Thursday, April 12, 2012

Spring Time in the Northern Sierra's!

Well winter seemed to be over and with a little melting snow mixed with rain we had some really good flows. Now it seems we will be having ever better flows as there is 6'' of snow outside my door. Winter loves to creep up on the Sierra's. Andrew Mathews a good friend and fellow boater returned from Africa and stopped by my house on his way up further North. We ended up running the Bear River Falls in a raft. It was fun and way we ate some good ol' fashioned wild turkey sh!t at the bottom. So you cant say that we did not style that line and just as well we cant say we slayed the dragon in the raft. However we did both return to have fun in the kayaks. Its really great having a feature like that just out your back door. We also ventured to the South Yuba, which also happens to be right out the back door, and has some really great class IV-V on 49 to Bridgeport. The South Yuba offers everything from class super gnar to flat water, from a creeky feel to a more river feel. Its great, if its running and your in the area make sure to check it out. We also managed to make our way over to the Upper Middle Cosumnes. A really great class V run with a few hairy areas, a couple portages and some insanely stellar rapids. We ran through clean with only one skirt implosion from Andrew Mathews at the Lars Holbeck drop ( a 15'+ drop landing on a very shallow shelf demanding a solid boof ) Mathews hit his boof stroke but was still absorbed and the pressure imploded his skirt. He had really solid boat angle ( nose left ) and avoided the more shelf like area. I have seen one other person go "deep" there and come out unscathed and one other pretty serious piton resulting with an injured ankle. Anyway enough about that and on to the video, I hope you enjoy it!

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