Mo' Raven Fork! Plus some sweet pictures and a ballin' contemplation video!

Mi camera es still broken...so no original pictures from me again. But fortunately Colin has got some sweet still frames from his camera so I have something to work with!

Colin has been putting together all of the footage we have taken in the last few months, and here is the result: Includes Raven Fork, Watauga, Tallulah, Green, Chattooga, Wilsons, Laurel Slides, Cheoah, Elk, and probably some more cause this video is stacked.



Southeast Kayaking from Colin Hunt on Vimeo.



Sweet video Ballin'!!

Like I said in the last post, we headed down to Cullowhee and got on the Raven Fork again on friday afternoon.  It was timed perfectly, me, Colin, and Mac were all out of class by 11 and left Boone by 12. By the time we met up with Paul, Jay, and Jake, set shuttle, and hiked in it was about 5 o'clock.  Jake and Paul had never been down before, so it was a little bit stressful trying to show them the lines while trying to keep moving and be out before dark. Plus there were 6 of us, so the eddies were crowded as well.  Everything went great though, good lines everywhere. And I remembered my elbow pads! yay. I looked at Big Boy for a long time but had to walk away...this time.  Jake and Mac fired it up with great lines though!

Getting to Caveman was a relief, we all walked back up for more goodness. At Mangler, it officially got dark and we blue-angled through the rest of the "boogie" to Emmanuel's.

Going from sitting in English class in Boone that morning to running the Raven Fork made for one great day!

Here are a few surprisingly good quality still frames from Colin's camera:

"Think Werner would sponsor me if we take a picture with all of their paddles?"

Hiking into the beautiful, lush Ravens Fork

Mortal Combat

Mac Mcgee is a big boy

Me in the ring with Mike Tyson

Paul airing out Caveman!

Jay - caveman is a lot harder at low water!

Jay boofing with Mac on cave saftey

Colin avoiding the cave, nice line!

Me in caveman at low light, it got dark shortly after.

Thanks Jake Ament and Colin Hunt for the photos!

Saturday we woke up early and went to the Cheoah.  It was a juicy 1500cfs and it made for a really fun day, we did one  forest service bridge down lap, then a full lap, and then 3 more fs bridge down laps.  It was great, but left us feeling extremely tired and beatdown after the Raven Fork the day before especially. 

Sunday we tried to go to Eternity hole for some playboating but were skunked! Apparently its the first time it hasn't been running since about december. Not feeling like trying to boat anything that would require more effort than park and play we headed back to Boone to work on building a playhole of our own...but that has to remain a secret for now :) Nah not really, its on the Watauga and doesn't look like anything right now but hopefully we can get some good work done on it when the water drops out. 

Paul looping at eternity a different time

Speaking of getting skunked on playboating, it happened again yesterday when Colin and I tried to go to the Nolichucky. We were turned back by forest fires of all things! They were dunking the buckets from the helicopters in the pool at the put-in and wouldn't let anyone put on. Crazy. 

Thats all for now, oh yeah when we got skunked we hiked a creek instead and found a West Prong-took-meth style creek very close to Boone. Can't wait for rain :)

PEACE!

-Clay

Watauga Race, Chattooga, Tallulah, Green and More

So the past few weeks have been eventful, but unfortunately I have no pictures of anything due to my camera dying on me.  Hopefully I will be getting a new one soon but in the meantime here is a little update on whats been going on.

The Watauga Race was great this year with juicy water levels, a great turnout of over 40 racers, and perfect weather.  Hopefully this can become an annual event!  I took 20th overall, but 2nd in short boat. I was pretty happy with my finish, but next year I am going to try to get my hands on a longboat for sure, I just could not keep up with the greenboats in the flat sections.
Here is a nice write up with photos and a video from the race:
http://riverkeeper.appvoices.org/2010/03/

This weekend was a really good one for boating, it almost felt like summer! Going with no drytop for the first time in 6 months felt awesome, along with swimming in the river.  We started the weekend off with a run down Tallulah on saturday with Colin, Mac and my brother. Here is a nice video Colin put together, showcasing the major rapids in the gorge:


Tallulah Gorge with most of the rapids from Colin Hunt on Vimeo.



On monday, I got to paddle with my dad on section 4 of the Chattooga, along with Colin, and two guys we met at the put in, Craig and Fast Fred.  We had a great time on another beautiful day. Two swims in the 5 falls and a beatdown in socemdog made things a little interesting!

Tuesday we headed to the Green, where I got to show my brother down the narrows for his first time! It was a nice 10" and a great first time level. He did great until a skirt implosion at hammer factor, and yes it counts as a swim!  We took some video on Colin's camera that should be up before too much longer.

Back in Boone, Matt, Ty, Jesse and I went to the Watauga for a nice low water run, the first in almost a month.  The level was around 160 cfs, plenty for a fun run.  It channelizes really well and some fun boofs and different moves open up. Not a bad playboat level either, the Watauga is full of good splats and rockspins. Stateline was good to go as well, its just a lot more of a fine line.

The rain is falling, tomorrow we are headed to Cullowhee in hopes of creeking in the smokies, then Tallulah again the rest of the weekend, see you out there!
-Clay