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.