Yakdaddy’s River Ramblings

 Only one trip last January and it’s looking like I might be lucky to get that many in during January of 2008…

01/14/07 - Wilson Creek:  -3 inches

Wesley’s First WC Trip - “…my bad, that WAS Triple Drop…”

3rd run of Wilson Creek - this time a new level: -3 inches!

Headed over to WC with the family and Wesley Bradley (2 hour drive from driveway to put in) on a beautiful spring like day (in the middle of January).  Sunny skies, clear water, temps in the 60’s.  Other trip participants bailed out so we were there without any significant knowledge of the run.  I was planning to take A LOT of time boat scouting our way down, but a good sized crowd at the put in yielded a group that was cool with us tagging along. After an inauspicious beginning involving me broach pinning across two rocks after blowing the very first ferry (was able to get loose with some assistance from our new friends grabbing my stern loop and lifting it off the rock) and then Wesley flipping and rolling back up in the first or second no name rapid/boogie water, we settled in for a good day.  Wesley’s nerves were playing games with his paddling after the roll and he decided to walk 10 Foot Falls.  I had a great line right down the middle with a big stern squirt (nothing but sky in sight) as I plowed through the hole.  Here we sighted our ’support crew’ which included Tonya, Josh, Caleb, Abby, and Wesley’s buddy Dan.  The crew was shooting pictures and video - looking forward to seeing how Dan’s footage turned out b/c Tonya’s video was a bit distracted with the kids, and Josh was shooting pictures (which seemed to miss me most of the time).  Everyone ran 10 foot fine and Wesley hiked around then seal launched down the rock wall into the pool below. At ‘no name ledge’ between 10-foot and boatbreaker, Wesley opted for the left boof line but got turned back to the center at the last second and pitoned the heck out of his SuperHero.  He hit the piton rock so hard it completely stopped his forward motion and he dropped to the side into a the fairly sticky ledge hole.  Everybody says “Ooooohhh” and then “paddle, paddle…paddle…PADDLE!” as he starts to get pulled back toward the ledge.  He digs in and manages to pull it out, but is now shaky again as we approach Boatbreaker/Thunderhole and decides to walk again. We take a right boof line into Boatbreaker and shot through Thunderhole to the cheers of the support crew.  Looking forward to seeing Dan’s video of that one because he had a cool perch for shooting that rapid.  At this point, half our group headed on down river but Ashley, Nate, and red WS Transformer guy stuck with us to get us on down. 

As we approached Triple Drop, Wesley was paddling pretty well.  Despite how well he was paddling, we knew he’d want to walk Triple Drop so we conspired to fail to disclose the name of the rapid as we described the upcoming ‘drop’.  I led down it, followed by two of the other guys.  Wesley styled the line and came out with a big grin on his face.  Ashley pulled into the eddy a few seconds later grinning from ear to ear and says “oh, my bad…that was Triple Drop after all Wesley”.  Now that Wesley had his first Class IV under his belt, his day completely changed.  He was much more relaxed and started enjoying himself.  Everyone had good lines at Maytag and we hit a really fun auto-boof that lead into the rapid above Razorback.  At this point Wesley started getting jittery again, but he finally decided to bite the bullet and run it.  One after the other, he and I both landed ourselves in the eddy at the left turn and each worked out way out without incident. Everything else was good lines and fun times as the gradient dialed back and we read’n'ran our way to the takeout.  Really enjoying this river, but still need to get in a good day with no major goofs.Good times!