Paddlin’ Ed

Saturday December 29th,  was another beautiful day on Wilson Creek.  Darron P. and I met up to run and catch up with Eddie C. who was already there.  Level was around -4″ on our 1st run and holding well even on the 2nd run when we caught up with Eddie C. at around -5″.

Darron and I did our 1st run by oursleves as Eddie had already headed up earlier with another group.  I was in my new Pyranah “Burn-L” creek boat, and about to put it to the test on its maiden voyage down Wilson Creek Gorge (now that’s really serious 1st run testing).  I had just recieved the boat the night before and stayed up late outfitting it.

Darron and I both had excellant runs.  I was pleased how well the Burn responeded,  only at the eddy in the corner drop did I have a bobble trying to run right into the corner eddy and even there I was able to brace the new boat up pretty much on a “bracing roll” and us the current to push the boat back under me up againt the boulder wall below.  Darron pretty much aced all his lines.  Down at the rail slide at the end of the run,  I set up and went to do the slide and found the bow rocker was so much greater on the Burn than my old H3, that I literally with no effort and little water pushing hopped over the rock/rail wall rather than getting the slide.

We caught up with Eddie at the take out and the three of us went up for another run.  Eddie was in grand style really working boof on the drops.  When we got to the rock clog entering 10′ and all hit the eddy below,  we notice a bunch of folks standing around just below.  Eddie headed down and hit the eddy on the right below the boof,  Darron started to follow and instead held up in the right eddy just above the boof drop and signaled me to hold up.  Seem there was group below that had a swimmer out on far right just above the bottom falls with his boat pinned on top of the big rock right of center on the lip of the falls and they where trying to get a rope across to get it free with little sucess.

Eddie finally moved over to an eddy just below on the left and Darron boofed and went into the right eddy below the boof.  Finally they got flagged by the group working on the stranded paddler and boat to run on down.  After a few minute I finally got the attention of the stranded paddler and got a clear signal to run on through.  Down at the bottom we could see the group above was perplexed on how to get the boat free and the stranded paddler out.  Finally another kayaker caught enough of an eddy current just above the rock to work around its right side and pull the boat off and push it into the right eddy just above the top of the bottom falls, and then manage to recover his paddle just in time to recover a line going over the falls.

From 10 foot we all did great running on down,  I was really getting a the feel of my new boat by this time, and pretty much making the moves I wanted.  I had good runs down the right to left slot run below thunderhole both times,  Darron and Eddy both did the middle slot/boof and turn run there.

At triple drop I went for the right slot line and had a really nice line,  finding I could really move the bow around with its extra rocker curve.  Down at the eddy in the corner drop I hit a clean drop into the eddy on my 2nd run.  Down at Razorback,  Darron and I had begun to figure out at this level to catch the top slot as far down as water permitted to clear the left rock outcrop just above the left turn at the bottom,  so we both came down clean and rode the turn out clean.  Eddie C. demo’ed some interesting boofs coming off the bottom drop at the turn.

Down at railslide on the 2nd run,  I enter with less angle on the rail and kept move of the boat down the slot and did a nice slide into the eddy platform below, and road the water pile around and out the bottom.  Darron did pretty much the same, and Eddie followed doing his boof/drop down to the right above.

Great afternoon of paddling.