A band of rain came up from the Gulf of Mexico on Jan. 10th and it brought some warm weather with it. Thursday night and Friday morning the cell towers were buzzing with paddlers speculating on and checking levels. By the time Friday morning rolled around we had a huge group of old friends ready to go kayaking. Bryce Evans was even up and out of bed and called to tell me I was running late.
Bear Creek almost came up to a runnable level. The gauge was at 8" but had been up to 12" early in the AM.
By the time we had everyone rounded up and loaded up we had decided to go check out Henderson Creek. We checked the level at the Richland Creek bridge and it was only at .7' but Richland had some water in it. It seems like some sediment is shifting around at that gauge. Typically we'd look for a level of around 2' for a good run of Henderson.
After some more speculation we headed up to the putin to look at the flow and found an acceptable level. The new gauge at the putin bridge was reading -6". This is the lowest most of us had run Henderson but it was still a very fun level. I would put a minimum on the top gauge around -7"
The run was fairly clean of wood. The only wood in play that I remember was a tree down in the left line of Rattlesnake.
Todd Grafe on the way to the chiropractor- Spinal Adjustment- Henderson Cr.
"Come Together with Your Plan"- Rodwell on Spoonman- Henderson Cr.
Javid Grubbs ducking out the Fire Escape- Henderson Cr.
Bryce Evans, Portrait for the FamilyWe finished up our run. Picked up our cars at the top and headed home. No one gave much thought to the car at the putin.
I went home and had an excellent dinner:
Turns out the car belonged to a father, daughter team of kayakers that thought they were putting on the Piney. By the reports I have heard they got into the run, past the flat water paddle in and ran a few of the upper slides. They may have even made it down to Spinal Adjustment. At some point they decided to hike out. They did not make it out by nightfall and spent the evening in the wilderness. Thankfully they emerged from the woods unharmed late Saturday morning.
The next day we headed for The Nations.
Raven Fork was at a low but runnable level of .9' We had a huge group again with two first timers.
When we got to the put in at Anaconda a group of three arrived from Lord of the Rings. Rob, Adam and Shane loosely joined our group and we all had a blast watching everyone's lines in the drops. Luckily we ran into Pat and he let us know about a new log in Mike Tyson's Punchout, which Pat ran despite the log but no one else wanted a piece. With that log in combination with Mortal Combat it feels like you're portaging half the river. Here are some photos to enjoy while you are waiting for the logs to disappear to make the trip worth the travel time...
"you can do side-bends or sit-ups..." Bryce
Przybysz
"Tricky-woo" off the couch and boofing at Caveman.
Check out some video on this blog.
