Golden Gate

I did the Golden Gate section of the South fork of the American last Sunday. We had a solid crew with firmiliar faces like Polk Deters, O'ee Chapman, Shon Bullock, Andy O, Brad Brewer, and Lil' Jake. After a weekend of hard partying my brother and a partner in crime the infamous Jonny Meyers came over to join our crew.
The gauge was reading 1350 on dreamflows and we decided to go anyway with a bit more water than our original plan. After the long shuttle and hike to the put in we got to the first rapid. Jonny got stuck in a huge stommpy hole and had a nice deep swim out the bottom of the rapid. The group moral went down hill after that. Brad, a leader, and an older member of our group opted to hike out after the second rapid gave him a little taste of what lays down stream. After seeing drain pipe the first big rapid we knew the level was HIGH.
The rest of the day we were racing against clock and making fairies above huge holes. We portaged around 6 or 7 times and ran some cool slots and boofs. Getting to F-111 we came to realize the river must have been close to 2000 cfs. The last 3 miles were boat scouting in dusk and we made it to the take out just as the river canyon became black. We were all hungry and happy to be out of the river. E.G.

1st week in No Cal

We left Visalia and spent a day in Yosemite Park on our way to paddle the Merced river. After a play session on "gauge hole" we drove stright to Coloma, home of the South Fork of the American river. In our 4 days here we paddle rivers like Slab creek (a dammed section of the South Fork that rarely runs), a park and huck 30 footer (Traverse creek falls), a high water run down Webber creek (which i had a nice little swim on in the last drop, bootie for EVAN), and other rivers of the area. Here are some photos of the waterfall and drops on webber creek. I am now at the south yuba boating with a good friend named "Justin Patt". We are hoping to have updates on rivers like Golden gate, and purdons to 49 coming soon. Take it easy y'all. E.G.

Hokitika

Flying in to the Perth River

This last winter I spent 2 weeks on the west coast of New Zealand's south island in the township of Hokitika. This place is the center for all the heli activties on the west coast. While I was there I was lucky enough to be able to paddle classic west coast rivers such as the Arahura, the Perth, Kakapotahi, Styx, and many more. This is a very enique place with an uncountable amount of rivers to run. Plus does it get any better than getting dropped off high in the mountains after a sick heli ride, and kayaking class 5 all day without having to hike a bit with your best friends? I think not. By the way the Perth is one of my all time favorite rivers in the world, yeah! Later E.G.

Montana Creeking

Yo,
This is an update from my brother Ian in Bozeman my home town.
Rain pummeled the foot hills of the mountains of Montana for a few days stright. My brother (having the a.d.d. problem he has) was checking the water flows while working his exciting job at "The Barn" when he saw that the Deerborn was flowing at a high level. He packed his gear and drove off at 6:30 a.m. Getting there at 9:00 to see the level was low Him and Luke Cummings ran the 50 footer, styled it and drove back to Bozeman in time for a nice relaxing day of work at "The Barn". Peace E.G.

Visalia, California

Hey yall,
I have been in Visalia the last 2 weeks doing some creek boating. It has been raining non-stop the whole time making some of the classics like Hospital Rock and The Tule unrunnable so we had to find other runs to do.
The first week the Kaweah was running between 2000 to 6000 csf. (much too high for the upper) We spent a few days running the lower which was easy and quite boring. There were 2 swimmers out of a big hole backed up by a undercut, but I'm with WCKA so what do you expect. This got old fast so we moved on to the North fork of the Kaweah.
The lower north fork was the first run we did. It was a easy creek with some fun slides and boofs. The portage "Cherry Falls" is a 20 footer give or take a bit. The first day the river was reading 2 feet on the bridge and I was shut down on running the falls due to the "teacher must run first" policy. None-the-less it was a fun day.
After 2 rejections on the upper north fork due to flows and trail conditions (or when you get on the wrong trail because Polk tells you it's a short cut and you hike 12 miles with a creek boat and do no kayaking the entire day) anyways after 2 tries on the upper we gave in to another lower run. This time reading the gauge at 3.1 feet we did a high water decent of the flooded river. The run became a entirely different and much more fun. The portage looked good so Orion, Polk, and I fired it up all launching big boofs in to the seam at the base of the falls going deep and popping up stoked.
I'm leaving visalia tomorrow and heading for the feathers, yubas, and americans. There will be plenty more updates coming out soon. Peace E.G.