Guage Hole @ 2500 cfs

Daniel dropped off a video tape that he filmed earlier this year. It was a one of our first playboating sessions at Guage hole at the 2500cfs level. We were trying to get the hole dialed, while working on some moves. The results were a sloppy fun time. Daniel also hit his first Re-entry move, and loop. Way to go brother.

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American River Festival

Saturday morning Gary Eggerts, Glenn Boxx, Evan Lloyd and I made it to Chili Bar, where Evan registered to participate in the rodeo. With bib number 32 in place, he headed out for some practice. Evan headed out to Chili Bar Hole for a warm up session. You could see how much he had been practicing. He nailed cartwheels, split wheels and some loops.

The format for the rodeo was two 45-second rides. The scoring was to be done on the best two tricks. Evan’s first ride included some cartwheels and split wheels. On his second ride he nailed a loop. Evan took home the bronze!

Glenn headed down Chili Bar with another paddler. Evan, Gary and I headed down to the Gorge after the rodeo. We decided to start from camp Lotus and play at barking dog. There were only 13 people sitting in the eddy. We got in a couple of rides and then headed down stream. We had forgotten how much flat water there was from there down to the Gorge. There were also hundreds of rafts on the river. It was crazy!

Once in the Gorge we all had a great time and enjoyed some nice rapids. This was my third time in the Gorge and I decided to hit Satan’s Cesspool for the first time. I caught the seam down the middle...no problems.

Saturday night we headed to the awards ceremony. Evan was awarded the bronze medal and $150 cash. In support of the American River Conservancy we also participated in a raffle. I won a kayak coffee table book, semi-dry top and a used Dagger Kayak.

Sunday morning we headed up to Chili Bar. Glenn volunteered that morning at the slalom race while Evan, Gary and I headed down river. We got to the put-in early and beat most of the rafts out onto the river. We stopped to play at Maya and First Threat. At First Threat there were only 11 people in the eddy waiting to surf. Those waiting included river boarders. We made several rides, with Evan nailing a couple of spins.

I had only run Trouble Maker once before and half of it was swimming alongside my boat. This time I caught the eddy with Evan and paddled over Goal Post. No problems! Gary ran it flawlessly too.

Good times at the American River Festival!

Larry

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N. Fork Mokelumne/Tiger Creek

Recently, American Whitewater secured the rights to several scheduled releases on the Tiger Creek section of the Mokelumne. Many boaters showed up to paddle this great section, and also to show their support to AW. A group of Fresno boaters from the N.E.W. Kayak club came up last weekend and the video documents their run. Enjoy the video and be sure to boat Tiger Creek the next time it comes online. The more people who boat it, the more they will release water for us. It's a fun class II-IV section that is creek-like in nature. I would consider it a great place to practice creeking moves in a class III environment.

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Until Next time
Evan

South Silver

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This weekend was craaazzzy!! Evan and his wife Allison, picked up Jeremy and I in Modesto. The original plan was that Evan, Massa and Gene were going to run the South Silver. Jeremy and I were going to go along for the ride and to film their run. We stayed the night in Rancho Cordova on Friday night and went up to South Silver on Saturday. I had brought my boat along in the hopes of running one or two drops. We met up with Gene and his wife Kristin and Massa. Just as we were rounding up to leave to the put-in, we ran into Thomas and his wife Stacy. Thomas was looking for someone to run with, while his wife ran shuttle. Lucky for us that we met Thomas there, he's run this run five times or so.

Even with a map, it's hard to find your way around up there, so it was fun frog-leaping the cars in hopes that the other guy knew the way.

Everyone walked down to Autobahn for the start of the run. Jeremy set up for videography and we were off. Autobahn was a crazy slide. I was giggling the whole way down. Everyone ran it clean. After that the drops seems to slide into one another. The teacups were bigger than I thought they would be. Everyone else seemed to have expected it...and were ready for it. Skyscraper came next and was pretty intimidating. Allison, Kristin and Stacy were had hiked up and were taking pics. Everyone ran it so clean (except me, my boat ran it pretty sweet though while I walked it). My boat pinned in the cave at the bottom Off Ramp. Thomas pulled a live bait and swam across and got my boat for me (Thank you, thank you, thank you). Several other big drops followed: nose job, plastic surgery and quadruple bypass and some stuff in between. At the end of the day, it's safe to say, we had all used up our adrenaline reserves and were ready to kick it! That is, after the old booty beer, enjoyed by Gene and yours truly. It was an awesome run that I know I wouldn't have gotten through without Evan's encouragement and Thomas' excellent lines. Massa's positive outlook on the run and no fear attitude was super cool. Thanks to Gene for pulling me out just above Skyscraper (saved me a very ugly swim). And thanks to Jeremy for scurrying along side the river to capture it all on tape, or else no one would have believed me.
See you next time
Brandi Lynn

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