Royal Gorge

This has to be one of the most anticipated runs in the whole of California. A sketchy put in, super remote location and some HUGE rapids make it one of the runs which gets spoken of in reverent tones in beaten up cars and dingy bars all over the state. Stories of epic trips come out of Royal every year which only serve to fuel the gossip mill.
This season, like everything else, Royal was flowing 5-6 weeks later than normal and we had been eagerly waiting for the flows to drop into the runnable window (of course this differed for some with a super early trip going in super high and walking all of the big stuff).

It was like waiting for a Christmas day which kept shifting further away and I was getting stressed that I wouldn't get it. Turns out I had nothing to worry about. With a little kiwi crew of Brad and Toni we joined up with Evan Garcia, Will Pruett and Drew Duvall. Evan wanted to wait until flows were a little lower becasue he was hatching a plan - more on that later.

Ok bear with me here because I have to set the scene a little bit.
The put in for Royal is on private land and even though it's only for 5 metres the owners/manager are known for stopping kayakers getting on and even having them arrested for tresspassing. For this reason you have to be cunning and get your boat all loaded up and your gear on before you get there. We did all of this at a pull over further up the road and it pretty much just served to make us more and more nervous about the run.

We got to the put in and it was a mad scramble getting boats off, running to the river and putting on before anyone came and tried to stop us. We had a 200m flat to warm up on, a portage around a dam/weir and then it was all on.
Royal gorge didn't muck around with any lead in rubbish - it was straight into some pretty steep, very tight, low volume creeking. With Evan and his photographic memory leading the charge we made good time through the steep, semi mank into a cleaner section (which was still steep). An hour and a half saw us at the first of the biggy's of the run.

Heath one from the lip

The heath springs gorge is the first staunch part of Royal. It starts off with a burly lead in then a 35-40 footer - Heath one. It then carries on to Heath two, a 40 - 50 footer into a pool with a slot 15 footer to exit. After this the river enters the lower Heath gorge which is a staunch set of 5+ rapids in an inescapable canyon.

Me running Heath one.

We all ran Heath one with good times except for Brad snapping his paddle. Evan and Drew were fired up for Heath two so we set safety/cameras everywhere. Evan went first and greased it (funny how he seems to do that a lot..). Drew went over the bars and his deck imploded and he only just made the eddy before the slot drop which would have been savage to run with a full boat. The boys then ran the gorge while we portaged around it.

Drew running Heath two

After the Heath gorge there were some fun rapids and slides until the rattlesnake entry gorge. This had a portage and then a rapid with a rather retentive hole in it.

Evan boofing clear

This lead us straight into our campsite for the night and possibly the sickest campsite I've stayed at on a river. Rattlesnake falls - a 50 footer is right next to it and the boys were fired up to run it as soon as we arived. They all had nice lines and we had a super chilled time at the camp that afternoon.The rattlesnake campsite - sick!

Brad on the rattler


Me sending it.

Day two kicked off with me and Toni firing the rattler up, she greased it and I went over the bars a little but it was still a pretty soft hit. Lots of choice rapids lead us slowly (or actually quite quickly) to the biggest drop in the run. Scott's drop is the stoutest thing I've seen over here so far, a 30 foot drop into a big hole into a slide into a 20 foot drop. It's unbelievably big and scary. Evan was fired up to run it so we quickly portaged around it and got out the throwbags and cameras.
Evan came in and styled the top of the drop but got kicked over the bars at the bottom hitting a rock in the landing and getting ejected. It was a super impressive line and unlucky that he didn't clean it.
Drew's line went a little diferently however.. He went over the bars on the first part but rolled up in the pool, he then had to work hard to get left and he din't quite make it. The same rock that kicked Evan threw him into the wall where he proceeded to get the equivalent of a curb stomping on the wall losing four teeth and getting a concussion just for good measure.

Drew just about to eat it.

This made things a little more serious, being so remote walking out was pretty much out of the question so Will and Drew decided to just bomb out in one day to get Drew to the dentist - no mean feat when you are concussed and juiced up on candy.
We carried on down to the last big drop on the run where Evan wanted to cap off his grand plan - run all of the big drops in Royal in one trip which hadn't been done before. Funnily enough he greased the 70 foot Wabena falls in the same freakish style he had done the rest of the run with.

Evan getting ready to take it deep on Wabena

After Wabena we cruised through some more rapids and stayed at another sick camp where we were mercilessly savaged by mosquitoes until dark.

Sweet as lazy boys even!

The last day was a bit of a slog through about 25 miles of easy rapids to the takeout where the ever reliable MUM was waiting to take us to the closest available fast food outlet.
Next up we are off to Dinky creek and the southern drainages which are coming in left right and centre. I'm fired up!!!!! (in dirty southern accent)

All pics from this run are from the esteemed Ms Toni George, chur!!!

Golden Gate

The last couple of weeks here have been pretty busy, there were a lot of different plans happening at once so it was a bit of a juggling act trying to figure out what to do. After a cheeky run on the Lover's Leap section of the South American with Nick Wimsett and a bunch of Americans I finally managed to catch up with the old boys (they like to call themselves the masters team but we can't let them get too carried away) after a lot of missed communication via roaming NZ phones which don't work that well.

The call was for golden gate - another run on the South American which is supposed to be a long day of super cool rapids.
We got to the put in and found Mr Johnstone dozing peacefully while the others ran shuttle and it slowly transpired that we were going to have ten kiwis on a run in California - sick!

The run starts off pretty chill with everyone cruising down all over the show and then we got to the first scout. After this the gradient just stood up and didn't let up all day, sick boat scoutable boulder gardens interspersed with bigger rapids which precipitated scouts (or probes by John and James..) Everything for the day was ran except for F-111 which has a pretty terrible hole and no one could be bothered because it was right at the end.

Check the photos - this was my favourite 'river' run so far in Cali.

T Pickering on the runout of the first big rapid of the day - drainpipe

Snook probing 'Taco Bell - the last place you'd want to be'

Now I know this is semi bad form but apparantly this is a rare image - Mr Keith Riley getting a little mixed up and going over the main drop of Taco Bell backwards and upside down...

Me on my favourite rapid of the run, I'm not 100% but I think its called 'All Fucked Up'??

DJ in the midst of All Fucked Up

After a sick day we made a plan to do the upper Silver fork of the South American. We lost a couple of people and gained one so we still had a big crew. We had another cool day on another cool run - no photos but that's ok. It was mean catching up and paddling with more crew from home - B is coming soon which will be awesome but in the meantime... shiver.. Royal Gorge was in...

Kimshizzle

The last week in Cali has been the best of our trip so far. We started off with a sick day in the Arches national park in Utah on our way home from Vail, then we had a pool party at a mates place.
We then got a little lap on the Slab creek section of the South fork American river - a cool little 4-5 mission.

Thursday saw us back in the UMC (Upper Middle Consumnes) for a sick day of creeking. Unfortunately Josh took himself out of the game trying to plug V-Slide upside down - we had to nurse a very sick, very sore little man out of the rest of the run.Me running what we dubbed 'no lookee' on the UMC (apparantly it has a name but it's way more fun making up your own)

Friday started slowly and we finally made it to do the summit run on the South Yuba which culminates in a sick drop called East meets West which got the hearts going nicely. Mr Neilson organised another party for us to go to down in Clear lake which we did in style and then Saturday dawned.....

The crew scouting east meets west

I pretty much got to live out a life dream - ride behind big mean wakeboard boat and try to huck myself until I blow an eardrum. Turns out Josh's friends came equipped with a sick house, a sick patio boat and an even sicker wakeboarding boat. We hung out all day cranking dance music and watching Wes and Vince throw down some savage tricks behind the boat and even getting to ride a little ourselves.

Me throwing the fronty, pic - Neilson

Vince packing a tantrum, pic - Neilson

We finally managed to drag ourselves away from paradise (it was a tricky decision) and rally to meet B1 and B2 (Barny and Jordy) in Oroville. They had just got off South Branch and were broken so the next day we found ourselves once again in the very capable navigational hands of Mr J Neilson winding our way into the hills once more for one of the runs we've been waiting for all season.... Big Kimshew Creek.
This thing gets talked about in reverent tones by all of the locals and semi-locals alike as being one of the 'big 5' - the five best day runs in Cali. So it was with a mixture of excitement and trepidation that we put on at the island portage for a day of adventure.

Josh showing me how to use the go-pro (I didn't really succeed)

The run kicked off in style with the first real rapid having a pushy lead in, to 15 foot auto boof. We then got stuck into a few hundred metres of pretty full on boulder gardens before another set of stacked rapids, some more boulder gardens, some more rapids, some more boulder gardens.. you get the picture??
Then the character changed and went all slidey which was super fun, low stress creeking. After a wee while of this we came to the first big one and the signal of the start of the stouts.
Kimshew falls is a pretty rowdy looking 40-ish footer with some reconnects etc which looks like it might air you out or send you over the bars. We were pleasantly surprised to find it goes a lot better than it looks and all had nice lines.

Kimshew falls from the top - check the stacked gorge below it, swimming would be awesome...

J-dog lining up first and greasing it

Me doing the same - I hit the water at the dream angle and came screaming out upright - soft as bro!!

After the falls was the sick gorge which had so many clean moves - It looked and felt like what I imagine the high sierra runs are like.. fingers crossed.
We portaged around triple drop which is super burly but goes - we didn't have enough time to set up the elaborate safety we thought we needed. After triple drop the river changed character and went 'cracky' - several slots and tight drops led us into the next big one.
Frenchies was named for some dude who bombed in and ran right and got punished as the drop is 30+ feet onto rocks on that side. It involves a portage of the entrance, a seal launch into a pothole and then a strong ferry across to set you up for the line. I was feeling fired up about it and decided to send it. Pulling out of the eddy I set my angle and rolled off a little left of centre. I saw the left flake go past and started to tuck - just as I felt my tail go a little past vert.. Big hit, semi over the bars but I rolled up fine with just a little sore head.

Geting ready for the hit

After Frenchies it was just rapid after rapid after rapid, everything went, hits were taken, rolls were had in dubious spots as we all lost energy. Finally we made it to the take out drop.

As is often the case - J-dog probing the line. In this case finding a rock in the bottom...

Jared buried in the curtain.

Me tired and just falling off. And yes I found the rock too.

This creek was the sickest thing I have ever run and also the sorest I've been at the end of a days boating. I can't wait to go back next time. Hopefully next time won't include the 10km walk out up the locked takeout road, but it's ok - the rose tinted sunnies have pretty much erased the walkout from my memory...

Consumption

Apparantly it is summer here. Could've fooled me.
This last week has also been raining and cold all week but we've still managed to paddle most days despite spending large amounts of time playing Tony Hawk 3 (damn you Ben Jackson)
The run of the week has been the Upper Middle Consumnes. We did it on Monday with six of us and then went in yesterday with more water and ten of us. It turned into a bit of an epic with five swims, a broken paddle and a cracked boat.
I wont get too carried away with this post because Jamie and Jordy have got it pretty much covered on their blogs so check the links from here.
We're checking options just now and have a few things on the go so keep an eye out for our weekend antics.

Pauley

Pauley creek was another little mission which people were saying was worthwhile - nice grade 4 in a super cool gorge. We rallied up through Downieville which is probably my favourite town so far in the states (think Arrowtown but way cooler and bigger) and met up with Leela and Toni and some other dudes. On the way in we saw a super cool looking gorge on the North Yuba which looked fun so we set shuttle below this (Pauley creek flows into the N Yuba).
Pauley turned out to be a little low but it was still fun with some cool boofs in a little mini gorge.

J dog running a little sloper to kick things off for the day

This right here children is a classic example of how to execute 'the burning man' Note the high arm position with weight as far back as possible - these are key features if you hope to finish the move in the classic, 'imploded deck to swim in hole' manner.


The last drop on Pauley - no it wasn't sweet, the camera managed to capture the moment just before my tail clipped and I found myself staring straight at the ledge at the bottom. awesome.

Feeling a wee bit despondent with the levels in Pauley we found redemption in some big water action in the gorge on the North Yuba - with big waves, big boils and big holes we had the time of our lives rallying down this section. Apparantly it has a name but I've forgotten it, but we had grins from ear to ear by the time we all popped out the bottom.

Summer?

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.

Chilling

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.

Jamie boofing for the money

The mothership waiting patiently at the takeout.