Time to go home

Well its been 1 of the best tirps ive had away kayaking ever.
Starting off by running Metlako falls the 1st day kayaking, to having a 2nd and 3rd in races in Colorado, Dinky Creek which is my new favourite river and walking my sorry arse to the top of Graceland Slide and flying to the bottom, all the other amazing times paddling, hanging out with Rach in the big brown van and just spending time with all the crazy cool people on this 3 month long epic trip... thanks to all of you and I can't wait to do it all over again next time!

A big thanks to Bliss-stick for the boat
                         Nut case helmets
                         The family
                         Rachael
                         Evan Garcia for showing us the way
                         Chris Pyle for helping us out so much

Now I can't wait to get home and take over the drifting world with my crazy new idea for my car!

Watch this space
peace and keep charging in what ever you do!!!

Upper Cherry

It was time for Upper Cherry, over the years I've heard a lot about this river and seen crazy photos of it from Sam Sutton getting stuck in the pot hole on Cherry Bomb, pics of boys walking in to the put-in in a foot of snow, stories of " kiwi in a pocket ", but I think for us this time the stories of 40 people walking in the day we were going too, and the put-in slide having a metre of water flowing down it has to be 1 of the tallest tales I've heard in a long time!

Getting to Groveland late at night and walking for an hour then camping was always our plan, but we didn't walk that night as the stories put us off... Thankfully for us we had EG the killer who was going in there rain hail or shine, he started packing his gear that night at the trail head and said " I'm waking my arse up at 4am and hiking my tired arse up to the put-in", so we hit the sack.

The hike in is about 12 miles and isn't too bad a walk, until the sun gets over the hill at about 8 30am,

The snow on the trail stays around for a long time and provides for some amazing high country lakes and meadows as the brutal sun hasn't had time to dry it out like the lower elevation 

YEA BOY!!!! made it to the last little down hill to the put-in after a good 5 hours walking with about 40kg of boat on my back!! From the lookout is also one of the most amazing views, with all the huge granite domes capped with the last little bit of snow.

most of the 1st day's paddling is all low angle slides in the most amazing wide open granite vally I think most kayakers have ever seen

Cherry Bomb, it's just sick! Huge slabs of granite have fallen into this tight gorge and the water is damed up and flows around the side if it causing this amazing little slide with a ledge at the bottom for a perfect kicker..

We ran Cherry Bomb the 1st day then walked back up the second day and did it again, and as for the stories of it being super high and 40 people... it was low and there were 8 people in there the first night!

Cherry Bomb, just a sick place! Big thanks to the girls who hiked across the sheer granite face to the 'media ledge' to take photos of us running Cherry Bomb!

EG the killa loving life at the end of Cherry Bomb gorge

I don't think I've ever seen any video or photos of Kiwi in a Pocket, but had definately heard a lot about it and most of us on the trip wanted to fire this thing up. Getting there, it looked a lot better then I had imagined, Evan hadn't run it before and he fired it up 1st and cleaned the line, I was already half way to my boat before he got to the bottom of the rapid and fired it of with a stella line. Brendon wanted a piece of the action and headed for his boat and styled it to. No kiwis in the pocket this year!

I splashed out at Walmart one day and got a $12 fishing pole and it paid off with this monster of a fish out of the pool at the camp site, I have to say that this was the biggest fish I saw pulled in and most of the locals would keep fish half this size!

The tea cups after Cherry Bomb Gorge is one of the funnest set of rapids I've ever paddled, and provided our 15 or so kiwis a great place to try and land on each other as we boofed off the drops

We had trains like this going all day, everyone had so much fun and just couldn't stop walking up for another go

Moro rock

Moro rock is a huge piece of granite over looking Sequoia National Park, we went looking for bears cos Brendon hadn't seen any, and as we were leaving the sun started going down. We ran to the top of the rock for one of the most amazing afternoons of the trip. Enjoy...

 

Tunnel Log - a fallen Giant Sequoia tree that's been cut out and the road put through it. This tree could be up to 3000 years old! The sign said 8 feet clearance - we were exactly 8 feet high coz it just scraped the top of the boats!

East Kaweah round 2

 Paddling down the bottom of the West Cherry, the Upper Cherry still looked really high so we headed back to Three rivers to hang out till the river level came down.

The East Kaweah had came down a bit too which was a lot more fun round two, being able to run Triple Drop

More crazy go pro shots

Triple drop is the sickest boof into the top off the right, then get your nose up for the next two holes

EG the killer stoked on running Triple Drop!

Its really crazy how many photos I've got in the middle of some big rapids of me playing with my eyes trying to get my contacts in my eyes so I can see where I'm going, and a lot of the time I just cant freaking see where I'm going! but oh well makes things more interesting!  

West Cherry

I dont think I will ever be able to find my way to the put-in to West Cherry by myself, nor want to. The long gravel logging road takes left and right turns at random all over the place, but with Evan as our guide with his crazy memory we made it... only to have to set up camp with a million sandflies!

Rach enjoying the camp fire before the long walk the next day

The fire was about the only place other than the tent to get relief from the bugs

It's crazy how fast the world spins, this was only about 5 minute exposure.

3 hours with this big heavy boat sux!!!

getting to this point = great nearly there!

launching the beast of a slide = priceless

Graceland slide had only been run by 6 other people before I got my chance, Evan Garcia fired it up for his second go and it was just amazing. I hit a flake rock after the pothole and had a little roll but got my sh*t together and made it to the bottom with a smile on my face.

on the home straight.

update to continue................

East Kaweah

After getting off dinky we drove south to Three Rivers and camped out for the night before getting on East Kaweah. Looking at the flows the night before, we knew it was going to be high, as we found out with Sam and Toni both needing to do their booty beers that night - there were a few sticky holes!

Double Drop was super fun with a nice little slide into boofing the hole in the bottom

We did walk a few rapids due to the high water, so getting cooled off before and after the walking in the 35degree heat was key

I pulled a few crazy horses off the smaller drop that the go pro missed, but did get sum sweet after shots

Jamie having a great time

the go pro camera gets crazy shots!

movie

I put together a little video of the last few weeks paddling, check it out! I've also been a bit slack on the updates but we have paddled East Kaweah, Hospital Rock, West Cherry (which had a crazy long freakn walk!) but Evan, myself, and Brendon ran Graceland Slide which was sick!!!!
stay posted for the updates






          

Dinky Creek

Photos by Toni George

Me running "the thing" which was sooo sick!

We are just sitting in Fresno outside pizza hut using the net after one of my new all time Favourite runs. Dinky Creek is just full of clean sick rapids.

Stay tuned for the whole update!!

peace out

Royal Gorge

I was very excited after getting back from Colorado to find out Royal Gorge was going, so Evan, myself, Will, Drew, Toni, and Sam got all our over night gear and headed to the put-in of the 3 day paddle.

It starts off a bit manky but soon cleans up to some real cool clean rapids, then just as we started getting used to our super heavy boats the river drops into Heath Springs Gorge.

Drew droping Heath One. Its a sweet 35 footer, but 50meters after it is Heath Two. I landed pretty hard off Heath One and broke my paddle which Iwas prety pissed about, but the Werner split I got to use was sick.

This is the last little mini gorge about 100metres above Rattle Snake camp site, and a really fun drop to run!

We got down to Rattle Snake and fired it up that night before setting up camp. Its a pretty crazy ferry to get to the middle of the river in order to miss the ledge halfway down the falls, but the boil does push you back to the left as you drop off the lip. I had a sweet line and our whole crew ran it sweet. Big ups to Toni George for firing it up and styling it!

Rattle Snake camp site is sick, with a nice big camp fire already set up no sand flies and listening to Rattle Snake Falls thumping away all night in the back ground, its just amazing.

I found this little bugger hiding on the track on one of the portages on day 3.

Day two's sick little 25 footer. Evan was on fire and ran everything, Heath Two, Scotts Drop and Wabena. He styled the top of Scotts Drop but was unlucky and got ejected at the bottom after hitting a ledge. Drew ran it too and knocked all his front teeth out at the bottom and had to paddle the 25miles out from 12.30pm.