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

Summer of Lars on the South Yuba

May 25, 2009
The 49 to Bridgeport run on the S. Yuba is a classic. We caught it with around 900 cfs, a dreamy level if you don't mind a few big holes. The river is characterized by big powerful drops usually in committing canyons.




Ryan at an early scout.

Ryan and I did this one after running the Edwards to Purdon's section with Sarah and Heidi. The "E2P" is a fantastic run in itself, right up there with Chamberlain Falls on the N. American. Anyways, we opted to do it over the more difficult Purdon's to 49 section due to high water, lack of a guide, limited daylight, and the fact there was only two of us. In the end, we were happy with our decision.




you get quite a few of these on the S. Yuba






There's also plenty of cool ledges




The S. Yuba is such a pretty river! All sections considered, (and I haven't done them all), it's one of my favorite rivers in California. And now there's the Yuba Gap run that's as hairy as they come. Yeah, there's something for everyone. I look forward to hitting that one next year.





Ryan coming into Cornerpocket



Towards the end of the run you come to a couple of serious rapids. The first isn't pictured, but it's a slide with a giant hole. The slide is not straightforward and it prevents you from gathering any speed whatsoever. I was happy to discover that the hole flushes quite nicely despite looking horrendous. Just watch out for dead opossums floating in the recirculating eddy at the bottom.



The second is called Cornerpocket. It consists of a deceivingly pushy entry into a horseshoe ledge that feeds into a nasty undercut cliff on river left.



The ledge that wants to feed you into the undercut wall that I'm standing on. There's about a 15 or 20 foot boil line that adds to the intimidation factor.




The "cornerpocket" is to Ryan's left in this picture



Where you don't wanna be


One more sweet ledge


We blitzed the run in a little over two hours, arriving in Bridgeport around 6:30 to meet the ladies who were happy to see us with so much daylight to spare.
You just gotta hit the S. Yuba.
Peace

Summer of Lars, Part III

Fordyce Creek

May 23, 2009

Fordyce hike-in
After Canyon Creek we had plans to run Fordyce Creek the next day. I'm not sure if I'd say Fordyce is an all out classic, but it's pretty damn close. I only say it's not a total classic because there is definitely some mank in there that alot of people don't like the looks of. With that said, while on the river I met up with an old timer who informed me that "everything on Fordyce is runnable", so there's that. I think what he meant was everything has been run and I believe him but there's one or two in there that are really manky.

The length of the hike-in on Fordyce depends on the condition of Fordyce Lake Rd. Traditionally, Fordyce releases in late summer when the road is free (or almost) of snow and you can drive directly to the dam with a 4WD. This year, Fordyce released a good flow the entire month of May which meant we were goin' in, snowed out road or not. We made it to within about four miles to the lake before the snowbanks began. Luckily, only the first mile is uphill and then you start descending down to the lake which makes for some fun kayak sledding.

Portage #1. It's overexposed and hard to see, but it's manky. Not to mention all the flow slams into the rocks I'm standing on.

Jordan at the top of a cool drop early on. The scenery up there is beautiful high sierra country. Lars was right when he wrote that it's a must-do for anyone with aspirations of paddling the harder high-sierra stuff.

You wanna boof this one for sure.

Speaking of boof..

Shortly downstream we came to this beauty of a boof. It reminded me of the flying squirrel move at the pencil sharpner just bigger and better. That's John-boy finding the sweet spot.

Steve in a cool walled-out rapid.

More scenery

There were some big boys in there that I don't have pics of mainly because of the need to set good safety. One rapid, I think it was rotatercuff, took Jordan for a lengthy underwater geology lesson. He was under for so long he actually pulled his skirt and began swimming before him or his boat resurfaced. Scary.

When things start to get really manky on Fordyce you know the lake is near. At this point, you can either shoulder you boat and take the trail to the lake, or just bomb down that shit. Whatever you do, don't bomb into a sieve cuz there's a couple of those.

Here's an entertaining little clip of East meets West falls on the S. fork of the Yuba. I don't recommend running it backwards, but that's exactly what I did.

Getting ready to throw up some S. Yuba 49 to Bridgeport pics and then it's on with Royal and West Cherry, I swear they're comin'.

Keep it downstream upright.

Summer of Lars, Continued

After the UMC trip we returned to Camp Lotus to spend a couple days on the S. Fork of the American before we shot up to the North Yuba area. There the plan was to run Pauley and Lavazolla creeks and then to hit the Goodyears Bar section on the N. Yuba with the ladies.

John running a ledge on Lavazolla, it think.

Well, guess I only have some pics of this drop on Lavazolla and nothing on Pauley, thought I had both. Anyways, both proved to be fun runs and a nice warm-up for Canyon and Fordyce creeks. But, first these pics.

Ted Cookson


John

Ryan Marquart

Steve

Canyon Creek (S. Yuba trib.)

May 21, 2009

The boys at the put-in

Ryan running the first good double drop that had a pothole on the bottom left. Our buddy Ted Cookson found out about that one after getting stuck in the hole.

Ted on the first drop. Right after I snapped this pic Ted spun out and ran the second drop backwards.

Overall, Canyon Creek was a good class 4 run with a few class 5's thrown in to spice it up. The releases are part of a flow study that AW helped negotiate. I'd estimate we had no more than 300cfs, which, felt pretty darn low in a lot of places. I'd definitely say 250 is the min. with 450 or 500 being really good.

One of the dicey rapids

finishing it up

Shortly before the confluence with the S. Yuba the creek gorges up and there's a serious of 4 or 5 drops. Each one is manageable in itself but the proximity of undercut rocks and the committing gorge make it very memorable.

Jordan on the second to last drop in the final gorge

check out the MJ

It's hard to tell when this one will have water. Check out the AW page and dreamflows to find out when they're releasing and then go get it cause it's fun one with easy logistics.

More Cali pics and video on the way along with in depth TR's of Royal Gorge and West Cherry Creek. Go kayaking fools.

peace