It was just about the best thing in the world when I was able to get out on the water on Saturday afternoon. I went out to the Orosi valley with my new amigo Ferdinand to paddle the Upper Orosi River.
I got Ferdinand's phone number from a friend of a friend and just randomly called him last week to see if he was paddling over the weekend. The Answer was YES and he also told me that he lives pretty close to me here in San Jose, he has an extra boat that I can paddle, and he can drive to the river. So I guess everything kinda fell into place.
We got to the river to find a medium flow and a big Class V rapid at the put-in. The first rapid is called the Dinosaur Gorge. I don't know about you but whenever I hear something refered to as a dinosaur, I automatically assume it is pretty cool, lucky I was correct in this assumption.
The Dinosaur Gorge drops about 150 in half a mile. There are about 3 or 4 main drops with lots of other little stuff in between. I like to compare this section of the river to The Five Falls section of the Chattooga River, except bigger. There were all kinds of sieves and undercuts to dodge and lots of boofing to be had. It was a lot of fun, but since I haven't been in a boat in over a month, my lines were a little shaky. I was only able to take pictures on one of the last smaller drops coming out of the gorge because I was busy following Ferdinand through the upper sections.
This rapid was pretty cool because there were two different lines that you could take, so we ran one line, then got out and walked back up to run the other line. Think alien boof and mikey's ledge on the upper o...
Here's Ferdinand on the left line:
I got Ferdinand's phone number from a friend of a friend and just randomly called him last week to see if he was paddling over the weekend. The Answer was YES and he also told me that he lives pretty close to me here in San Jose, he has an extra boat that I can paddle, and he can drive to the river. So I guess everything kinda fell into place.
We got to the river to find a medium flow and a big Class V rapid at the put-in. The first rapid is called the Dinosaur Gorge. I don't know about you but whenever I hear something refered to as a dinosaur, I automatically assume it is pretty cool, lucky I was correct in this assumption.
The Dinosaur Gorge drops about 150 in half a mile. There are about 3 or 4 main drops with lots of other little stuff in between. I like to compare this section of the river to The Five Falls section of the Chattooga River, except bigger. There were all kinds of sieves and undercuts to dodge and lots of boofing to be had. It was a lot of fun, but since I haven't been in a boat in over a month, my lines were a little shaky. I was only able to take pictures on one of the last smaller drops coming out of the gorge because I was busy following Ferdinand through the upper sections.
This rapid was pretty cool because there were two different lines that you could take, so we ran one line, then got out and walked back up to run the other line. Think alien boof and mikey's ledge on the upper o...
Here's Ferdinand on the left line:
Stylin' it as usual
And goin deep in the hole...
Rockin' out in the Pink Rocker! (enlarge picture to see additional facial hair)
Ferdinand stylin the right line
The scene at the take out, check out the pink boat, hell yeah...I was pretty lucky to be able to borrow a boat from Ferdinand. It is a very broken, but still functionable Pink Jackson Rocker, with three cracks in the hull. The boat held up better than I did on this run.
I'm really stoked to have gotten on this run. I've heard people compare it to the Green Narrows of San Jose. Ferdinand and I are going to make a habit of getting out there about twice a week for the rest of the time that I'm here. Pura Vida mi'e.
