We haven't really been experiencing the textbook Californian summer of clear skies and super hot days - rain, hail and snow have pretty much been the go for the last week. As a result the water is still locked up in the snowpack for all of the big runs. Last week we got on a couple of small creeks along with the ever present South Yuba runs. We got on the Purdons section of the South Yuba (directly above the 49 run) with ten people and proceeded to blue angel four miles of grade 5 with ten people - needless to say I have no memories of any rapids (except where three of us got punished in a hole together) and no photos either. One of the creeks we did get on was called canyon creek, it was flowing due to a release further upriver as part of a flow study (to see what sort of recreational use it gets). It started off pretty manky so the west coast part of our team (Jared) was off like a shot ("It's just like the Styx bro!!!") We followed at a somewhat slower pace not being quite so skilled at bouncing down tight boulder gardens blind.
When it did clean up there were some cool drops on bedrock - Skux getting it done.
Jared on the runout
Me on another little boof
After the bedrock there were some mini gorge rapids which proved to be quite punishing and we all took a few hits in some steep, tight rapids. All in all it was a cool little mission - more NZ than California but it sounds like not many people have been in there so it was cool to get on something which doesn't go very often.
We've had a bit of a slow week here, we pretty much spent it waiting around for a chance to fix our car which had a terrible shudder (think massage chair) and so we were pretty limited in where we could go. We confined ourselves to the 49 to bridgeport section of the South Yuba which is only an hour away - and about the limit of what we could take from our van which felt like it was falling apart... The 49 section is super cool, two hours of pool drop with some boulder gardens thrown in. There are so many awesome classic moves and no mank - and the best part... portages - 0 This run has become our afternoon/evening run when we've got nothing to do and we've had some mean runs down with lots of different crews. Here's a few pics.
Americans are funny
J dog on crack team/ten (we're unsure about the name because we can't understand Justin's accent when he's excited)
Jared landing the same
Me on another choice little boof
Me on the crux of the run - corner pocket, it has a tricky entrance down to a sticky hole and just to add to the experience, a terrible undercut which you are pretty much guaranteed to go into if you swim. Ask Jared - he came up blue, fun times.
We've been in California for five days now and its been pretty eventful so far. After the mandatory savage flight to LA, we were met by Paige and her mum in their car (I'm using the term loosely here - it was an F250 with duals on the back) for the 8 hour drive up to Auburn which is our base for the next three months. That evening we were acquainted? with our sweet new pad - The trouse (or trouser) is like an old trailer which has kind of been added to to make a weird semi permanent dwelling, the water doesn't work so we have a hose in the window for dishes/cups of tea etc but we do have electricity so it's kind of like living in a tent with walls and power..
The sweet spew bag on the V-Australia flight. Obviously fully sick is now our new catch phrase.
Casual unnecessarily large ute. Note the extra wide fenders to accommodate extra unnecessary set of wheels.
Part of team dirtbag out the front of the trouse.
Anyway it basically goes without saying that our first night in the trouse turned into a bender, lots of choice dudes turned up to celebrate some random mexican holiday and we all know the best liquid to come from mexico... One of said dudes was Justin Patt - Auburn local and paddler. Amidst much festivity a plan was hatched to do the 49 to bridgeport run on the South Yuba river. The next day arrived at about 2pm and we rallied to do our first river in Cali - pretty good for our first day!! The run was a sweet grade 4-5 mission down a sick pool drop river with so many sick moves - just what the doctor ordered. Friday was an organisation day. Mum - our trusty minivan, has a terrible shudder which renders her marginal for long missions on freeways so we're trying to sort that out and get her operational again. The highlight so far though has been our Saturday mission though. The boys here are all fired up about the season because there is a heap of snow which hasn't even started melting yet. This means there will be heaps of sick runs coming in in the next few weeks.
One of these runs is one of the most iconic and photogenic of them all.. The south branch of the middle fork of the Feather river (yes I know its a mouthful but apparantly naming tributaries is not the go over here..) This thing is the business - everyone has seen the photos of endless ledge drops capped off with a perfect rolling 50 footer and it didn't disappoint. We rallied up there with Justin and Taylor Cavin and met a couple of others on the way. Here are some photos of the day.Me on the first 20 of the day - split falls
Taylor stomping all hell out of the same
The Tony Hawk drop - sickness
Justin flying off Tony Hawk
Jared doing the same
Taylor launching on high pressure 20 - this drop is named because it's right above 99 problems - a 40 footer which lands on a shelf and you have to make an eddy right above it..
China slide - because it takes you to China!! This slide was right above a huge portage and most of us didn't run it, we had to portage down and then do a super scary ferry across the top of a 100 foot death drop - going upside down was not an option.
Apparently we were in there at quite a high flow (like no one in our crew had been in there that high - ish awkward?) which made all the waterfalls nice and soft but brought in some sketchy moves like the China ferry which aren't usually there.
Jared running the last move of the day...
The take out is at the top of another huge set of unrun beasts (80 feet +)
The south branch is a sick run and pretty much the dream intro to California we were hoping for, some cool rapids, so many amazing drops and a nice big girl at the end to get the heart pumping! Now we've got to fix our car and hopefully catch up with the rest of the kiwi crew here. We're off to do our new local run - 49 to bridgeport so we'll get some photos to throw up soon. Churrrrr
Its Sunday afternoon. I've just finished work after the early shift and head straight home to check the guages. The weather sites had been saying there was going to be heavy rain for the Kaimais the night before (this is no cause for excitement believe me. They call heavy rain warnings for every front these days - post OPC debacle) so I wanted to check the flows. It has been a pretty dry spell for creeking so we were all pretty fevered about any rain. Reports started filtering back from the recon team on site (the people paddling the Wairoa), saying it was pouring down there with all the little tribs emptying brown muddy water into the main river... "Sounds good" we say to ourselves, and proceed to rally a crew who are keen for a cheeky Tuakopai bomb. We decide to wait for confirmation from the scout team about whether it was on or not to drive over. Unfortunately, said scout team consisted of three notoriously excitable characters for whom communication via cell phone falls a long way behind such things as flooded rivers and journeys to Mcdonalds to wait and see what level the flooded rivers will reach.... Anyway, to cut a long dribble short, the entire Kaimais got savaged by a rain bomb which made all the creeks/rivers/ditches go mental. The Wairoa was a metre above the seal launch rock (for those who don't know this is about 5-6m above normal release flow). The Tuakopai was too high to get on and Messr's Bayly, Sutton and Martin were almost ready to give up and come home. The Okere falls crew stayed put because we heard it was too high to run anything. The boys had one last check of their guage stick and found the Tuakopai was dropping so they persevered and were rewarded with a sick high water run on dark. Anyway this rain set the scene for the next day. We spent the evening scheming and getting thoroughly over excited about what to run, finally coming up with a list of options depending on levels. Waking up early we found lots of the creeks had dropped out leaving us with only a few options. B, me and Wills rallied with team cascades (Timmy, Pete and Scotty) over to the Wairoa to see what the levels were looking like. The Ngamuwahine looked ok so the call was made to roll into the upper. This meant a long day so I had to rearrange priorities for my afternoon.. My boss is choice - she lets me have time off to go creeking. We set the shuttle and got our walk on into the very top of the Kaimais. The run starts right up on the plateau just meandering through the forest leaving everyone to wonder what was in store. Then it sits up into some cool read and run grade four that we had fun bombing through..
Scotty getting into the action - one of the early rapids
After a short while we got to the horizon line which signals the start of the money section - a sketchy slot into a 20 footer which we didn't run, then the biggest drop 'Handlebars'..
The lineup from downstream, handlebars is the biggy with the first drop above.
Scotty kicked things off by pioneering a new seal launch which saved us a shitty portage and set the scene for some good entertainment. A name like handlebars inspires a lot of thought as to the possible consequences of a drop. And yes, it is perfectly named.. It's about a 35 foot-ish slide to not-quite-vert with a kicker halfway down which launches you out to hopefully clear the last part of it. If you don't quite clear it and your tail reconnects guess what.... Thats right, 35 feet, to violent kick, to land on your face. Dream scenario.
Me just about to take off. I had the benefit of watching nearly everyone else's lines and so managed to send it and clear the reconnect for a nice soft landing.
After handlebars had claimed its share of burning faces, it was down to the next eddy for a scout of the double drop - back to back 15's with a tricky entrance.
Timmy and me discussing the line for the first one (the line for the second one doesn't matter - you resurface and try and get a boof in before going off)
Double drop from below, we didn't get photos of anyone going off but there is some video which I'll try and get up.
After some stellar (and not so stellar) lines along with a couple of dented boats off double drop it was more fun grade four boulder gardens with only one portage out to the cars.
B lighting up a sweet little drop
Tim about half a second before his second brand new Ty Warp snapped clean in two..
We got to the cars and had a Korero about what to do. It was decided that three of us would carry on and do the normal Ngamu run and then out into the Mangakarengorengo for some nice clean big water, while the other three ran the shuttle.
Me and Wills cruising down the normal Ngamu run.
In true fashion I managed to take a roll in a nothing rapid after all the hard stuff on the day was over and had my thumbs/fingers remodelled by the ever obliging Kaimai rocks. This pretty much killed my buzz and I limped down the Mangas trying to stay out of trouble.
This is the very first move on the Mangas. Mean.
The boys, (Pete and Wills) had no such issues and were loving the big bouncy rapids.
The abyss from below
They both fired the abyss and had sweet lines, (a sweet line on the abyss consists of boofing into the guts and managing to stay upright for the rest of the rapid)
Mr Pete Lodge being blunt about things. - What a pun.
Sick day, sick crew, now it's back to laps on the Tuna until we get some more rain...
Here's a little vid, just shot off the boys' point and shoots.
Why haven't I posted anything on here for months....? Combination of factors really - No fast internet access (thanks Telstra - you suck), Neilson has most of our missions covered on his blog, But most of all, all of our crew are back for summerand we've been having way too much fun to worry about such menial tasks as updating obscure blogs that no one reads anyway.
In saying that, here's a summary of our summer so far...
Random surf trips with no rhyme, reason or destination - the best kind.
Every Sunday we go to church. Except that the god we pray to tends to lean towards cyclones and cold fronts rather than forgiveness and retribution.Sanga, rollercoaster rapid - Wairoa river. Photo - Lu Urwin
Binge drinking takes up a large proportion of nights.
Party at Soph's - Ohope
Followed by all sorts of antics the next day...J dog - Superman whale grab
Josh is our resident film maker complete with all manner of electronics to play with.
Neilson/Fox - Trout pool falls, Kaituna
There have been some big missions... Team Okere made the pilgrimage to Taupo to fire the stout that lives there...
Sanga - Middle drop of Aratiatia
Followed by a mission the next week to the central plateau to take on the awesome tree trunk gorge.
Me dropping into the most amazing place I have ever been in a kayak
Then it was new years... Corogold!!! Katchafire, Tiki, Kora, Shapey, Sunshine sound system.....
G Brown. Nuff said.
Lake Taupo beckoned with some sweet times in Kinloch with the family.
Of course there were ulterior motives too.... Waihaha waterfall (And no it doesn't go - death slot in the lead in.)
Complete with the sickest jetski ride up to it!!
The notorious Okere falls crew complete with toys, moustaches and creepy pick up lines.
Keep an eye on Whitewater-koa for footy of the big stuff.
1 - Mothers are bad for you. Not the people. The energy drinks. I already knew this but time had blurred the memories of what happens when you drink three of them in three hours.
2 - Take a topo map. Then your walk in will only take the specified 2-3 hours instead of five and a half.
3 - The east coast is the business. When the next cyclone comes, go there.
In the midst of a post race day hangover, with no motivation to do anything except sleep, I found myself being turned back five minutes up the Taupo road because it was "snowed under mate!" Getting back home I found the Taihape and Waikaremoana roads were also closed because of a freakish spring storm and the road south was shut because some nutter was running around with a gun.
This left the interesting situation of being essentially stranded at home. Not too much of a problem when you have a fire to sit next to and a deep pantry but it was a slight issue because we were supposed to be doing the motu the next day... (turned out it was ish high - 1200 cu at the bottom...) Anyway after much frantic communication with the other half of the team (DnB Bayly - in Ohope), "Where's the rain!?, What are the Kaimai's doing?, shall we hit the Mangawhio?", we remembered a sneaky little third option - "bro the Ruakituri is going straight up".
So with the entire east coast getting hammered we made a plan to meet at an obscure tiny little place called Te Reinga which boasts an impressive five houses, six horses and a big beast of a waterfall. With the Ruakituri looking a little high (like Africa big) we decided to do little creek just south of Te Reinga which the Matt Danes had sent me some info on the day before. It started off super promising with lots of cool hydroslide action and a couple of big drops which needed more water. But then it suffered from some dodgy strainers and went a bit flat. But all was not lost, after the creek joined the Ruakituri we had the sickest surf session in our creek boats all the way to the takeout!
Then the next part of the plan emerged. A quick Korero (discussion, for those of you not bilingual like me), and we decided to stay somewhere in the vicinity of Wairoa and have another look at the Ruakituri the next day. A few quick phone calls and we were en route to Colin and Marg Baynes' house for the night. Some awesome hospitality from them saw us reluctant to leave the next day but we had places to walk and shit to run.
The upper upper Ruaktiuri was pioneered by Ben, Zac and Elby last year and had sparked a lot of interest since then due to one particular photo of a multi tiered slide which looked amazing. So ten thirty on Wednesday found us in about the most remote area of the country looking at a rather large hill which we had to wander over (rose tinted sunnies anyone?). We were guessing the walk would take about 2-3 hours and hopefully wouldn't be too bad. Little did we know...
Five and a half hours later we stood at the side of the put in slide (yes it was the multi tiered one) having been stuck in mud, lost, bush bashed, lost again and stung by nettles. All thoughts of our walk were immediately forgotten as we prepared to put on and run some Papa goodness.
What followed was two hours of choiceness.
I've been waiting to use a new word I made up for a while now so prepare for a rant. If the plural of hoof is hooves and the verb of groove is grooving... Guess where I'm going with this. Thats right, I feel it's time we expanded our vocabulary as kayakers so the plural of boof must be booves and the verb must be booving??? Anyway, thats what we did down the Ruakituri - got our boove on - Slides, big water rapids, west coast boulder gardens and clean drops made for one of the most unique rivers I've seen. And the best part - portages = 0
Check it. Note - we didn't video most of the best rapids because, well, we were just having to much fun. And true to form, it was getting dark. Same old.
After this is was an all out rush back to vegas over three hours of winding, gravel, horse infested road - hence the 1.5 litres of energy drink. We arrived home at two in the morning just in time for Daryl to drive to Hamilton and start work at four. He's a committed man.
"You guys can't paddle that, you're idiots! don't you read the newspapers?" This is how our latest creeking foray into the Kaimais started. For the last wee while rumours have been rife around here about a new creek that was sounding like it could be our answer to the Styx on the west coast. Almost natural flowing, nice and steep and super easy access.
But the story doesn't start with that. Last Friday, after I did a late night mission to Te Awamutu to catch the Mangawhio (and then missed it again), I got back to the falls only to hear that Brad, Ryan Lucas and Petey had gone to the Kaimais to run this new creek - the Whatakau. At about seven o'clock rumours started trickling in that something had gone wrong... Slowly all the pieces came together and we heard the pretty sobering news that young fulla was in Tauranga hospital with a broken back after running a big slide. This news, while pretty bad, only served to get the gossip really flowing, "It's a first D", "It got ran the other day", "It's even steeper downstream"....
Naturally we had to check it out. With the weather coming to the party and filling it up a little, Big dog Bayly and I decided to go and see what the fuss was about and what the bottom section held. After the usual logistical organisational hiccups (get lost in Tauranga trying to find a topo map, stop at bakery, etc etc),we finally got to the top of the creek where we met a little resistance in the form of a farmer who was convinced he would be the last person we ever saw, "Look if it was able to be done we all would have done it", "I've done some kayaking myself ya know".
Anywho, we decided we might just back ourselves on this occasion and off we went. The put in is just below a massive, savage, unrunnable beast of a slide and we kicked off straight into some cool little slides and drops. A little way down we decided that the "Almost natural flows bro!" call may have been a bit optimistic.
B about to get on
Contemplating a terrible slippery portage. The other option looked like fall off - to piton. More water and she'd be sweet.
Everything would have been mean with another couple of cumecs to pad it out. Anyway eventually we came to Ryan's slide (don't think there'll be any challenges to that name) and both decided we were quite fond of our backs so we got our portage on with the help of a pipe which runs down the side of the rocks.
Ryan's slide. The top two thirds look inviting but the bottom has a few rocks. More water? who knows.
After that it was the inevitable, kayak eating, elbow pad needing, Kaimai boulder gardens which Definitely needed more water. Just as we were starting to hate on said boulder gardens, we came to another horizon line into a gorge which precipitated another scout. The entrance rapid loooked a little rowdy with rocks inc, and then we got a look at the exit drop. Money. A perfect twenty footer with the roll in - to boof - to stomp type deal that most kayakers slobber over. My boat decided to run it without me as I was portaging the first one so B got to send 'er first to retrieve it and get it back up to me.
Sending it.
Mean
This drop definitely made the day - more boulder gardens another portage around another unrunnable beast and she was all over.
Another Kaimai creek ticked off, not quite in the same league as the Tuakopai etc but definitely worth a go with some more water, and, funnily enough we didn't die. Go figure.
When it did clean up there were some cool drops on bedrock - Skux getting it done.
Jared on the runout
Me on another little boof
