Summer of Lars Finale on West Cherry Creek

After finishing up the Royal Gorge we drove Ryan and Heidi into San Francisco and dropped them off at the airport. There, Sarah and I spent a day exploring San Francisco and even got to watch the St. Louis Cardinals (hometown) play the Giants in the evening.


It was a gloomy day in San Fran, but we loved it

We left San Fran and made our way south to see Sequoia/Kings Canyon and Yosemite National Parks. These places were a must hit on our vacation and it was really nice to take some time off kayaking and enjoy the spectacular scenery.


Sarah at the "Tunnel View" lookout in Yosemite.


There was still some boating to be done on the Merced river through the park. By far, this was the most scenic section of water I've ever paddled.

After visiting Yosemite for the second time, we began to make our way to the Cherry Creek area where we had plans to paddle/camp on West Cherry with Natalie and Chris Harjes. In between Royal and West Cherry we paddled South Silver, the Silver Fork, and Bald Rock Canyon, all of which are excellent runs and I may have tr's on those later. But for now, onto West Cherry.

West Cherry Creek
Thursday, June 18

The ladies hiking in to West Cherry

Here's the lowdown on our West Cherry adventure: We hiked in with the ladies, dropped boats off at put-in and proceeded to hike downstream a mile with the girls to camp. Dropped gear there, then we hiked back up to kayak down to camp that evening. Next morning, hike back up to get the first mile of goods again, then we ran down to the lake, hopped in the car and drove back to the put-in so we could hike back in with boats and make it to camp by dark. The next day we relaxed by the river all day and rested. The third full day we woke up, hiked the girls back out, hiked back in and did another one day West Cherry trip.

Chillin' at the put-in.
On our first lap the water was high, although, high is good in West Cherry. I guess it's important to note that we did the 3-mile hike that leaves out the Graceland slide and some other stuff, so I don't know, that stuff might get scary when it's high. West Cherry starts quick with three or four big rapids in the first mile.


These pics are from the first evening we were in there. Anthony was looking good...


until he flipped, lost his paddle, and had to swim out of the hole.

The next morning we hiked our boats back to the put-in to start a full lap.

The top drop of the rapid Anthony ate it at the day before




Chris finishing up the same rapid


This beautiful double drop is right downstream. You gotta boof the top due to shallow waters in the landing, but the boof is easy to lay out and a bunch of fun. There is the danger of being too far left and clipping the shelf halfway down.



Chris demonstrating the left line. It's hard to see, but he's in there.


Anthony on a fun kicker boof right downstream of the double drop




white-out at the bottom

Below the kicker boof comes some cool sliding rapids with big stompy holes. Make sure you grab an eddy above the gnarly pothole drop. It's seen some traffic before, but I think only at lower flows.


Sarah and I posing below the nasty pothole drop

Below the portage are some fun rapids



Me at the lip of the Charlie Beavers rapid. This one was my fave on West Cherry. It starts with a sliding entrance with a ton of folding creases that end in a big hole. Then it's on to the main part of the drop which is the double falls you see here. After the double drop you have another substantial drop that you gotta run on the right, then there's a couple small lead out drops. It's a hell of a drop.

It looks like I'm about to eat rock


working on it



there it is




And then the rapid keeps going.






Two wild and crazy guys on a portage near the confluence. I didn't think the portaging on West Cherry was all that bad. It has a bad rep for not being very classic and having too many portages and I can imagine that if you catch it with low to medium water this may be true. But with good water, West Cherry is well worth it.






Anthony running an awesome rapid on Main Cherry

Chris on the same. this one had the huge curling thing that Chris is in front of and then behind that it drops a few feet into a stomping hole.

Running Cherry Creek after the confluence with high water was a bunch of fun. There's a ton of cool rapids in there that get full on with high water. We portaged the last gorge due to high water and small group size (2 on the second lap) and Main Cherry was still the shit.

Chris, Natalie, Sarah, and I at the Cherry Lake boat ramp. Anthony, we missed you on that second lap. Somethings telling me I'll see you there next year. Well, that's it for West Cherry and the Cali trip. From here I'm gonna post local updates and maybe a couple flashback posts to the Cali stuff I skipped. For now, it's on to praying for rain in the southeast, lets go hurricane season.
Over and out.
D

Royal Gorge-Day 2

Rattlesnake Falls

So I had been thinking about this damn waterfall all night. At one point I thought for sure I'd run it, but it's hard to tell sitting around the campfire. After waking up and giving it another look I decided to say hell no. I've come to kind of regret that decision, but man I was just not feeling it that morning. Besides, I'll bet anyone a hundred bucks Rattlesnake Falls will be there next year. And so will I.

After the portage around Rattlesnake there's a ton of super-high quality drops like this one.

Anthony

Ryan

Shortly below this drop Ryan flipped running a gnarly ledge and was pushed into an overhanging undercut rock. He was able to swim out and his boat eventually made it but no sign of the paddle. We fished around from above using a long stick but had no luck. We contemplated whether or not to keep looking and decided it was best to bust out the breakdown and get moving. We were about an hour into the second day and at mile 7 of a 35 mile run. It hurt knowing we were on our last paddle, but we had to get moving because we had so far to go. We moved downstream with death grips on our paddles.

Scott's drop

A split-falls below Scott's

Below Scott's there were more quality rapids until you come to Wabena Falls. Wabena was run while we were there by Chris Korbulic and pretty sure Evan Garcia ran it the day before. We were all stoked to see Chris have an excellent line.

Chris lining it up

He's about to disappear

He's in there somewhere

After Wabena you're pretty much out of the Royal Gorge. There's still more rapids but after awhile it flattens out until you start to get into the Generation Gap rapids. We camped at a gravel bar somewhere in the beginning of Generation Gap. Day 3 of the run consists of paddling the rest of Generation Gap and the entire Giant Gap run, which by that time aren't too difficult. However, the crack on the bottom of Ryan's Nomad had grown to about 16 inches long, so he got to deal with that for 20 miles while trying to keep up with Anthony and I. I still call him crazy for putting on the Royal Gorge with a cracked kayak. We made it to the bridge and takeout by 2:30 p.m. and managed to surprise Sarah with such an early arrival.

The Royal Gorge proved to be a bad-ass run. None of us really knew exactly what to expect but we were all amazed by the gorge. It's a super beautiful and demanding gorge that deserves the utmost respect by those who paddle it. I can't wait to get back in there next year!

peace

D

Royal Gorge

May 27, 2009-Day 1

This run really blew me away. I've always associated the Royal Gorge with all the big waterfalls on the run like Heath Springs 1 and 2, rattlesnake, and Wabena. But there's so much more to it! It's just the shit in there. Pictured above is the crew of myself, Ryan, and Anthony from Reno, who, really came through with the fireworks. Thanks bro.

Pyrotechnic specialist
After doing it, I'd say you definitely wanna try to go in when the gauge is around 900cfs, which is what we had. Lower goes for sure, but who likes low water? Cody Howard hooked it up with some beta, which was nice because we had none previously. Thanks dude. And of course, none of it would be possible without Sarah, our shuttle technician.

the first gorge

"Once you portage the dam, it's on." Whoever said that was right. The first gorge we came to was sweet, and pretty full on, too. We like, we really really like.

Coming into the fourth drop..

It was good in there

We got through the first gorge and were ecstatic. The nerves had been calmed by getting to run some tough rapids, but, our eyes were opened and it hit us, all at the same time, what we had gotten ourselves into.

Some beautiful sh*t to be gettin into

It's hard to recount all the rapids from this point down to the Heath Falls area. In general, most is good to go but a few portages may be necessary. With a guide, this section would be a breeze since most of it goes and there aren't any huge horizonlines. If not, you'll be scouting quite a bit.

Around 12:30 we decided to lunch at a really cool double drop.

This one wanted to toss you left into the shelf

More bad-ass rapids

I was lovin' the riverbed

After lunch we made our way downstream, unsure of how far much further it was till Heath Springs. It didn't take long to find out. Right around this time a crew of 4 who knew the run caught up with us and gave some very nice demonstrations on how to run the first Heath Falls.

Chris Korbulic

Taylor Robertson

One of the Knight brothers

All those boyz styled it and came out smiling, which, made it pretty hard not to run it. While they got out and began to scout #2 Anthony and I ran #1.

Anthony at the lip

A picture of me? Of course it's out of focus.

Anthony landed a bit flat and took a hard shot to the ribs. Luckily, he was ok but spooky nonetheless. I 45'ed it and came out smiling, although in the future i'll tuck up and go for the full plug. I was stoked, but not stoked enough to even really contemplate Heath #2, so up and outta there we hiked.

Heath #2 from above. It's a real serious drop in a crazy freakin' place. Mucho props to anyone who balls up and drops in.

Heath #2 deposits you into this gorge which is very inaccessible. We just kept walking along the rim until we found a place to drop back in. When we finally did it was down a steep wash and it landed us here..

Our re-entry point

Back on the water, we quickly made our way down through more quality rapids until we finally made it to the footbridge and campsite. We were all pretty tired at this point and the uncertainty of how far it was had been wearing us down mentally. We left the other group at Heath #2 as they were scouting/running it, and before doing so Anthony asked one of them how much further it was to camp. "Oh, five or six miles", he replied. For the record it's only two miles. But so it goes on the Royal Gorge.

view from camp

We were stoked to be here
And then we got to think about Rattlesnake Falls all night.

Day 2 coming up

peace