Thoughts for the Up Comming Season and Some Memories from Last

First off, I'm new to the whole CKS Squad, and thanks CKS for letting me be a part of your team. I'm a little nervous about my first blog post, but hopefully you guys find it entertaining.

Let me introduce myself:

Hi my name is Chase or for my friends from the south hola.

If you dont know me, you might have seen me I was the guy yelling Juice Sauce wearing a coyote hat with the huge tail. Maybe you recognize me, but probably not.

This year I intend to train and compete in the Teva Steep Creek Race as well as some other smaller Boater X races around the state. I also plan on further exploring Colorado's beautiful rivers and creeks as well as a weeklong Middle Fork of the Salmon trip in late June. I could possibly travel to Germany and Switzerland to kayak in the Northern Alps, but that trip is still very dependent on a couple of variables.

I expect this season to get a little wild. I stepped my game up quite a bit last year so this year I plan on dialing in my skills instead of DEF CON MEAT HUCK. Last year alone I made 15 personal first descents all in Colorado and New Mexico. Some of the prouder moments started down south in New Mexico where I met two guys that I have become great friends with, Atom Crawford and Eddy Honea. Without much of a warm up I found myself pucker butt on the Rio Embudo. Talk about exausting, this creek will wear you out unless your name is Tim Kelton or Rolf Kelly who only fall to Kryptonite. I wish I had more pictures of these trips, but most all of what I have is video.

Eddy Honea boofing the hidden boof in Cheese Grater on the Embudo
Photo: Ben Carter

My New Mexico adventures ended right after the Embudo Race hosted by Atom for a grand prize of some pretty big bragging rights. If the Embudo runs this year do not hesitate to go to the race and check out the scene NM has going. This is one hard core sick bird race that makes hardened veterans even throw up their cold beverages at the take out.

After Embudo season was over Colorado started going off. PaddleFest of course kicked everything off officially. Peak flows on the Ark were ridiculous. Running Pine Creek at 3000 punching the right line of MoonPie and the Royal Gorge at 5200 left me with some pretty good memories last year.

After PaddleFest I went straight over to OBJ and met up with the LVM and the Demshits Crew. This is also where I met David Schmidt, Duane Gibson, and Alex Ohman. David Schmidt wrote a pretty good report about the whole trip including my jeep getting stuck in the Slate River on the way back from camping on the other side.

OBJ Daze

Crew at OBJ
Photo: Alex Ohman

After this I headed over to the Teva Games to race in the Steep Creek Race. Due to lack of preparing I didn't have the best showing. Right after the race Leif Anderson, David Schmidt, Natalie Kramer, Duane Gibson, and I decided to run Gilman Gorge at some ridiculous flow over 800. This beautiful canyon makes scouting easy with the train tracks on river right. Too bad scouting wasn't much in the game plan except for Slurry Pipe. This was a decently epic day with Duane going on a hell of a ride and swim in Fall Creek Rapid. I also swam in Slurry Pipe after a roll and a broken paddle, one of the scarier moments in my kayaking career. After finding out my hand wasn't broken in the Vail Valley Medical Center, I was back in the game.

After that I traveled around meeting strangers and kayaking any and everything I could get to. Some of the more memorable runs later in the season were Upper Frying Pan, Lower Frying Pan which rarely run at good flows, North Fork of the Crystal, Eleven Mile Canyon, Bailey and Big T Gnar Section.

Here's some pictures. I hope you enjoy.

Headed to the Put-in with some innovative kayak racking. It was solid.



Head waters of the Crystal River


NF Crystal Put-in
This must be one of the most beautiful places I've ever been the water is cold air is thin and nobody around for miles. Except for the random run in with Tommy Hilleke and Jules. This beautiful stretch of class V creeking may be hard to reach but worth every bit of effort.

Entrance of the first cascade on NF Crystal

Upper V on 11 Mile
Photo: Alex Somosky

Bottom V in 11 Mile
Photo: Alex Somosky

I hope this gets people pumped for the boatin' season. Has anyone else been looking at the Vallecito Gauge?

-Chase Nobles