By: The Famous Leif Andersson
Trip Report for March 15-16, 2005
There were those that said that it couldn't be done, and those that said it shouldn't be done. Nay, I say to you: "Bite me."
Now, those of you that know me already know this, but for the benefit of the few people out there that haven't heard of me, let me just say something at the beginning of this little report: I'm a total badass. Now, the rest of my report should show just how true this is, but I should emphasize that since this is already a known fact, the report isn't about me being a badass. It's about... well, I haven't decided that yet. For now, we'll have to just let the badass-ness speak for itself.
I was in California for two weeks in March, and one of the first runs that we did was the Middle Fork of the Feather. The Middle Feather is a totally sweet multi-day creekin' trip. It was one of the original seven wild and scenic rivers back when they started the whole wild and scenic thing. It's pretty wild. And hella scenic. I met up with my old friend Dave Stentiford, my even older friend Josh White, the New Guy (Zach Britton), and some dude named Jay. He was a friend of Josh's. I never did catch his last name. Anyway, we ran from the red bridge down to Milsap Bar. Oh man. It was great.
But you see, I hadn't really planned to do this whole multiday trip when I packed to leave from Colorado, for a couple reasons. Well, mostly for one reason. I didn't have a creekboat. At the time, the large Solo, Fluid's totally rippin creekboat, wasn't in full production yet. Fortunately for me, (and especially fortunate for the lucky souls that got to paddle with me), I'm a total badass. So I decided to do the run anyway. In my playboat, the Large Flirt.
(Lunch in action, on day two. The lesson: it wouldn't have killed me to bring some crackers with that cheese and sausage.)
Now I know what you're thinking to yourselves. You're thinking damn! This guy's a genius! Taking a playboat will transform mere boring class V/V+ into a series of righteous play opportunities! And loading up lots of gear in the back will make it a great workout and training session, too! Well, you're absolutely right. I am a genius. The only problem was that since, after all, I was paddling a playboat, (and a pretty sick one at that) there wasn't a whole lot of room for those frivilous extras that people always want to bring on trips like this one. Extras like, you guessed it... pants. That's right. It was either bring the camera box, or bring pants. But not both. It would have been a tough choice for a weaker man, but not for me. I'm hardcore like that. So camera it was. Also, I had to put my lunch (a sausage and a half pound of cheese) into my lifejacket pocket. But I had the camera. And when we camped, I just stayed in my boating pants until it was time to hop into the sleeping bag. It was totally fine. I don't know what everyone was freaking out about.
For a couple reasons, which I can't remember right now, we decided that instead of doing this trip in the three days that the guidebook and all other sources of advice recommended, we'd do it in two. We camped at the takeout the night before day 1, and got up at around 5:00 to head to the put-in, since we had to put on more miles that normal. See, if you're from Colorado, like me, you're used to runs like Shoshone on the Colorado River, with a highway alongside the river, and convenient exits at the put-in and take-out. Now don't get me wrong, I'm not naive enough to expect a road alongside a wild and scenic river, but this was the background that I came from. So imagine my surprise at the fact that we didn't put in until 1:00 in the afternoon. It would have taken even longer if not for the help of my lovely lady friend, who selflessly ran our shuttle for us.
(Here's a sweet photo of me boofing the hell out of some random drop on day one. All those sissies in their creekboats sent me down first to see if it was safe. I totally styled it.)
Needless to say, we had to put on the miles. We barely had any time to get out and film. But we did get a couple of the sick drops on tape. And that made it all worthwhile. The boating was sick. My Flirt performed even better than I expected. It was way more maneuverable than those damn creekboats, and the extra weight in the back actually gave me a little more momentum to help punch through holes. I was totally stylin' it through the whole trip. There were a couple big drops that I was the first to run, like Franklin Falls, near the start of day 2. It was this meaty river-wide hole. Actually, I guess it was big enough to call it a falls. There was a pretty big tongue coming down the middle, but it had a big nasty sharp looking roostertail near the bottom, and a pretty sharp rock below that. The line was to come down the tongue almost to the bottom, and fall off the side of it after passing the meat of the hole, but before the roostertail. Overall, I'd have to say that it was a pretty easy rapid, but the consequences were kind of gnarly, because if you got stuck on the river left side of the big hole, you would be swimming into an undercut wall.
(This is Franklin Falls. You can't really see the roostertail that well. It's where the tongue goes abruptly from green water to gnarly spew. It wasn't very big, but the water was moving really fast, so it looked like hitting it would hurt. Luckily, I've got crazy skills.)
We all took a long time looking at it, and everyone but Josh and I decided to do the portage. I didn't like the look of that portage. It looked a little too intense for my tastes. So I ran the beef. I was on top of it. I had been a little worried about getting pushed too far left by some little waves at the horizon line, and I ended up overcorrecting, so I was a good 18 inches right of where I'd planned, but it turned out to work perfectly, because that dropped me onto the edge of a hole near the top of the tongue, which gave me a little sideways speed back left, so that I could pull free of the tongue at the bottom. Josh did a pretty similar move when he ran it, but he was even farther right (since he lacks skills). The hole killed his forward speed a little more than it did for me, so he dropped off the left side of the tongue mighty near the big hole, and came kind of close to getting thrashed. I was glad that he was able to pull through, poor little guy. I hate rescuing swimmers.
(Granite Dome, one of two portages that I did. I hung my head in shame.)
So yeah, overall I was struttin' my stuff throughout this trip, but I did take two notable thrashings, which I shall now relate. Both were not my fault at all.
The first was at a rapid that we christened the "hundred percent" drop. It was just a mile or so below Franklin Falls, so I was justifiably feeling like the unstoppable demi-god that I am. Since we were a little short on time, Josh and Dave hopped out to look at it, but the rest of us stayed in our boats. Josh came back, and I asked him what the line was. He described the rapid as four pourovers side by side, with a sneak down the left, and a meat line right of center. Obviously, I was thinking about getting a little beef (it's what's for lunch, biatch!). But Josh said that he was taking the sneak.
"Why?"
"Well, see this wave-hole across the top? It looks to me like about one out of five times, you'd get pushed off line, and I wouldn't want to be off line for that hole below it."
"Twenty percent? Hmm... You need a boat like mine. I'm confident that my Flirt can stay in control and on line through that crap. What about the move on the big hole?"
"Yeah, if you make it to that shoulder that I was talking about, it's a hundred percent."
"Hundred percent?"
"Hundred percent."
So I rocked it. I punched through the wave hole just fine, exactly like I'd said I would. I got a couple powerful strokes in, and launched off the shoulder of one of the pourovers. Then I got a good look at the hole. As I dropped about 10 (nay 15 or maybe 20) feet into the infamous hundred percent hole itself, I remember thinking to myself... "What the hell was he talking about?" That's right. There was no goddamn way that I could have punched that hole. I made a valiant effort, but this hole was not screwing around. So I decided to step it up a notch. I worked my way over towards river center, where there was this big tongue punching straight through the hole. I noticed what an easy line this would have been if I'd been on the tongue, and made a mental note to point that out to Josh. Then I did a couple flatspins, and worked my way back on the pile a little, then charged in for the big loop. I got the pop that I thought I needed, but because of the extra weight in the back or something, I didn't quite stick it, so I had no choice but to run the rest of the rapid.
I eddied out at the bottom, and waited for Josh to run the sneak like the half man that he is.
"What the hell were you talking about, hundred percent?"
"No, no, dude, I was talking about the shoulder on the second hump from the right, not the far right."
That jackass.
As you might be guessing, the next thrashing was kind of similar. We were getting near the end of the final gorge, and you could definitely tell that the afternoon was almost over. We needed to get to the takeout. So we did the same deal. There was a pretty easy boulder garden ending in an ominous horizon line. Josh and Zach eddied out river right and hopped out, and Jay, Dave and I eddied out river left. There wasn't much of an opportunity to scout on our side, and Josh and Zach were signaling that the river left side was the line through this horizon line, so I ran the garden down to a little eddy above the last drop. It was a two level drop, but the levels kind of overlapped near the left wall, so that you could clear them both with one boof. Josh and Zach were signaling. Here's what they said:
One finger: "one boof"
paddling motions: "paddle hard..."
arms extended: "...because the hole is big"
pointing left: "stay left"
So I did what they said. I got a good run at it, and hugged the left wall. Right as I went over the lip, I saw that there was a little slanty part before the lip, with a gigantic cheesegrater-ish rock right on the lip itself, just an inch underwater. Needless to say, this cheesegrater killed all my speed, and I dropped nosefirst into this hole, right up against the wall. Well, I figured that since Josh and Zach were standing around watching, I'd give them a little show, so I threw a couple splatwheels as I paddled clear.
Once they'd run it, I asked them hey, what the dilly? Apparently, there was a slight signal mixup. Their incorrect interpretations of their signals were as follows:
One finger: "one..."
paddling motions: "...paddle..."
arms extended: "...length..."
pointing left: "...from the left wall."
Those jackasses.
Let that serve as a lesson to all you little kids out there. If you meet a man named Josh White, do not let him scout for you. Get your lazy ass out of your boat and look at it yourself. Josh is not to be trusted.
But the real moral of the story is this: yes, you can do self-support creekboating in your playboat. You just need two things: a sick boat, and crazy mad skills. You definitely DON'T need pants!
(All Photos By: Josh White)