So I get this email from Brian Pickett about midway through February that says something like “what do you think about putting together a team for TVF in March?”.  Well, being the responsible guy that I am, I replied with something like - ‘let me check with Tonya to make sure she’s OK with me paddling a bit more in March’.  For those of you unfamiliar with TVF, here’s the cliff notes and a link:  TVF stands for Total Vertical Feet.  It is a creeking competition dreamed up by Ben where teams of boaters keep track of the vertical feet that they drop on rivers during the month of March.  There are some rules but the basics are:  Teams of 6 or less; Sum up your best 8 days during March; No more than 2 days on any given river; must have at least two team members running the river together and the rivers must be run as if a baton were handed off (i.e. no putting on as soon as the other pair takes out 5 miles away…).  For more info, check out www.steepcreeks.com/tvf and/or search for SteepCreeks or TVF on Facebook.

Anyhow, Tonya said “Sure, I guess so.” and the rest is history!

I tell Brian I’m in and he tells me that the rest of the team would be Josh Dalton, Alan Wilson, and Natalie Matthews.  I’m cool with that because I’ve paddled with each of them a time or two and they’re all good boaters.  I ask if he’s got a name for the team cause I’ve got some ideas and he kinda dodges the question…  A few days later, I’m looking over the TVF website and the teams that have registered and find out that I’m paddling on a team called the Sexy Kayaking Beasts!?!

The first of March comes in like a lion with a huge thunderstorm that really gets everything in the Smokies cranking.  I take Friday off and head to the mountains with Brian and Josh and so it began…

3/2/07 - Greenbrier: 4 laps, 1280 ft. 

We had intended to run some laps on Lower Big Creek but it was too high for us and looked to have some poorly placed wood so we decided to check out the Greenbrier/Middle fork of the Little Pigeon below the class V run at Ramsey’s Cascades.

We ended up reading through the brief write-up in Leland Davis’s NCCR book and hit the water.  Four laps and 1280 vertical feet later we were exhausted but thrilled with the great day we’d had on a completely new river!

March 2, 2007 - Team SKB’s first day on the water:

The Beasts at the put in - Stuart, Brian, Josh

 Josh fires up the first boof of the run

Brian goes big, boofing the right side of this retentive ledge that has already had its way with Josh and Stuart

3/30/07 - Pigeon: 6 laps at no release, 978 ft. and 28 miles

With our Wilson Creek days (2) already used and nothing much else running, we had to come up with a plan to try to maximize our score over the last two days. This wasn’t so easy because our team captain was out of commission and only pairs of the remaining quartet were going to be able to paddle on Friday and Saturday. With a plan to try and rack up a big day on Wilson Creek Saturday, we needed to run some other river on Friday and score enough gradient to replace the 875 WC day from earlier in the month.

Enter the Dirty Bird. It had the basic ingredients we were looking for: water and gradient (not much of either, but beggars can’t be choosers). At 163 feet per lap from the power plant to Hartford, we figured six pigeon laps would replace the Wilson Creek day with a few extra feet to boot.

Josh and I headed out from the Tri-cities just before dawn and slid into the waters of the mighty Pigeon for lap one at 9 am. The ~1500 cfs flow was fantastic and in less than 90 minutes we had finished the lap, set our own shuttle, and were sliding in for lap two. That’s when we noticed the dark bands on the rocks and the river bank… the power plant had quit generating and the level was dropping. Laps two and three were completed before a quick lunch break. Four, five and six knocked out by 6pm. As the flow dropped from 1500 cfs to 250 cfs, the lap times increased from 90 minutes to 120 minutes. Some of this increase was due in part to the fact that our heroes began goofing off more and more as the day progressed and enjoying every minute of it (maybe not every minute we were paddling through the elongated flatwater sections…but all the rest for sure).

By the end of the day, we’d dropped 978 feet (ON THE PIGEON), paddled 28 miles, and driven 96 miles (both cars combined) of self shuttle from the power plant to Hartford or vice versa.

It wasn’t hairboating, but it was a day we owe entirely to TVF - no way it would have happened otherwise!

3/31/07 - Wilson Creek: 6 laps at -6 inches, 1650 ft. and a dislocated shoulder

 I think I speak for all those sexy kayaking beasts out there when I say that this TVF season has been a blast.That being said, it sure can be rough on boats and shoulders! Alan and I hit the waters of Wilson Creek this morning at 9:00 am and -6 inches with the goal of getting in 10 laps in order to put our team total for the competition over 10 grand. While the lines weren’t always beautiful, every lap was a blast and we were cruising toward an early completion of our goal. Our fearless but sidelined team captain, Brian, was running a great shuttle and photo service - and doing it all with his arm immobilized due to last weekend’s shoulder dislocation and clavicle fracture. The Jackson 5 team was out there as well and they were tearing it up - TVF style. J5 already had 3 laps when we got there and they passed us three times as we paddled through our laps (we were pacing ourselves pretty conservatively because we had no one to rotate laps with). Even with our slow and steady pace, Alan still managed to crack his H3 somewhere on lap 1, 2, or 3. Luckily we had two extra boats with us, so he saddled up the Jefe for the rest of the laps.

Here are some of the best shots Brian snapped during the day:

Alan’s nice boof into Boatbuster
 

Stuart launching the second drop of Triple Drop

Alan and Stuart lapping their way down to Razorback…

As we climbed the take-out steps for the sixth time, we decided that after lap seven we would scarf down a quick lunch and then polish off the last three laps. Unfortunately, lap seven was to be the lap where our plans were changed…

As Alan and I were approaching Little Woodall, the RL slide before the entrance to 10 foot, the J5 boys were closing in on us. I suggested to Alan that we do something goofy as we dropped over the lip of the slide - for their entertainment before they lapped us again.

(Please don’t try this at home… this man is some kind of professional something…)

Alan does some kinda rail grabby thing and I go all out with a rail grab and paddle twirl - grinning ear to ear - until my boat kicks left at the bottom and all of the sudden I’m side surfing in a really rententive hole. As I’m riding a pretty good brace, I see Brad (from the Jackson 5 team) peek over the lip and I try to give him a somewhat sheepish look because my foolishness had me side surfing right across his line. About the time he went around me though, the hole surged and my shoulder popped - OUCH - I flipped and managed to roll back up wondering why my arm wasn’t working right. I managed to get both hands down near the left blade with my right blade way out in the outflow, but I couldn’t move myself to either side because my right arm refused to extend away from my body. As I’m wondering “what do I do now” Brad from J5 paddles up into the hole in his Mega Rocker and bulldozes me out of it while enjoying a pretty good rodeo ride himself (MANY THANKS BRAD!). Once I was out of the hole, I flipped, punched out, and climbed out on a midstream rock where I explained that my shoulder was dislocated. After about 30 seconds of hearing how to twist my arm around in an extremely painful series of positions (to get it back in joint) I suggested that I’d probably just tweaked it really badly. At our suggestion and, after seeing that we seemed to be in a safe place, the J5 guys headed downstream and sent our shuttle man back up to find us. While Alan was getting my boat back across to the roadside bank, I remembered an article that explained how to fix (reduce) a dislocated shoulder:

(check it out at: http://www.physsportsmed.com/issues/2000/11_00/joy.htm)

Thankfully, this technique worked like a charm and, at least from my perspective, the situation improved greatly.

Our shuttle pulled up before we had even climbed up to the road and as we accepted the sad realization that we would not make our 10 lap goal we did the only thing respectable boaters can do in such a situation…

we drove back to civilization and ate mexican!

Peace, love, and TVF -

Stuart out.

Just barely squeezed this one in to keep February from being a total bust (river-wise, that is - Tonya and I did enjoy a very nice weekend in the Smokies over Valentines)

2/24/07 - Wilson Creek: -6 inches

Paddling fast with Pirate Rules

Brian Pickett and I headed out from Kingsport in the rain around 8am.  The rest of our group had cancelled but we figured other folks would be putting on since this was the first rain the area had seen in quite a while.  The online gauge was indicating -8″ but we expected it would be on the rise.  Sure enough, it was -6″ and still raining when we got there.  Met up with some really nice guys from
Greensboro, NC - Miles, Dan, and Jeff - who also turned out to be good boaters.  Put on at 10:45 and had completed two laps by 12:45 - definitely my fastest 2 laps down the river (laps #4&5).  Good lines in all of the big ones.  Ran the boof line at boatbuster, got pushed left after the 1st drop in triple drop both times.   On the first lap Brian dislodged an 8 to 10 foot long, ~5 inch diameter log in some junky no-name rapid - I had dried out on a shallow line and watched him float by with the log in hot pursuit.  I scooted off my rock and was making my way down the rapid when the log’s downstream end pinned and the end facing me popped about 6″ above the surface maybe 20 feet in front of me!  I managed to lean way over and push myself to the side of it which dislodged it but put me in a nice upstream pin against the next rock.  I braced off the streambed and worked my way loose, but it could have been ugly.  I also tried the ski-jump boof on RR above Razorback - not a recommended move at -6″.  I shot down the slide and ricocheted up into the air in a waterless stern squirt which I actually managed to land pretty well.  Brian asked me afterwards if it was my bow that he saw shooting up over the horizon line…very entertaining. 

On the second lap, the guys wanted to get downstream and head for home so they said we’d be boating according to ‘pirate rules’.  Brian and I must’ve looked a bit confused because they proceded to explain that ‘pirate rules’ referred to Pirates of the Carribean - “Him what falls behind gets left behind”.

I went to the right at No Name Ledge (about a 4 footer) to avoid the big piton rock in the middle - only to discover there is also a piton rock to the right!  I hit so hard that it completely stopped me and made such a loud noise that everyone in the group turned to see what happened.  The stop was so sudden that my knees jammed into the deck of the boat as they absorbed the shock.  I was pleasantly surprised to see at the takeout that the Phat showed no new scars or dents on the nose afterwards. 

I think this run is rapidly gaining on the Little as a favorite of mine, but I’m gonna have to get a new paddle pretty soon because it is hard on the stick.

Stay tuned for TVF 2007 - March Madness!

 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!