Graceland Fotos

The Biggen of my Cali trip. Man it was insane to paddle down. It was much higher then when John Grace first ran this drop in 2006, but it felt very padded out and still good to go, just fast and bouncy.

Scouting it out and ready to go.

From the bottom looking up at the massive S**t we just ran.

Don't have shots of people running it just video. I will try and get some freeze frames up "asap"

Top 5 rapids of all time. It was so scary but so fun.

Later E.G.

Fantasy Photo Dump

All shots by Grant Korgan.

the pics are from end to begining. some good stuff. This was maybe my best trip of the summer. The group means everything. I love al y'all boys and girl who joined me for this one.

Me on "Show me your Tits" about to make it through that bitch!

The Subi on our way back to Coloma.

Salt Springs Res.

Some big old domes.

Nasty Crew From the depths of the boonies of all the worst places known to man.

going for it on the marquee drop of the run F. Falls.

Chris and Korg got the knuckles

Lizzy on the FF.
Lizzy bottom 20 footer on FF.
Korbulic on the FF second run of the morning.

Lizzy on the Rooster slide going right behind me with a solid run.

Epic mushroom boof what a sickidy drop.

Grant and Chris scouting the stouts. That thing was cold as ice to give Chris a face like that.

Portage on!

The only un-run drop of the entire river

View upstream of camp #1.

Our sick camp in such a nice canyon.

Downstream look of what we got to run that next morning.

Good Morning Drop!
Rooster tail slide was good to go.

Chris one of the first good drops.

Lizzy probing Tay Tay's drop.

I wonder how it went?

Chris trying new line to avoid the pocket beatdown.

Chilling at first camp below, in, and above the goods.

Natural Bridge Falls "105+ feet"

Yo all you egcreekin fans this is a big one. Ian Garcia my older bro who just turned 21 went stoutin'. He has been looking/talking about this falls for about 2 years now. He finally went stopped talking about it and pealed out of the eddy towards commitment, years of plans in the making, and the tallest waterfall he has ever paddled. Maybe the tallest ever kayaked period. We will know in a few days the exact measurement of the falls. He stuck the line, but swam, thats all the info I have heard. I'm in 3 Rivers at the Kaweah running laps on the East fork and Hospital rock sections. E.F. has got to be one of my favorites out here no doubt. The news came in late last night and I was stoked to hear such good things coming from family all the way back in Montana. I'm fired up!!!!!       

Ian lining it all up ready to fall off the edge of the world.

Freefallng, is this for real? Look at how big it is. Unbelievable!!!!

Props Brotha I can feel the feeling all the way down here typing on this Mac laptop shaking looking at these pics.

Later E.G.

Ian Runs Natural Bridge Falls!!!!

Looks good?

the level he had.

Well this thing has been looked at for years now, but not until yesterday the 19th of June with the flow close to 4000cfs my brother Ian Garcia sent it. Not 3 seconds after leaving the lip he met the pool sticking it damn vertical. He skirt imploded and he did swim out from the falls. The exact hight is not measured but they were guessing around 100-115 feet tall. Could have been an attempt to break Tyler Bradt's young record from last fall on the 107 Alexandra falls. We will know shortly how tall it was and you along with myself want to see some pictures of this STOUT!!! coming soon.

Later E.G.

"Graceland"

After Dinkey I met up with Pat Keller and a contingent of Southeast boyz for a run down the West Cherry. Hiking in from Box Springs we spent the night over looking the Put in slide from high above. The next day after dreaming of what the day could hold in store for us we hiked up to scout the thing. 2 hours later 5 of us had run the biggest, fastest, longest, tallest, rapid I have evr run. It was amazing. The run out was also quite good. Pics and video will come soon enough the next mission is knocking on our door.

Later E.G.

Dink... Thats what I'm about!

This is my third write up on this same section, so I won't be to deep. Does kayaking get better than "the waterfall" section. In my opinion, no. It is pure enjoyment from start to finish. Here are some photos. enjoy!







Later E.G.

Montana and Access Issues

Ian G. greasing the thing. (photo Tyler Bradt)

Last monday Tyler Bradt and myself (Ian Garcia) made our way up to an all classic waterfall. Fiening due to constant snow fall that has left the northern rockies blacketed with snow and a spring that is persistent to coming. We went to the one river in the entire state that has actually flowed. Falls creek is a tributary to the Dearborn river and has become the topic of recent issues to river access in the area. With no actual public access to the creek and hiking trails that lay upstream it is now fully illegal to access the creek. And i am not recomending that anyone make the drive to the area to ask or atempt a run on the creek.

After talking with some of the locals in the area it became more apparent that thier reasons for shutting off the access is simply due to disrespect. As in prior instances with access to montanas rivers and creeks there are groups who are working to regain access to these creeks. if you would like to get more information on access to falls creek and other rivers that currently lay in jepardy check these links. http://www.boatertalk.com/forum/BoaterTalk/1492607 THese are real issues and for the time being the only advice that i can pass on is to stay away from these rivers until an agreement is reached.

or for more information and individuals that are helping american whitewater to regain access you may contact Dave at daves111@yahoo.com
later
IG

Theres a Fantasy in those Hills

Well back to it on the bloggin' after the last update I left you at the burrito parking lots with some great intentions. We loaded Lizzy's little red subi and drove down the 49 all the way to old Jackson, CA. As I faded off to sleep I mumbled some vague direction to the Salt Springs Lake, the takeout. an hour or so later we arrived beat down and ready to spend another night in the dirt.

We woke buzzing for the mission about to come knocking on our front doors. Another 3ish hours of driving past Bear Valley and up to the hi-way 4 bridge crossing the N. fork of the Mokelumne we met our good compadre Grant Korgan for a nice 3 man 1 woman mission into "landia de mierda."

We only got a hand full of pictures down the entire run, but a huge archive of sick video. That will come later, maybe a Flow III or a Cali movie???? Anywho back to it we camped below a great sliding drop high in the run for our first night, and I froze my petute off next to the fire that died around midnight. In the morning we were greeted with a sick gorge stacked with big slides including "Big Boy Pants"

Me on the entrance of B.B.P the last piece you can't see is a huge slide around the boulder. Sicktor Rictor!

Then a nice long second day of running the gorges of the river, all except the "I want my Mommy" & "Cataract Canyon" gorge's brought us down to our camp. The same camp I shared over a year ago with the Kiwi crew brought back great memories from my first trip down this epic 3 day journey. A very mellow morning spent story telling and sipping coffee brought us to the money of the run "Day 3.


Grant Korgan on the Dreamy Fantastic Fantasy Falls.

Starting off the day running the "Green Monster" a so scary 5 foot ledge to a straight vertical 10 foot wave boof lead us hot headed into the bottom 3 biggens. Getting to the F.F. we fired up some laps on it and rallied down to the Island Slide. Lat year I ran a piece of this monster backwards so I was determined to have a good line. I scouted for a good 20-30 minutes and gave her. Had a greasy line and came out the bottom high on life. More boogie water led us to the Grand Finale "Show me your Tits"!

The big slide
The Thing
What ever you want to call it...

I had a huge beat down in here last year and it looked bigger and harder to run this time around so I was pretty nervous above this one and rigged my boat to swim.

Chris right above a nice little swim on the newly named "Show me your Tits!" By the way that kid still owes those river gods a bootie.

Then I somehow came hot into the bottom hole and back deck rolled out the bottom holding my paddle high stoked to make it through the Zambezi sized hole with out a beating. With that in said I then watched Grant take the beating of his life and swim at the bottom. All happy with such a great trip, such perfect water levels, and a paddle out to think back on every drop we made it to the cars tired and ready for bed time. Fantasy is my 4 or 5 favorite trip in this neck of the wood which is saying more than a lot, this run is truly incredible I hope that some day I will be fortunate enough to paddle this canyon again.

Later E.G.

South Merced: 2 times in 3 days

What a great classic this run really is. The first time a ran it was with a great group of folks I have been running around with all summer. We took our time but still routed lots of stuff plenty fast. After a great camping/cooking/fire/starry night at Super slide we had 5 more inches of water and ran out some steep boulder drops out to the take out. It was such an enjoyable relaxing experience I had to go back for more.

My next run was with the legendary Chuck Center, Ligare, and Mz Katie Scott. We had some spray skirt issues so we ended up one daying the beast. I had the lines down so well form my last trip that I routed them down almost every rapid on verbal beta. It was super swell. We did the whole run in about 6 hours with plenty of room to speed it up for next time. I'm gonna challenge the Holbek time of 5 hours on my next run. I was stoked to be done with the long paddle out and headed to Happy Burger in Mariposa when plans came to me for a Fantasy Falls mission for the next day. I blacked out from there until I came to in the parking lot of Tejawana Taqueria where it became a reality.

Enjoy the photos by Jono Ramsay (kayakingsux.blogspot.com)

Lizzy running a zoom flume of sort on of the last good drops of the run before the long paddle out.

Hustling for some grub after a great two day trip through the edge of Yosemite park.

The S. Merced is so good because you can pretty much run everything from a boat scout, if you have a little back bone. Don't quote me on that!

Taking the time to document our adventures with a pal by my side.


I like the water when it covers all the rocks. The trickiest drop is the next horizon line. 3 of us ran it 3 of us flipped. But all was dandy.

Chris on a nice slide. There was a great little surf wave right above this guy.

Mr. Gabirelli running some ledges.

...And doing some braces!

Gabrielle Running some clean pillowy Whitewater.

Chris's portage line around a very runnable but, I was 90% sure I would flip on it rapid. So I did a nice seal launch into it.


Lizzy On the Super slide what a nice smooth sequence of slides.

Mr. Chris Gabs about to hit his back deck!

Me encanta el Sur Merced!!!!

Later E.G.