Paddlin’ Ed

We had all been watching gauges closing since Friday,  waiting for one of those rains that “was supposed to happen”, and went to bed on Saturday night expecting to see some gauges going off by morning with hard rain coming in.  Sunday morning came and the hard rains had been scattered west of our group, so choices where limited for a day trip.  After some checking of river and rain gauges, telephone calls to people west near possible spots it was going to be Wilson Creek.  A couple of its watersheds had received some decent rain during the night and while levels where on low end, quite doable.  Wilson Creek Gorge is one of those unique places where lower levels still present lots of fun and challenge, as in many ways some areas get more technical to run lower.

We met up at the put in just past noon, with Darron P.,  Eddie C., Charlie, and myself-Paddlin-ed.  It was looking like a nice sunny day with a few clouds,  temps in the high 60’s.  Gauge at the Akado bridge was reading around -5 1/2″.   We piled boats in Eddie’s pickup and head up to the put in and got on.

First run was good,  and quite different from 2 weeks prior when I had run it with some of the same group at +6″,   a foot difference.  The first few ledges where fairly straight forward at this level,  though you had to pick more focused lines in the flow,  and a few places where a bit more bumpy, and require more boofs in places to make tight lines running in and out of boulders.  Down at 10′ Eddie lead off and ran the boulder choke at the top clean,  I ran next and popped a vexious rock coming around the tight turn and had to get into the small tight eddy to the left in the middle of the choke,  but found trying to turn my bow back out downstream a problem with my large burn.  I basically found I was somewhat wedged and blocked by the vexious rock and finally after a bit of effort just decided to step out and lift clear.  Darron and Charlie worked down, and I dropped into the eddy below via an alternate far left route.  We all ran the boof below, with some eddies caught by some of the group both left and right, then all of us ran clean lines down through the final platform of the falls and over the lip just left of the boulder right of center.

We continued our journey,  playing and working the lines and chutes,  which was very much required at this level, as there no padding to just blow over things at -6″.  Down at the 2 ledges above the entrance to boatbuster,  we all ran the normal left end line off the ledge clean,  and at the 2nd ledge I ran far left angled off left while the rest did the right end angled right.  At Boatbuster,  the group did some eddy catching as there where plenty of eddies in the run down to the drop,  then one by one we dropped the boof slot on far right and eddied left or right below.

Then down into thunderhole all stay a bit left entering to keep out of diagonal roll off the right edge, and out and down to the slot at the double ledges below where some ran the middle boof and turn and I ran the far right running back tight left below the inial drop.  We pushed on down the far left around the 2nd ledge and on down stream running the ledges and features below, on down to Triple Drop. 

I drop in above Triple Drop 1st and decided to look at doing the right slot and eddied right over into the pool above the slot, where I turned and saw wood in the slot running down into the rapid below and signaled and hollered for the others to hold up.  We grouped up and Eddie got up close and saw the wood was not blocking the normal far left line so we ferried back out one by one and ran the left line.  I came out last and ran tight of the right side and found there was a cool boof about a boat wide off the top at this level that lands you nicely on a good line below.  After looking at the wood below we decided to see what we could do on our next run down to remove it.

At “Fat Moma’s Squeeze”,  we all worked some form of left line at the top as the “Bitch Slap” entrance line on the right was a bit to bony at this level.  From there some of us did the ferry over and run down the right and some did the drops down right of center.   Eddie and Charlie did the eddy on far right at the bottom of the bend.  From there on down through Maytag, which required pushing hard right with low water to boof and slide clear of the hole.

Then on down through ledges below, to corner eddy ledge on the right where I ran far right but got laid over a bit by the hydraulic at the bottom but held the brace upstream till the water piling at me righted my hull under me.  Eddie, Darron, and Charlie all ran into the corner.  Below here we worked the last ledges down to “Razorback”, where Eddie and Darron, ran a line sliding the ledge to the left just above the main drop and hitting a slot below,  Charlie started for the line and pulled back and ran the normal far right line, and I follow down far right drop,  hitting the boof on the left side at the dog leg and landing turned into the left outflowing slot.

We all ran down to the boulder garden around the bend below and ran the left slot through the rock garden from left of center diagonally down to the right below.  From there we worked a played the remaining ledges including the rail slide (where even with the low water Eddie did the Alternate boof to the right of the boulder). 

Well we had all had a great time so we loaded boats up again and did it all over for a 2nd run all 4 of us.  We pretty much had another good run.  I opted for the far left bang down at the top boulder garden at 10′ entrance,  its just a bit to tight for a big guy like me at low water with a big Burn L boat,  Eddie was boofing most everywhere on the 2nd run, and encouraging me to work on my boof a bit,  which I did at boat buster and had a nice landing. 

At triple drop,  we all got in the staging pool above the slot and Eddie and Darron got out and pulled the wood from the slot and disposed of it off up the right bank – good work guy’s.  Eddie got the boof off the top right of the left channel at boat buster I had caught on my 1st run and pretty much liked it.   I got a nice boof coming off the right side slot and had great line.  Charlie and Darron each worked lines of their choice.  Down at Razorback, Darron and Eddie went for the left run again,  Charlie and I ran the far right drop and dogleg.  We all played the remaining ledges and features pretty good this run and surfed some of the nice hydraulics curls down to the takeout.  Darron and Charlie called it a day.

Eddie and I did 3rd and final run and had a quick but excellent run.  We ran a couple of alternate lines between 10′ and boatbuster, and between Maytag and Razorback.  I popped a bit of rock just below the right hand corner eddy drop, following Eddie who had just done a slide to the left right above dropping into the pool above Razorback cleanly,  turned out talking to Darron later that he had tried the same line on the 2nd run and popped it to – want be doing that one again.  Anyhow Eddie and I finished out our 3rd run and surfed a bit in the last section down to the takeout.

It was a great day, great technical creeking practice a this level.  Checking the level on the way out Eddie found it had held pretty good,  in fact we think it came up a bit during the 2nd run and was just around -6 1/2 or so when we left.   Hopefully next time I catch up with Charlie I can get some pictures he has of the run to add to the post and gallery.

Paddlin-ed