4th of July in the Tiny Valley: The Vallecito

I spent my 4th of July in Durango paddling the Vallecito. This is by far one of my favorite rivers I've ever paddled and this little creek brings a new meaning to the words "gorged out." We were able to run it once on Saturday and then two more times on Sunday.

The river started with a sketchy 18 foot waterfall, where if you botch the line you go into a cave where you have to take your PFD and helmet off to free climb through a small crack to get out. We ran this rapid blind, so no photos.

After Entrance Falls (the blind 18 footer) comes Trashcan, one of the nastier looking drops in the gorge. I really wouldn't want to swim through this thing. Bad things happen to people that swim through this thing, so try to keep it upright.


Another great rapid on the creek is called "Fuzzy Little Bunny" which is a difficult 15 foot boof into a highly aerated slot with several curtains of water pouring in from different directions. I imagine it's kinda what it's like running Gorilla on the Green River Narrows

Our guide, Eric, launching off the Bunny


Chris Menges, Plug and Pray

One of the last rapids is the toughest, it's called "Paddle Bitch" and if you screw it up, you get surfed in a hole that slams you into a rock that's shaped like a giant penis... Here's my line:
I ended up "getting dicked" at the end of the rapid, but I was able to surf out with some minor shoulder rape.

Overall this is one of the best rivers I've ever paddled. It is truely a unique experience being down in the gorge with the walls coming out of the river on both sides and going straight up for hundreds of feet. I highly recommend it if you get the chance.
After paddling the Vallecito, I was fortunate enough to experience the hospitality of Eric Parker and his wife Lisa in Durango. They hosted Chris and I for a few days and put on one helluva barbaque, complete with a late night float down the Animas through downtown Durango to watch the fireworks. Thanks a lot guys, you made this one of the best paddling trips I've ever taken.

The South Fork of the Crystal and the Devil's Punchbowls

(Schofield Backcountry)

I recently took a day off work to run some drops near Crested Butte on the South Fork of the Crystal. I always thought that the only runnable drops on the SF Crystal were the Devil's Punchbowls, but we drove up Schofield Pass from the Crested Butte side and found some great runnable vert in the upper part of the drainage.


At the top of the pass, we were greeted by a clean 12 foot drop into a short pool that moved into a manky lead-in to an 18 foot drop. These were a lot of fun to run, so much that I walked up and did it twice. That's me in the photo above, and my friend Chris Menges below.



After these fun drops, we continued down the SF Crystal to the Devil's Punchbowls. The photo below shows my friend Ethan Passant scouting the landing after the first drop.


The level seemed really high and the lag time between the 2 drops was only a couple seconds, so if you messed up the top drop, there wasn't much time to set up for the second drop. Normally this wouldn't be too much of an issue, but the first drop has a very tricky entry, and if you run the second drop on the wrong side, you drop about 25 feet onto a rock. This whole situation really only appealed to one of the guys in our group, Eric Parker. He was the only one of the four of us to run it, and his line was a little less than pretty...

Eric ended up running the top 30 footer backwards, which resulted in a hard landing and a sketchy recovery. Luckily he was able to pull it together and style the second drop. Big Props to Eric for "sackin' up" and running that thing.

Clear Creek Season Wrap Up in the Arkansas Valley

This year I fell in love with Clear Creek, a tributary of the Arkansas River. It's about 20 minutes from my house and it runs through one of the most beautiful valleys in Colorado. I had the pleasure of running this creek about 20 times this season at many different levels ranging from super low, to really high, to flash flood.

Since I moved to Buena Vista, Clear Creek has definitely become my favorite run in the area. It's just so nice to be able to get off work, drive 20 minutes, and then run a few laps of fun/low stress Class V.

Over the past couple weeks, I've adopted a one shuttle vehicle policy which forces me to do a little jogging after kayaking. I'm by no means a "good runner" so 2.5 miles at 10,000 feet can make me start sucking wind pretty quickly. I also am not a big fan of running, but if I have to, the Clear Creek Valley is the most beautiful place to do it.

This creek is a little over 2 miles long and it's only one rapid the whole time. Any single 100 yard stretch of this creek would be considered Class IV by itself, but due to the lack of eddies and recovery zones, it gets a Class V- rating. I think no matter how good of a boater you are, if you flip over on Clear Creek you have a 50-50 chance of swimming. I watched several really good kayakers swim and pin/break their boats up there. It is definitely not a good place to be upside down.

We didn't take many pictures just because it's such a chore to get out of my boat on this run, but here are a couple shots I managed to take last week:

(the crux of the second gorge)

(the end of the first gorge)

(put-in bridge, as you can see - the creek is not very wide)

(I got boofed on about 1/2 second after this was taken)

(myself on the fun one in the second gorge, photo by curtis england)

(dropping into the crux of the 2nd gorge)

I soloed my last lap today after workf. It was pretty nice to go in there alone and have the entire valley to myself. I've found that jogging the shuttle afterwards can be pretty rewarding, it gives you that "earn your turns" mentality that backcountry skiers always brag about.

Now that Clear Creek is too low to run, Lake Creek will be coming down to a more manageable level in the next week or so. Hopefully I'll fall in love with Lake Creek soon and be able to have a new after-work favorite.