(The "Dogg" with his game face.)
We put on the South Saint Vrain at an ideal level today (somewhere around 200 cfs), looking for some high quality creek boat action. The description says that most paddlers hate this run because of the mank, but I assured my crew that the run looked SIK (I had seen it during the shuttle for North Saint Vrain the day before). Being all about equal opportunity Smack Down, I must drop the People's Elbow on all creeks regardles of mank! Since I am always trustworthy when it comes to creek information, the group was assured that this run would be as sweet as a sweet potatoe french fry!
(Boat scout and run.)
We putin where the mank started to flatten out near the confluence of the South and West Forks. Instantly the run tilted down hill through continuous rocky rapids that I have found to be very common in Colorado. Soon, we were upon the first of several big drops that populate this run. None of the rapids are all that huge but they are pretty steep and contain sweet boofs and moves to make. Luckily, we had Bryon moving downstream with us and telling us the lines so we did very little boat scouting.
(Go Big Rig: aka shuttle/scout assist vehicle/camera transport)
(Graeme boofing big and avoiding the piton.)
(The "Dogg" styles another ledge.)
Down into the run, we came to a particularly sweet section of drops called the Narrows. The drops in here were a little bigger than the rest of the run and the creekbed was narrower, creating a much burlier flow. We ran the first series, which was steep and blind on Bryon's directions. The second section had a sweet boof on the right followed by a split in the current with a sweet clapper boof on the right. The left side was straightforward and manky. I informed the guys that running the left channel would be cheating. I assured them that ANY cheating, especially with my wife who is a dirty tramp, and I was just going to lose it. We all came down with sweet lines off of both boofs and sweet clappers on the second one.
(Seth flying down the narrows.)
(Graeme boofing a sweet double boof drop.)
(Seth setting up for the top boof.)
(Bobby not cheating and styling the clapper.)
The last drop on the creek is called 1 In 5 because you have a 1 in 5 chance of making it successfully. Team Fluid was up for testing the odds so we stepped up, rolled the dice, and took our chances. Graeme went first, running the center slot that fell into the right channel hole. He went a little deep and resurfaced against a boulder on the left before fighting his way out. I followed soon after, running the right line that drops a couple feet into the right wall and goes off a 2-3 foot drop into a sticky hole. I launched a nice boof off the top drop but my paddle blade got stuck against the wall so I went over the second drop leaning back on the deck and finished with a slight tail stand. Not pleased with that run, I carried up to do it again while Seth dropped the far left slot. He ended up going deep off the slot and flipping at the bottom. To add insult to injury, the next little pourover flipped him as well. I went for the right line again, this time opting not to boof the top drop but rather drag the left blade to set up better. I pitoned slightly off the top drop and had no momentum going over the final drop. I went deep and backendered. I rolled quickly and was facing an extended session in the grips of the hole. After some strong backpaddling, I was able to escape that boiling vat of death. Since we were 0 for 4, I would say that we had a 100% chance that a successful run would have been attained had one of us run it again. Since it was a sure thing that the next run would have been successful, we decided that this would take all the fun out of it. And let's face it, if you take the fun out of kayaking, you take the fun out of it. On that note, we decided to call it a day and a SIK run and none of us decided to fire it again.
(Backloop style in 1 in 5.)
(Graeme digging the CO steep creek action.)
-Bobby "The Dogg" Miller-
(All photos by Bryon Dorr.)
