Thursday, May 24, 2007

If Carlsburg did paddles…

Just imagine…
Well the guys here don’t have to…they have had two perfect paddles. The first, Lovers Leap was supposed to be a nice easy warm up. It in fact was a steep class V boulder garden with huge log jams.
Unwelcome visitor found on Simon's kayak seat
During their paddle Emma (Musgrove) and I did some biking and hiking and inspected some of the chock fest rapids (Emma is now my new found hero. Emma has actually paddled this river in past, but is now with Bambino in her belly).
We patiently waited as shuttle bunnies do at the take out, and we waited some more and some more. Finally before the sunset for the evening Si shows up a little bedraggled garbling something about the boys partying at a cabin upstream with a bunch of women.
We located them at a cabin a mile upstream still in paddling gear and barely able to walk with 10 women all swooning over them…that is till Emma and I showed up. But the gracious hostess’s, didn’t let it faze them for too long… before we knew it we were invited to stay the night.
An evening of dance off occurred Brits vs. Drunken US women…foolish how could they think they were better than us the box step works for everything!!
Copious amounts of alcohol later and it suddenly downed on us the guys could easily wake up bound, gagged and a foreseeable future of being lady toys. While the offer to stay inside seemed sensible and warm we opted to camp out in the open garden where we could all watch each others backs..
We did a head count in the morning just to make sure… all present and correct sir.

Bald Rock Canyon 6 miles of class V+, heinous portages and death defying ferry glides above atom bomb falls sure to wipe you off the face of the earth if you miss it.

The guys faced a 13 mile flat water paddle out across the lake at the end. They sent me (Cheryl) on a mission to cut short the 13 miles anyway I could. I scoured all the dirt roads most ended up with a 2.5 mile hike from the river.
My final option was the Marina…I hoped to blag some local into using his boat to pick them up. I ended up with one better my own Patio boat rented to me for the whole evening, and they were letting me drive it all by myself.
So off I toottled… I found the mouth of the river semi moored up and sat down for a nice afternoon sunbathing.

I was quickly awoken by raucous English voices. It took a minute for the guys to believe it was me. But the joy on the children’s sorry guy’s faces was amazing. Like children getting puppies for Christmas. Even better I had stocked the boat with cool drinks and food…fantastic.
We decided since we had the boat for the evening, we would drop the boats off at the car load up with BBQ stuff and spend the night on our mini cruiser boat.
A perfect night under the stars soothed to sleep by the lull of the lapping water and the gentle purr of snoring.

A couple of other sections of the South Fork American, the Kyburz & Golden Gate sections:
The South Silver completed the paddling in this area. Beautiful extreme steep granite slides, for more than a mile.
We’re now looking for the multi day Fantasy Falls and Upper Cherry Creek runs to be at good levels.

1 comment:

Adam, Jayne, Jack and Safi said...

Cor blimey guvnor! Sounds like the good times are certainly rolling. Quite envious of your continued adventuring guys - it sounds like the best of times :)

Hope your memories don't get too fuzzy from all the magic go-go juice that is undoubtedly being consumed on occasion ;)

Tek care folks and see you in a few more months or so.

Jayne, Adam and Safi XX