Big East Fork Baby!

Today, September 22, 2009, is the day I experienced the Big East Fork of the Pigeon river for the first time and I freakin' loved that shit. We had what seemed to be optimal flow, 2.5 on the gauge, and what turned out to be a beautiful sunny day.


The scene pretty much all day on the East Fork.


Brad Kee at the crux of a significant rapid early on.

Final drop of same rapid

Billy Murphy's doing it, too.
You can't really see in the picture, but all the water on river right crashes into the undercut rock on which I'm standing creating a nasty sieve. It was very ugly, but everybody smoothed this one.

The "baby gorilla" drop towards the end of the good stuff.
This rapid is a name taker, most everyone in our group was forced to take an underwater geology lesson here.

After "baby gorilla", the big stuff's over, but I thoroughly enjoyed the continuous paddle out. What a run! And what a badass place to be with a good group of friends. We took our time with a big group and I still found myself back in Asheville by 4:30.
Check out the short East Fork video below.



Later,
D