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