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Loyalhanna |
I had been anticipating my first real hard boat run since I had started Jeff's roll sessions. Unfortunately for the paddling community it had been a mild winter and there was very little snow melt to help feed the rivers and creeks in our area. I watched the gauges all week praying that Loyalhanna would come up but it never did. Bruce headed for the Cheat Canyon where there would be more than enough water to easily get his Thrillseeker down and I headed to Eat N Park in Monroeville to meet Jason for breakfast. We talked about the low level but decided that neither of us was willing to give up on our first run even if we had to get out a walk a couple of time. We then met Jeff, Tom, Mike and the others by 9:00 AM at Kingston. Once there we all changed, set shuttle and headed to the put-in.
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| The Whole Crew | Jason & Me |
After a lengthy speech by Jeff explaining the do's and don't, river etiquette, safety and a description of what we would be doing, we put-in around 11:00 AM. The level was a foot below the minimum suggested level. Way, way too low! Amazingly we got down it without having to walk and drag.
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| Hangin' out on Loyalhanna |
Loyalhanna Rock Garden |
Jeff had us ferry from river right to river left in front of Buttermilk Falls to teach us how to boat scout drops - pretty scary the first time! I ended up running Buttermilk Falls 3 times - Awesome!
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| Ferrying Buttermilk Falls |
Jason Buttermilk Falls #1 |
Jason Buttermilk Falls #2 |
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River Rat |
River Rat |
River Rat |
The approach to the 2nd ledge was real boney and I got hung up slightly before going over the drop.
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| Second Ledge | River Rat Second Ledge |
About 3/4 of the way down, I watched as a fellow paddler went up onto a large rock in the middle of a rapid and didn't lean the right way. With him being one of better roll class students who had a solid pool roll I thought he would be able to roll right back up. Unfortunately for him, it didn't work out that way and he had to wet exit. Telling myself not to do the same thing, I did. Although I tried to avoid it, I went up onto the same rock but managed not to tip because I did lean into it and quickly recovered. The only other highlight of the trip was when I managed to find a good line through a pretty technical rapid that had many slots to maneuver through and found many of the others actually following me! Most of the 2nd half was real scrapy. I took out with most of the others at the low water bridge rather than scrape any more plastic off my boat. Even though I had a great time, I definitely would not run it at this level again.
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