step and see with boaters eyes, could not believe what I was seeing only a 1/2 mi up the creek bed, Chris Good and I went up to the confluence drop that same day, making it just @ dark. It looked like fantasy land, looking up @ the confluence drop in the fading light.

Back in the following weekend, and following 4 weekends, with Jeff Cogle, Clarke & Jeremy Gesey to begin working away and scouting the Upper section, which was dubbed The Wet Dream Section. Truly amazing section of whiteh2o, more boofs than any creek around, and hardly any boulders.

Exploring out of the High Ridge drainage has been fruitful as well, the whole Allegany Front is peppered with classic class 4-5 creeking in the wettest of times. Its nice to see a new place with world class runs when all of our west side creeks are blown out and our signature east side run[ Seneca] is too high.

So kudos to Timmy Gavin for the thought, and the inspiration to keep searching and discovering.

Somehow, I think Tim was along for that 1st D!"

Middle Kaweah lap two + gawking at big trees.

After my first run down the Middle Fork of the Kaweah, i was pretty tired.
My back was also killing me, so after dinner I decided I wanted to sleep in a real bed, and ended up getting a room for us in Three Rivers for the night. I realize this makes me a sissy, and it hurt my budget for the trip, but that bed and shower were nice. The room also included breakfast in the morning, and an internet computer. The computer was handy to determine exactly where the best Middle Fork take-out was, and we could check what else was going on with water levels. West Cherry looked to be on the high side, and most everything else was low, so we stayed in town for another lap.
Jay Moffat arrived in the middle of the night, having driven straight through from Asheville, NC with just a few naps. He slept in his car and was up early rigging his new boat and (correctly) harassing us for being slowpokes. That motivation probably explains why Jay managed to run Upper Cherry, the Middle Kings, NF San Joaquin, the Stikine, and more this season.
Oliver headed home to do some work, and Adam, Jay and I went back into Sequoia for some boating. We put on at Buckeye Flats, below Chuck's Drop this time. What took hours to sort out the day before, we got done in minutes. We were soon through the mini canyon, and out scouting the heinous boulder pile above V-slide, which Adam ran, and then the V-slide itself.

Jay Moffat runs V-Slide, photo by Adam Johnson.


A spectacular place, complete with live studio audience. Jay Moffat and JB Seay below V-Slide. Moro rock above. Photo by Adam Johnson.

We did not get out of our boats again until the bottom of the 420 gorge area, where a shallow drop with a 90 degree pillow/flume at the bottom prompted a quick portage. Adam and I had both run it the day before, and neither of us liked the chunky stuff we felt in the pillow and flume. It was a good time for some beef jerky and a panoramic picture anyway.

Sitting still for the picture felt like one of those old timey, manual, sepia photos.
Panoramic photo by Adam Johnson.
From there it was more bombing and quick explanations over the shoulder to Jay all the way down to Zero to Sixty. Adam and I probed (scouting again seemed risky to me) and then Jay styled it right up.
Jay Moffat runs Zero to Sixty, photo by Adam Johnson.
We were soon drying gear in the sunshine at the Potwisha campground, the confluence of the Marble and Middle Forks of the Kaweah, unaware that Ben Stookesberry and Darin McQuoid were on a mission just a few miles up the Marble Fork.
We completed our run from Buckeye Flats to Potwisha in a little over two hours, quite an improvement from the 7 or so it had taken the day before while we figured it all out. The Middle Fork of the Kaweah is a great river, and one I look forward to running again someday. I understand it has an early season, before the melt, and that fall rains will also bring it in. What a fantastic resource! Once you know the lay of the land, you can adjust your put-in for how much you want to bite off, and it has a fun combination of drops. When you add in the other forks of the river, its no wonder the Kaweah River has an informative webpage dedicated to it.

After our run, Jay hit the road to Oliver's house, and Adam and I took the scenic route on the Generals Highway through Sequoia National Park. We climbed Moro Rock, a kind of must do since it was always photo-bombing our kayak shots. We saw several juvenile bear cause a "Bear Jam" on the Moro Rock access road, and obviously, a lot of fantastic large trees and mountains. We arrived late that night at Oliver's house to find Shannon Carroll in town to join our merry band with several days off from work and ready to boat.
Adam has more pics on his picasa site, and his take on the Kaweah on his blog.
Keep watching for day three; "A weekend warrior finds his limits" or something. Middle Cherry is up next.

Middle Kaweah day one.

This spring, I made plans to try for some Sierra creeking. The trip was to be part vacation, part adventure, part reward for pulling up stakes and moving to a new town. I had a narrow window in the month of June to go, but was able to free up 6 days in between moving and my wife starting her rotations in a new hospital. I started scouring blogs and message boards for dates and flows on runs in California. You guys need to put more dates on when you do those snowmelt runs. For the record, we ran the Middle Kaweah at low water on June 17th and 18th, and then the dam controlled Middle Cherry on the June 20th.
The plan was to meet Ed Gaker and Adam Johnson in California, and hopefully hook up with our friend Oliver Grossman for logistical help and some boating around his work schedule.
We wanted to try for Upper Cherry, and if it was too high, do day trips or maybe West Cherry.
I had my Westbound ticket bought, and was looking for the return flight when I got terrible news: Ed had drowned boating in Colorado. (I wrote some about this in a previous post) I struggled mightily with what to do about my trip, and looked into giving my ticket away and just letting this one go. In the end I decided to proceed, confident Ed would have wanted it that way (cliche or not it's true), but with a heavy heart.
On Thursday the 11th I shipped my kayak west to safeguard against any airline snafu's.
Friday a bunch of us drove to central Ohio to attend Ed's viewing, and his memorial on Saturday.
Sunday and Monday my wife and I packed up our house and moved 3 hours East, to the Panhandle of WV.
Tuesday I flew to Sacramento.

I got there late Tuesday night, and Adam picked me up, with my kayak already on top of the car. We headed south, checked in with Oliver, and confirmed that we would meet somewhere near the Kaweah the next morning.
We got to Three Rivers, just outside Sequoia National Park, around 4:30 in the morning. I slept in the back of the car for about 2 hours, then got up to get a snack and call the wife to let her know I was there and safe. I dozed some more until about 7:30, when Oliver met us and we went to breakfast.
We saw a car with boats and Oregon tags, so I went over to say hello. I asked the guy standing there if he was Chris (Korbulic) as we have a number of friends in common. Oops. It was actually Ben Stookesberry, with Darin McQuoid riding shotgun. We chatted a bit and quizzed them on levels, before hitting the road. Nice guys. They had just completed the 3rd or 4th decent of the Upper Middle Fork, hiking several hours upstream from the end of the road.
We were unsure of put-ins and take-outs, but Adam remembered paddling all the sections of the Middle Fork of the Kaweah, so we figured we could run the whole river, and loath to pay for two cars to get in the park, we left a car in town. We drove into Sequoia National Park, and ended up meeting with a group of 6 guys from the U.K. (who had no more info than us), and we put on at the Paradise Creek Trail bridge, just above the Buckeye Flats campground.
Just a few short drops around a corner, and we were at Chuck's (Kern) Drop. Its big, shallow and gets run occasionally.

Not by us though. Bill Anderson portaging Chuck's Drop. We dropped one team member who wasn't feeling well here, bringing us down to 8 first timers* on the run.
*Adam had run the Kaweah in high school, but when mixed in with the memories of their 200+ days a year paddling pace, he was fuzzy on where things were. Sometimes, at the bottom of a drop he would say "Oh yeah, I remember that one" but that was the extent of his beta.

The first drop of any size below Chucks. JB Seay, photo by Oliver Grossman.

Oliver Grossman runs the same.

More fun read and run brought us to a series of slides in a mini-canyon. We scouted from the river left, climbing on top of a house sized boulder perched on the bedrock. 2/3 of the flow went under the rock, but the left channel around was easy to make at low water.
Oliver and I headed up and ran the first few slides.
While eddied out under an overhang, I found this rock in the embrace of the roots of a sycamore tree.

Bill Anderson on Drop #2 in the series.


Drop #3 and 4, showing the rather large sieve. Photo by Oliver Grossman.

Once we got everyone worked through here, we portaged around a messy rock pile just below. Just a few eddies downstream and we arrived at the V-slide.

Oliver enters the V-Slide. We were under the impression it went best by driving hard right and falling into the trough late.


JB Seay at V-slide. Photo by Oliver Grossman.
Here I am falling into the V as late as I could, paddle carefully tucked upstream. Upon further consideration, it was smoother to get on the pillow a bit upstream and then rocket down it.

Adam throws a brown claw of joy in the pool below V-slide. Moro Rock looks on in bemused silence from 4,000 above.
Right downstream the river snakes around a blind, fast corner, so I eddied out and was bashing through brush to scout. Ben, Darin, and a group of German? (the Brits guess based on accent) guys rolled around the corner and bombed off. One of the group was portaging, and I relayed his description of Little Niagara to our group and they ran down as well.

JB Seay boofing Little Niagara, photo by Oliver Grossman.
The drop was steeper than I had understood from the German dude, so the guys and I all had a bit of a surprise when we got to the lip. Sorry fellas, my mistake. In the big pool below the drop, we had a dozen boaters, from all over the US and Europe, hanging out. Good stuff.
More fun read and run, and one full scout got us down to (what I later found to be) the standard Hospital Rock put-in.

Martyn Sollars at the bottom of a multi-tiered slide above the traditional put-in.

Oliver Grossman in the midst of the 420 gorge. He who scouts and directs runs last. Oliver is an incredible paddler, and a great asset to any paddling mission. I cannot think of instance, in many class V days of paddling, where I have worried about that dude. Anyway, the biggest drop, and kind of the entrance exam into this gorge was a sweet boulder pile with blind moves and lots of eddy hopping. We had quite a show of traffic direction to get our group of 8 through that one.

Panoramic of part of the 420. One of our group hiked up to the road from this point, bringing us down to 7. Adam and Oliver hiding in the lower right.

Sweet Kicker Falls. We ran out of an eddy on river right, charging across the grain of the current, and then down onto the kicker.

Chris Flavin on a perfect 12' falls.

Zero to sixty.
While scouting this falls, I began to slide down the super slick, polished granite. I looked for something to grab, or a dry place to jump, but finding neither, I decided to commit to the boating line, and ran/skidded/fell down the slide, and jumped over the lip into the pool. I surfaced just in front of the river right wall, and got out on a convenient rock to examine my options.That was dumb. JB Seay feeling foolish at Zero to Sixty. Photo by Phil Higgins.
Adam tried to tow me across the current and out of the LZ, but that did not go well, and I ended up floating back into a cave (to the right of the above photo) out of breath with my elbow pads down around my fingertips, and my pants pulled completely off. I was able to chimney up the back of the cave, and a quick hand from Oliver got me back up on top so I could try the drop in my kayak.
Shortly below there, the 4 Brits wisely decided to take out at a gauging station, and sort out their shuttle up on the road. We continued downstream, passing the Marble Fork and picking our way through boulder gardens in a shallow, widened streambed. With more water, I imagine this section is great fun, but the combination of low flows, being tired, and boat breaking paranoia wore on me. I eventually hiked up to the road, getting nearly covered in burrs and the fine, talcum powdery soil of the canyon walls. I lucked into a ride back to the put-in from our new boating friends. They were on their way back from a supplies run, and took me and all my filthy gear right to Adam's car. Adam and Oliver finally made it down to the confluence just before dark fell, with mixed reviews of the last few miles of river.

I have a few more photos on my picasa account, if you are really bored.
If you know the names of any of the pictured rapids, post a comment or drop me an e-mail.
Stay tuned for day two on the Middle Kaweah.