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The Stonycreek Rendezvous - my third festival this month! What a great time. Good bands, great friends, lots of beer and some great paddling opportunities - who could ask for more?
My goal for this weekend was to make it through this continuous Class II without swimming - Success!!! The level and flow continued to come up the entire trip due to the dam release and the continuous rain the night before and the during entire trip. This was the fastest moving water that I had been on in the hard boat so needless to say, I was pretty nervous. We spent some time ferrying upstream of the put-in and then started downstream. The first two rapids where the most technical of the run requiring some maneuvering through many rocks. Kurt worked with me on eddy turns with decent success & Gavin tried to help me with my ferry but that really needs work. I almost got flipped while trying to peel out of an eddy and ferry backwards to another but managed to brace and keep upright. Another semi-difficult rapid had a high rock wall with jagged rocks sticking out on river left which needed to be avoided. Knowing how nervous I was throughout the run, Kurt told me to concentrate on making the eddy at the bottom on river right and then had me follow him through 3 small punchable holes to help me loosen up. I did have to brace going through the largest of the three but now knowing that my boat could get me through these types of holes I was able to relax a little and enjoy the rest of the run. The only other difficulty was to be Pipeline, a man-made river-wide pourover which needed to be run very close to the right bank. I followed Kurt and ran a pretty clean line. The remainder of the run was just some ripples and waves down to the take-out. I would love to this run again at this level once I get a little more boat control.
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