Tony Hawk: a friend forever

'08 file photo @~175 cfs: kineticinstasis.blogspot.com

'09 photo @~300 cfs.

I am sure that the pro skateboarder Tony Hawk, founder of Birdhouse and first to stick the 1080 spin is fine and well. I unfortunately can not report as well of the rapid on the Middle Consumnes River that bears his name. Thomas Moore and I paddled in Saturday to find the coolest drop on the run and one of the more distinct rapids anywhere has taken a turn for the less runnable. Often times wood makes a rapid sketchier, but there are those rare cases where a piece of wood makes the rapid what it is. "Go left and die" on the Green is one that comes to mind: boof the log like your grinding a rail and you boost your likelihood of making the best channel. The log in the classic channel of Tony Hawk (in the photo: at the tip-top near scouting David) plugged a pothole and diverted the flow up onto the gorge wall making for a wall-ride to banking-turn to skip across the pool experience. Now that it is gone the water drains into a pothole behind the big rock awaiting descents by hybrid kayak-spelunkers. Since the run has not seen high water in the past year (when the log was last seen), my guess is that it rotted away. Evil beavers would be my second guess, but I don't want to think about that. On the up-shot the right line, "Robbie Hogg's solitary confinement," looks a little more-runnable as a result. The whole rest of the run looks pretty clean except for the trip-wire log in some boogie water that was there last year. There is a rapid that used to have the yellow caution tape of a log across the top of it but I cut that out late in the UMC season '08. I whacked myself on that descent, but cleaned it up on Saturday. Let's hope the UMC runs a little bit in '09!