a vertical mile, 5,280 smiles

Lower Silver Fork stack-up, Thomas Moore


Over a three day weekend I decided to gear up for the coming vacation of California kayaking by going California kayaking. First up was 2009 closing ceremonies on the S F American as Jared and Thomas and I ran a one-day trifecta of Lower Silver Fork, Lover's Leap, and South Silver at low-ish flows. Hightlight: running all of Lower Silver Fork blind except for the car-wash/bruised falls set, which we portaged. California kayaking lesson: Keep that momentum rolling.

Portaging over the Lover's Leap logjam, site of the 2010 lumberjack games.

The next day, I met up with Carleton, Willy, and the SE crew of Daniel, Brooks, and Matthias to freeze our faces off at high elevation on Fordyce Creek. I got us good and lost on the shuttle partly because the cloud cover was hanging like the Fog of War and we couldn't really see far enough to read the topography, partly because duh. Then it snowed. We debated whether to put on, then ran the creek in a 3 hour race against hypothermia. I had to laugh for our South Eastern friends because they have their Lie (the Green always runs), and in California we have ours (it's sunny all the time). Highlight: remembering how fun it is to remember rapids. California kayaking lesson: Do not be discouraged by logistical hiccups. They are to be expected until we find a cure for ADHD.Brohelm throws down some torso-rotation on "rotator cuff"

The day after that, Willy had the sharp idea to put on a river that is still semi-steep, but a lot lower elevation, Bald Rock Canyon of the M Feather. It is all about being in that place, and it was sweet. Highlight: exploring caves in the Atom Bomb Falls neighborhood. California kayaking lesson: Gotta pay to play, in this case either with dollars to the boat man who can take you accross the reservoir, or with thigh-presses to hike out of the canyon (we chose the latter). To cap off the weekend, I ate what I am sure is the biggest burrito I have ever eaten.
Brohelm says that Curtain Falls could be the best boof in California.

Lower Mill Creek: a true gutter

Katrina Skarda thinks this run is a hoot.

Mill Creek is a stream that cuts through an ancient lava flow that spilled off the flank of Mount Lassen. This gives the river a surreal character, because you can imagine how the liquid rock flowed and formed as you float down the water which in turn carved and shaped the rock. While the whitewater itself is not spectacular (volcanic rock is better for removing foot calluses than slip-sliding kayaks), the river canyon is nothing short of wild. In many places Mill Creek is less than a boat-length wide because the water has made quick work of cutting down into the soft conglomerated rock. Trip highlights included: Seeing a bear lumbering along on the shuttle road, raw-dawging water from Brita-quality side-streams (river right= good to go, river left = cow town), 3 liters of chardonnay-in-a-bag stowed in my boat, and angry beavers whose tail-slaps told us to "recognize!" as we paddled into the outskirts of Las Molinas. Mill Creek!

Bryant Burkhardt used to be my boss! Now he runs the show @ paddlecalifornia.blogspot.com

Katrina, Bryant and Matt make like the blue angels, minus the sonic booms.

Try to guess which way the creek is flowing.

Get your ass up here!

This is not the greatest creek in the world... This is just a blog post.

I feel I can rhapsodize about this creek without contributing to "blowing it up." California has fewer than 100 class V boaters as near as I can tell. The South East is about 3000 miles away. These two factors should keep user impact pretty low, so I will go ahead and let loose on what a few have known for some time.

Darin hits "send."
Darin had texted with the phrase "flows perfect, get your asses up here!" He could fall back on a career as a motivational speaker with this brand of self-actualization. Confirmed flow and open roads on the South Branch of the Middle Fork of the Feather made a potent argument.

These waterfalls get back-to-back like some commercial-free classic rock hits. Thomas requests "Freebird."

The funniest thing all day was spoken by Seth who meant it when he said, "Now that we've made it to the back-to-back waterfall section, I feel like I can relax a little."

I had run this creek before at low flows, but once we realized that Darin's "perfect" was considerably higher, the bumpy lead-in turned into an awesome ride. It was pretty much nodding and bombing through this stretch until we got to the photo-op one-stroke drops and could "relax a little."

Seth relaxes a little.

Thomas goes while Seth sets safety and sense of scale.

The cool weather made the hike out from the edge of the world alright and the freshly burned forest was free of tangly undergrowth. I was stoked to escape to this place and to actually run waterfalls like I usually just daydream.

For better pictures and actual beta go to jscreekin.blogspot.com and find the South Branch Middle Feather page.

A little bit closer

Darin Mcquoid, Golden Gate

Robbie Hogg, Upper Middle Cosumnes

Alan Speering, Upper Clavey

Alan punching a hole in the water like it's drywall and he's mad

Upper Otter Creek: 1d

This trip began as the brainchild of Alex Wolfgram. During a shit-talk-storm at his house last summer, he showed me a boatload of American River tribs that had been run once or twice or not at all. Otter Creek was the name that stuck with me from this speculating, postulating, map room session of arm-chair kayaking. It came complete with an anecdote of a gold miner dredging the pool of a waterfall, the would-be take out of the run, only to find at the bottom of the ore heap evidence that the Chinese had beaten him to the punch and cleaned it out. Though this stream had been mined, and its lower reaches kayaked, there remained a stretch unknown to our kind. On March 2, Alex Wolfgram, Corey Tucker, and myself went in to see what the deal was.

Scars heal tougher: swaths cut by human activity make great access points. We soon found a trail that made the hike in buttery-as.

A ride down the otter-bahn: Alex Wolfgram on the first sweet rapid we came to (before the water started rising, browning, and scaring us downstream).

Corey Tucker on same. Something I noticed just driving into this zone, and became increasingly aware of as we hiked in was its jurassic jungle character. There is definitely some lush micro-climate going on as the trees were often encased in fuzzy mosses and the banks tangled with nets of vines. Adding to this effect was the pissing rain we had all day.

Crazy ox-bow...Thanks to the old flume trail this scout-ferry-scout-portage-portage affair only took an hour and a half. The rapid we portaged was a mesmerizing multi-pitch slide that was all good until the bottom. We think at lower flows the water would channelize in the right spot instead of fanning out over the whole thing, good and bad.

This is really happening: a perfect double on Otter Creek. Unfortunately at high side of Yee-Ha! flows (MF American went to 10k the night of our trip) it was cooking into the next rapid, which was not perfect.

Corey Tucker planing out like an Argentine futbol player celebrating a "GOOOOAAAL!" Once we got through the few hundred vert. feet of bedrock, we entered a class III tree lined float that was scary on account of the high-water and many bends out of view, but really fun on account of it being a steady wave-train. I think we portaged wood 2x in there and ran 2 IV's.

Big Bad Otter. The next time I got out of my boat I right away gave the signals for "huge," then "portage." There was a brown torrent gushing down a wavey, ramping lip into a tall drop with a re-connect half-way down, then a short pool and the river ran through waves and trees downstream. While walking around trying to figure out the portage route, I noticed a line down the guts of this falls that avoided rocks on the far left and right. I knew this was our take-out, so down-stream progress was no longer a priority. It was late, we were beat, and we still had to hike out a mile and a half, but I looked straight up to see the first patch of blue all day. Maybe this was a false omen, but I'm still glad I ran it. I walked back to Wolf and Corey who were staring at the chaos and told them I was gonna go. They were supportive with "Hell Yeah!" and "Alright!" though Wolf later told me he thought I was joking. I portaged my boat into an eddy half-way through the lead-in, mostly because I couldn't spare the daylight to scout and trace the line back any further. I snapped my deck on, splashed my face, peeled out, and spotted the seem between two laterals where I wanted to immerse myself. I reached forward, planted a right stroke, hauled on it, and then tucked it up to wait for the reconnect that never came. I realized I had cleared the reconnect when that moment passed by and then melted like the polar ice-caps, without the yank on the paddle that I expect from big falls.

Photo: Corey Tucker. Then I crossed over from glory to humbling as I resurfaced upside-down and reached for my on-side roll only to feel the thunder landing on me. I knew this feeling: locked into a side-surf. I switched over to my off-side, hoping I would catch some current and flush out, but rolled up to see that I was still side-surfing with the falls landing on me. Window-shade. First swim in a year. Pop up in big swirly eddy and made friends with drift-wood. Clambered out of the water like a scalded cat. Wolf grabs my boat! Wolf throws me a rope, wraps it around a tree, and I jump in and use it to pendulum from river right to left. I am down my paddle and my elbow-pads that sucked anyway. Wolf tells me that the mist and wind from the base was so violent he didn't really see my run. We hike out with one headlamp between three people in a tight procession, high on life, adrenaline, etc. and begin the half-joking curse of whoever came up with this idea in the first place. Hell Yeah!

Special Note: Fans of superstition will appreciate that this was my first trip wearing my brand new 5.10 savant shoes. Did I swim because I ran a waterfall at floodstage or because these shoes had never known the sweet taste of booty beer?

Upper Middle Consumin'

The only un-dammed Sierra river. From the granite express-way at put-in to the quartz ice-bergs at take out, what better place to KILL IT?

Thomas Moore receives his briefing, assumes a false identity, assassinates the drop, and returns to the safe-house, making sure he is not followed.

Indisputable evidence that should compel you to find the accused, Ben Wartburg, GUILTY of murder in the first degree!

The man behind the lens, Daring McQuoid, captured in a hit-and-run vehicular manslaughter of this falls.

In Omo Ranch, the O-Mob runs things! Don't you forget it son!

Keepin' it lowcal

Low elevation, low flow, but in the lowcality, I went and visual-ed Weber Creek, taking mental pictures of the put-in rocks, so I could relay the information to Ja-rad Noceti and determine if it was worth him and Thomas driving up from Sacto. I couldn't help but wonder why I'd been instructed to note the flow over a particular rock spline when there was a painted gauge on the bridge itself... but then, I was uninitiated to this trib of the South Fork American that flows right past my house, so I went along with it. The gauge is new and now we know- you need one for the run, if it's two, then "ya-hoo!" (if it's three let it be). Weber Creek Mayor Mark Devo cleared his schedule of meetings with the council and made the trek from two doors down to join us on the water.

Soc-em Dog, Barking Dog, Raw Dawg, now "Mad-Dog." River-running has given me many life-enhancing canine encounters.

Mark Devo, pleased as punch-bowl and making good on campaign promises.

Ja-rad Noceti stroking the "mini-Middle Kings-money rapid."

Thomas Moore on same, maybe I'll call it "spare change."

We scout rapids from the bottom up. Here you can see us ant-like at the bottom of this big rapid on a small creek. I ended up running it upright and alright, though the camera battery ran out first, the suspense being too much for it.

And California is BACK! It was so cold this past storm-cycle (of 9 days) that the precip fell as snow all the way down to like 1500 ft. This low-down run was one of just a few that co-operated this week. We'll just have to get the rest of the runs in the summertime!

All photos courtesy Jared Noceti except the one of him. Check his head-cam video @:
http://vimeo.com/3287854
related vids feature cool stuff like a bear encounter and successful log-pin rescue, both from the kick-ass Bullard's Bar run on the North Yuba.