big mountains and big cats running across the road in the middle of the night

So, the whole twitter thing didn't work out. it would be cool if I didn't loose my phone, or if somone actually cared about minute by minute updates on my life, or if I could upload photos straight from the river...but I can't. So until one or more of those problems becomes resolved, the twitta has been ixne'd.

In other news though, we went up to Cody this past weekend. We fired up the Shosone, the Day Stretch and the Honeymoon sections of the Clarks Fork, Crandall creek, and Sunlight creek. They were all soo much fun.

On the last day we put on to this stretch of Sunlight Creek, the book says expect III+ creeking. So were all floating down, having a good time, not really worried about anything when we approach a gorged up horizon line. We got out to scout and what we found was for sure not III+ creeking. More like a huge three tiered waterfall with a V+ runout. None of us ran it.

end of the earth on sunlight.

Crandall was sweet. We ran it last year pretty low, and it had some more water in it this year, and it made for an excellent time. Read and run class IV+ with maybe a V or two thrown in the mix. Good clean fun...and the polished granite didn't hurt.

We had a great float down the Day Stretch of the Clarks fork. It was a beautiful day, the sun was shining, the water blue, and a great group of people to share the experience with. Adrenaline lived up to its name and by the last hole at the end of the rappid everyone understood why they call it adrenaline. The girls walked it, 1 person swam, I went for a little hole ride, and the other two had sick lines down.

The Honeymoon section of the Clarks fork is a stretch of river I have been wanting to get on for a while. It was great. The 3 of us rallied down only portaging suck hole..It was just too easy to portage and the consequences were too high to risk a subteranean swim.

We began and ended our adventure on the Shosone, which runs right through Cody. I have ran this stretch 3 times now, and each time we have put on with the sun already behind the mountains. It's a cool run. The upper drops are sweet, and there is one in the middle that will get your heart pounding a little bit. We finshed well after sunset to begin the long drive back to Jackson.

The upper stuff on the shosone.

We all had a really good weekend camping on this lake. I caught my first fish of the year..A solid 2.5 inch greyling. It was the only nibble I got all weekend. We had a good group of friends, plenty of food and refreshments and a few thousand mosquitos that were much bigger than you're probably imagining. We made it back to town monday morning just before last call.

Back here in town, the river is still dropping. Taco is in. Go Surfing!

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It's been an exciting past couple of weeks. The greys peaked at around the 5ft mark, and it was awsesome...like a little piece of the north fork just down the street. The Gros Ventre got big too, about 4ft at the bridge. The canyon toped out at around 24,000. Between those three, kings wave, and lunch counter, the summer has gotten kicked off in the appropriate fashion. We've been throwing big tricks at the counter for the last week and a half. Surf Wyoming!

I spent a week out east picking up a new vehicle...It was really good to see some of my friends I haven't seen in a minute...A minute being about 5 years..You guys should come check out the other half of the country!

I had an epic adventure down Bitch Creek a few weeks ago and I learned a valuable lesson regarding rivers.. Everything was going good, the Bitch was about as big as it gets, I was with a solid crew, had my trusty creekboat and an adventurous attitude...Well let me tell you where all that gets you these day...Stuffed under a log, with the boat being pushed under. I was able to cling to the top of the log, wiggle out of my boat just in time to see it get sucked under the log and down the creek. I was left with a bruised ego and a long walk ahead. I climbed up a verticle rock wall, through the rattlesnake dens, across the endless potatoe fields and over this super sketchy bridge to the car..I made it, no injurys, no problems except for the fact my creekboat was now submarining itself down this relativly remote creek.

So I'm at work last week. I get a phone call...They found my creekboat!!! It's good to go minus a little thigh foam on the inside. I went and picked it up...a few more scratches, and a little dent, but that is about it...it's still a creekboat.

The lesson to be learned...when on a new river, especially at high flow, maybe it is not the best idea to charge full speed ahead downstream. Rather, you should take your time, enjoy the river, and do not be afraid to scout.

A big thanks to Dan A for towing my boat the 10 miles out of the forest for me.

In other news, check me out on Twitter. I have a mobile upload deal, so it is updated often with photos. The link is on the right hand side of this page towards the top...Check it out.

It's all going...and it's all going HUGE!

(Speed Blur on the Greys...Back when you could see the wood and rocks)

It's here, it's here. After a long cold winter, and an even longer rainy cold spring, the earth is finnally begining to warm up, the snow is finnally melting and that water is finnally making it's long journey towards the sea. Thats right, Spring Runoff is here and if your a kayaker...you should be kayaking right now not reading this. If you're not a kayaker I guess you could keep reading...

So this past weekend Rendezevous hosted thier annual Wyoming Whitewater Championships. Friday was a race down the Hoback, Saturday was the rodeo and Sunday was the BoaterX down the Greys. The race on friday had a little bit of raft carnage due to an under estimated log strainer in the middle of the river. 2 poped boats, acouple scratches, but no real injurys. Saturday was super fun, the river shot up over night, and we had an off the couch rodeo at Kings wave. A good turnout of spectators and competitors and we all got to go flop around for a few hours on one of the Snake rivers best play features. Sunday was the race down the greys. I had to work, so I can't say much about it, but we ran it Saturday evening before the party and it was damn near 5ft on the gauge at the takeout. It was the biggest I have seen it yet by far...!!I would imagine there was a bit of carnage.

The dam on the Snake is no longer holding any water back...It's all going to go, and it's going to go big. It's like 18000cfs right now and rising. The rain is still falling, and the mountains are socked in...It's monday, I'm on vacation. Headed to the river! You should too.

it must be something in the won tons

The Black Canyon of the Bear River in Idaho is an amazing kayak run. Unfortunaly for us kayakers, it is dammed and there is only 2 weekends a year when they release water out of the dam gates. In the spring they have a whitewater festival, so that's what we did. We drove the 3 hours through idaho backwoods. It was a great time for all, and acouple quality rappids kept everyones heads on the horizon. They have a fall release too, it'll be sweet.



So were sitting at China Town, its raining outside, and were passing dishes of rice and noodle varieties around the table. Someone suggests we drive to Boise and rally the North Fork of the Payette. We are all relativly ready to roll, but we don't have a car that can make the drive. We phone a friend, pay the bill and within 2 hours we're stylin out of Jackson in a decked out Suburban with our creekboats piled on top. We make it to the NF the next day and rallied the upper section and camp out under clear skies. The next day we did a top to bottom, a full on 15 miles of in your face whitewater action. It was an incredible experience and I can't wait to go back.
Styling down the North Fork



Last weekend my dad was in town. We took him down the canyon and all of us had a great time. Next time we'll have to take him off mesa...



We've been firing up the Grey's River alot lately. It's been between 500cfs and 1500cfs so it's been keeping us entertained on morning pre work missions.



The Gros Ventre was super low acouple weeks ago, but we got a hot tip and fired it up before work last week....That tip turned out to be a bust. It was however a solid inch higher than the time before, A whoping 7 inches at the bridge...I don't intend to run it again unless it is a foot or higher.




This past weekend we drove up north a little ways. A couple hours north of Missoula to the Lochsa. The first day Dave and I hiked up this little creek and ran it down to the confluence with the lochsa. It was a fast, shallow, eddyless creek. Super fun. We got down, and Matt and Kevin were back from running shuttle and we had a sick run down through the millions of waves that stack up downstream on the Lochsa. We camped at a sweet spot on this creek and had a nice rainy night under the tarps. The following day we ran the upper section and booked it 3 hours north to Lolo creek. We camped at the put in and the next day we rallied bright and early to put on the 13 mile wilderness creek. It is an amazing stretch of river. Class 4,5 ledge drops, and enough boogie water to keep your head up the whole time.

One of the more quality drops on Lolo

The crew taking a break on Lolo




So we take off the river at 1pm. We're out of gas, so we drive 45 minutes to town, gas up, drive 45 minutes back. Run shuttle so the other guys can get thier truck back, and then speed off down the road. We get to Missoula, get some burritos with Glen, and we're leaving town by 8pm. Everything is going good, it's about midnight and we're just north of west Yellowstone, it's snowing and then BAM!! The window is smashed, the hood is all bent up, we got no headlights, and the passenger mirror is swiped clean off the side of the truck. An elk scampers off into the darkness. We drive for a half hour with no headlights, in the snow, in the dark of night, almost hit a Bison and then we realize we can get one of the headlights working again. So we do, and begin our long limp home. We get back to town at 4:30am, I drive straight to work, shower, and sleep on the couch for 3 hours until my 14 hour shift begins. Somehow I made it through the day, called up the insurance this morning only to recieve the bad news I've been expecting...I am not covered on animal collisions. And here we are...back at home, no money, a busted up truck, it's still raining, and it's only monday.

Truck 0, Elk 1

adventure season returns...

Well after a long, cold, blue skied, not so much snow winter paddling season is just about here. I have off 3 days a week with my job, and since the last post almost each and every one of those 3 day weekends has been used as an excuse to go flop around in the icy cold river for a few hours. We've gone up to mesa falls acouple times, ran the lower drops on the henrys fork, sessioned winter wave, ran the canyon, and most recently heard a rumor regarding a spring dam flush 5 hours away so we jumped in the car for a quick surf sesh down south.

The first mesa mission, we hiked in towing our boats on the snow behind us. It turned epic when we were faced with a steep frozen snowy hill. We let the boats go and hoped for the best and jumped on the snow and slid down on our butts behind our boats. As the trees got closer stopping became more and more of a pressing issue for me. Luckily no one hit a tree, and only one person got taken out at the legs by an out of control kayak. We made it to the lip, ran the drop and paddled the flatwater out. Two days later we found ourselves back at the parking lot at mesa only this time with a snowmobile and tow ropes. We got towed in the 7 miles or whatever in our kayaks behind the sledd. The creekboats were surprisingly easy to manuever around on the frozen snowed over road. Going in and out of the drainage ditches, airing over speed bumps, smashing into each other. It was not until the put in that we discovered the gaping slash in the bottom of Austins kayak which later caused it to fill up like a bathtub when submerged in the water. Our sledd driver grilled up some hotdogs, fed us lunch and sent us on our way. We ran the drops, portaged around big mesa and ran down through the lower falls. We hiked out the scree field to our awaiting sledd taxi out. We got to the road (after linking the boats 1 behind the other with carabiners and webbing to negotiate the forest as our driver sped us through while simltaniously just a few yards behind him an epic snow ball fight ensued between us kayakers. There is an advantage to being in the lead boat!) So we make it to the road, stop the sledd to better arrange the tow situation on the open road and were all ready to go, and our driver pulls the handle off of the pullcord and the cord retracts back into the sledd. Disaster Strikes! well it wasnt that bad, and after more than a few tries using a throwbag to jump start the engine we are back on track). More extreme kayak snowcross on the way back, and we are at the car without any problems. An epic trip for sure. The whitewater and waterfalls were ok too.

Thursday was jeromes birthday so we climbed taylor and skied down. The snow was not good, but the day was so much fun. We got acouple good turns, but that was about it. It was great to get out for one last day and make some turns with my friends. Have fun jamming splitter cracks in the desert buddy.

Yesterday we drove 5 hours each way to go surf at the casper whitewater park. We got up early, set off down the road and got in casper right on time. We got some food, got dressed, realized Austin forgot his helmet, went to the store and bought a helmet in our kayak gear, got back to the river, with night setting in, the water still rising, we surfed for an hour or so and set off back home. The hydrolic was sick for sure, but it is hard to justify the drive again in the near future for a damn flush and only a short window to surf. We also had some excellent chinnese food. If you find yoursef in Casper wyoming, check out the Ming House.