East Bound To Cola Town and my first experience with Gorilla

After an excruciating 30 hour drive from Buena Vista to Asheville, I met with my good friends Matt and Jonathon for a little AVL husk sesh. We left Jon's house near UNCA around 1am and hucked the middle drop at Triple Falls in DuPont State Park. Running waterfalls in the middle of the night is quite a bit of fun, even if it's not really flowing. The next morning we woke up and did a hike up double on the Green and then I pointed east towards Charlotte. I was very tired when I got home.

Over the next few days, I relaxed at my parents house in Charlotte, and then eventually moved into my new house in Columbia SC for my senior year at USC.

We had a few days before classes started, so me and Matt started bringing my new roommate Bo to the Green for his first runs. Bo did really well out there and was very smart about what to run and what not to run. I'm really happy he's out there with us now.

Above, Bo giviner with the straps and below, givener on Frankenstein

On a related note, I ran Gorilla on the Green for my first time. This is a drop that I've fantasized about ever since I started kayaking, so it was a big day for me.

Gorilla is a three part rapid. The first part is an eight foot drop called Pencil Sharpener. After that, you eddy out and run what's called "The Notch," a four foot drop where the entire river constricts through a slot that's about 3 feet wide. This is where the scare factor comes in - after The Notch, there's about 3 seconds before you go over what they call "The Flume" which is what is generally seen when looking at a photo or video of Gorilla.

the author in utter awe

I ended up flipping in The Notch and I had a pretty terrifying several seconds. When I flipped I knew I had one shot to hit my roll. Luckily I was able to focus and get it upright just as I went over the launch pad. I was pretty far offline to the right, but I was able to keep it upright and safe through the flume. Not a day goes by that I don't think about running that drop. Now I'm super stoked for the Green Race and the rest of the dam release boating season.

rollin into scream machine


(all photos by matt porter)

GOAAAAAAR Canyon: Some Photos From My Last Day of Paddling In Colorado

The day before I left Colorado, I took a day off work to run Gore Canyon with my friend Gordon from CKS and Ashely from MRP. When we arrived at the put-in we were greeted with a nice four mile flat water paddle in to the canyon. I couldn't even tell which direction the river was flowing. It's a good thing both of those guys had been there before because I probably would have started paddling upstream in the wrong direction.

It was a great day out on the water and I'm really glad I was able to snag one more Colorado classic before heading east.

(me in the meat, photo by ashley watts)

(Gordon)

(Ashley)

Verbal Beta in The Crystal Gorge

It seems that the summer boating season has finally ended. All the snow in Colorado has melted and the rivers are running dry. This is a great time of year to wind down and take advantage of the late season favorites.

I went to the Crystal Gorge with my good friend Eric Parker just a couple days after our Clark's Fork Mission. Neither of us had ever run the Crystal Gorge before, so we made sure to get lots of verbal beta.

We met in Marble and started driving the horrendous shuttle ride up the mountain to get to the put in. I was actually impressed with how mellow the shuttle was compared to the runs in the upper drainage (like the North Fork and South Fork of the Crystal).

We finally put on and started scouting our way down the upper part of the creek. It was LOW LOW LOW. We had to scrape over a lot of rocks and such, but we figured it wasn't necessarily such a bad thing considering neither of us had ever been there and our lack of a guide.

We eventually worked our way down to the big daddy rapid of the upper section, Corkscrew/Pinetree Falls. I think I ran it first after an extensive scout and I climbed back up the bank afterward to watch Eric run it.

There is some kind of sketchy broken dam or something right next to this drop on river right, so I was standing on that thing trying to set safety. Eric ended up getting pummeled against a rock in a swirly eddy in Corkscrew but he was able to get it upright and hold it together to style his line through Pinetree. Here's the shots that Eric took of me in Pinetree, unfortunately I didn't get any of him because he ran off with the camera before I could get it from him.




After the beating in Corkscrew, Eric wasn't feeling good about running the Inner Gorge, so after a lot of scouting I decided to drop in solo, while Eric ran ground support from 200 feet above me on the gorge rim.

The entrance to the Inner is a 40 foot waterfall called Zhute Chute. There have been several broken backs here, so it's not to be taken lightly. Luckily I didn't land too flat.

(camera mode accidentally got switched, so the photo is a little blurry)

After Zute Chute, you're incredibly committed to running about 7 more drops deep within the inner gorge. It's pretty intimidating being down in there alone. It made me feel a little better that my ground support crew (Eric) was a very experienced climber, so he could rap in pretty quick if I needed anything. Eric took a couple more pictures of the inner, but the camera setting was still messed up, so they didn't come out very well. I'll put them on here any way.



This was one of my favorite runs in the state (I would say it's tied with Pandora's Box for #1) and I'm so glad I was able to run it just before heading back east. I can't wait to get back out there next summer and run the Crystal Gorge again!

Aspen Trees in Independence Pass, just outside of Aspen CO