Jiblogs

30 years in the Halls of Karma

2011-08-23T16:00:00.002-04:00

A motion has be made to hold the 2012 Mystery Worlds at the Halls of Karma. The giant sUSGuS has been monitoring the flows near this realm for some 30 years. I have made summons to this robot-machine for a glimpse into its mirror pool of data, and I have been returned a great many binaries. With the help of my Excel-lent powers, I have extruded these numbers into a format for human viewing. No special goggles are required, but turn on your thinking cap. This may help with your interpretations of these space-time deliverables: KARMA May the decisions be educated!

I shall return with digital imaging and memory based descriptions of the zombie vortex at this years Mystery Worlds held at the Weasel, North Santiam River, Oregon.

Dog Days of Summer

2011-07-19T16:50:00.008-04:00

It is starting to reach the point in summer when it is time for a dog update... I mean blog update... damn it's hot.

Speaking of dogs during a weekend of celebratory debauchery Dode's dog encountered the dread Agkistrodon contortrix. Dobbers was so bummed out he sat in a back pack and let himself be carried out of the Bear.

My trip down the MFS (photos to come) and a conversation with Dode in MT lead me to reevaluate my recreational focus. Still training, probably still do some racing on the road and I will certainly be at some cyclocross races but got to get back to where it feels right. So I am making time to be in the squirt boat .

Here I Go, Turn the Page

2011-01-06T11:58:00.001-05:00

On coming of age in 2010 and other jiblets:

We find ourselves in a new Julian calendar year. Our globular vehicle has made another go at its path around the sun, and we celebrate our arbitrary milestone in this revolution with yeast piss, kisses, and if you’re the kind of person that feels the constant nagging of time chipping away at your block, maybe a resolution for the next set of 366.24 rotations during our next solar orbit. These will, of course, set us up for multitudinous forms of disappointment, as we earthly beings are quite incompetent when it comes to satisfaction, and thus constantly looking for new ways to make our intolerably difficult lives easier; only succeeding in adding complexity to an infinitely chaotic universe. Take the most popular gift for the 2010 Christmas season as an example, the Apple Ipad. (Off topic, but what a poor choice in names: Is it only for women? Does it have wings? I’ll need to see a disembodied hand spill an Erlenmeyer flask of strange blue liquid on it before I buy one…) While I’ve seen it do some nifty things like organize photos and present awe inspiring slide-shows of places I’m too poor to be accepted, I’ve yet to see it take out a middle man, destroy the power grid, or reduce our dependence on foreign oil, which to me, seems like it would make life a bit more simple. It does however put the entire world library at the fingertips of every cyber-barney, and surely when the Ipad reaches the hands of the indigenous subsistence farmer, he will wonder how he ever lived without it.

I just know these things are going to be so uesful

I spent a lot of time in 2010 shedding the skin of my youth. Actually, a more accurately analogy would be that I put on a few new skins on top of my old ones because I like my old ones, no matter how tattered and bacon-necked they have gotten, and I want to keep them for going deep in the green room. So, though I may get hot in 2011, I’ll have some grown up threads in which to shred the gnar gnar.

Oooops

The state has granted me a license to practice civil engineering. All I had to do was work my ass off for ten years, take a burly test, pay them a good chunk of change (annually), and continue my professional development by attending seminars, summits, and conferences on my area of expertise, which not so ironically, is surface water. It is a heavy new jacket, laden with pockets full of responsibility, risk, and the potential to get my pants sued off. At least when that happens, I’ll be looking dope in my new coat.

Hella Fly

Speaking of simplicity, zeitgeist, and the coming apocalypse, I have been honing my frontiersman’s blade and have shed the blood of a furry, four-legged doe-friend. Fun is not really an appropriate adjective with which to describe killing. Exhilarating, for sure, but also solemn. There is something very old about it; something that the many layers of societal progress and pressure have suffocated over the years. This will serve as my summary: blood was spilt; the good earth yawned.

A Three Buck Tragedy

Carpentry skills will also be necessary in life after the end, and rebuilding a roof over the back of Quad One Eleanor afforded me the opportunity to spend my otherwise kayaking vacation in the Wind River drainage, practicing the art of patience and hammer swinging, nail driving, building America.

The accomplishments in my single-man, watercrafts were slim this year, dwarfed by the responsibilities of life as a young adult, but I did manage to procure a bangin new squirt which proved to be the ultimate gun for roaming the Upper G this past fall.

Also of mention was the first decent of Sam’s Creek, tributary to the Thunderhead Prong of the Middle Prong of the Little River in the Great Smokey Mountain National Park. Let’s hear what T-fat Sibley had to say about this little gem:

A classic Smokey Mountain creek saw it first descent yesterday, December 1.

Sam’s creek is a little known run that flows into the Thunderhead Prong of Tremont, which flows into the Little River, eventually finding its way into the Tennessee River. This hair-tastic , Class V+,wilderness run was difficult to access and even harder to navigate.

Team Vagina Boobs (Tbag); consisting of myself, A-Dud, and J-two-the-MT planned to rendezvous with Bankfool and 37-420 at the Y. We arrived shortly after the proposed time to find that we had been left behind in true Jib fashion. The aforementioned paddlers were en route to a run which can only be described as Gay Fork of the Fagg Prong. Selfish and unable to share the spoils, they came back with tales of rapids such as Anal Beads, Poop Shoot, and Curious Back Ender.

Tbag, determined to take a piece of their own first D pie, headed towards Sam’s Creek. We parked at the put in of Tremont and headed upstream past Thunderhead. We crossed the river and began to hike along this beautiful creek and its neighborly rhododendron.

A-Dud and I hiked up some 1.23 miles according to his GPS, leaving the J-two-the-MT below the hairy section. After playing paper-rock-scissors for the first Rapid, I peeled out of the eddy and styled it, followed closely by A-Dud. We caught an eddy below the rapid which consisted of a 100 yard stretch of IV+ boogie into a clamshell drop. We decided to name it Baby Gorilla in honor of the best rapid in the world: Baby Falls.

The next rapid looked pretty hairy, so out of respect for superior kayakers and in the spirit of a true First D, we left it untouched.

We then found ourselves just above a perfect twenty- which is now called east coast groove tube. The lead in was perfect – a three footer into a rockslide and a boof on the right. The left side of the drop had a huge log in it which added an element of danger. J-two-the-MT walked this one as well.

The next hundred yards was another section of V+ boogie which fed right into Thunderhead. We paddled down through lower Tremont. A great run, good friends, and marginal kayakers.

Thanks for the update T-Fat.

My camera is broken, so I’ll leave the images up to your imagination, faithful reader. May the sidereal days be at their best for you in 2011.

Shalom.

-rAndy

Brad Hinds

2010-12-06T15:14:00.006-05:00

Bradley Ray Hinds
| Visit Guest Book

HINDS, BRADLEY RAY HINDS, BRADLEY RAY "BRAD," 39, of Hoover, Alabama, passed away Thursday, December 2, 2010. He was a loving husband and father, a devoted son, and a true and thoughtful friend. Brad is survived by his adoring wife, Emily Ford-Hinds; son, Bradley Walker Hinds, age 10; daughter, Lily Grace Hinds, age 4; mother, Dean Campbell; father and step-mother, Billy Ray and Heide Hinds; brother, Brent Hinds; step-sister, Traci Perry; grandmother, BB Snyder; and many beloved friends.

Brad was employed at Allcomm Wireless, his family's business, as director of sales. He was proudly serving as president of the S.E.M.S.S. Association for 2011, and was founder and president of the Stone Creek Hunting Club. Brad loved and lived life to the fullest. He was an avid outdoorsman, a committed member of the kayak community, and a lifelong hunter.

For all who loved him and were touched by his life, his broad smile and kind heart will be sorely missed and remembered forever.

Visitation will be from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. on Tuesday, December 7, 2010 at Ridout's Southern Heritage Funeral Home in Pelham. The funeral service will be at 1 p.m. the same day in Southern Heritage Chapel, Pelham. The graveside service is being planned at Helena City Cemetery. In lieu of flowers, memorial gifts may be made to ACRA (Alabama Cup Racing Association), C/O Mark Travis. Phone (205) 223-8808 or visit www.alabamacupracing.com.

Brad you will be dearly missed... from leading us down the Bear, making sure we were always paddling class V, tearing down tents, to stories of big bucks and being harassed by wild hogs, boofing "the dog", or sharing your joy of taking Walker hunting and all the ways you've touched our lives. Rest In Peace my friend

Cyclocross- GA

2010-11-19T10:54:00.007-05:00

Going good but stymied by a mechanical.

Lifted from http://grahamsocycling.squarespace.com/ Drew Graham

From the Room of Doom to a Golden Shower

2010-10-04T10:47:00.000-04:00

Team Jib recently caught up with the rescuee from the room of doom to get his take on the situation:

TJ: DOOOOOOD, Alright bro, tell us what happened...

Rescuee: Well I was traveling downstream to pillow rapid, rocking my pfd with nothing underneath it... you know, nips out, Tao B. style... when I was distracted by a a dude with a blue helmet coming downstream on some sort of fishing vessel. In awe of the awkward, yet Graceful mode of river transport, I caught the eddy in front of the pillow in order to gawk at him.

TJ: Wow! We've been riding our sparkly fishing lures down the Upper G for years. Someone has actually started riding fishing boats down gorge?

Rescuee: Oh ya, people are using these fishing platforms in all sorts of arenas these days. I guess it helps with the hemorrhoids brought on by years of hitting too many rocks while navigating whitewater in kayaks.

TJ: Ahhhhh. The sport grows, the styles change, and new needs develop. I even heard that Jacksin is offering a diaper insert for there new "crappy-ass" outfitting! Anyhow, we digress. What happened next?

Rescuee: After everyone on the rock got done pouring beers on me and asking if I saw some fat chick that their friend was "camping" with the night before, they threw a rope at me. Well, I got all tangled up and was forced to exit my boat. So I grabbed the rope and tried to pull them all into the water with me. As I was yanking on the rope, this one guy yelled "leave a man behind!", whipped "it" out and started peeing all over the place. Everyone was like, "What the hell!?" and, "Where is that coming from!?". It was as if Moses had struck the rock and piss was flowing from, seemingly, nothing! I think it was a miracle of sorts.

TJ: Well Rescuee, luckily for us, the paparazzi was there to capture all the action on film! From what our photo analysts can tell; you're right! The piss was emanating from nothing! Or at least something so small, that physicists will have to lump it in that grab bag of philononscientifical goodies that includes subatomic particles, superstrings, and nanopeters. Do I smell a nobel prize...?

Rescuee: Actually, later that night, at the G-fest, I was jammin out to some sweet Billy Idol tunes, eyes closed, head swaying, when I overheard a conversation from the adjacent campfire. This guy was like, "Ya, I saved that turds life! He was stuffing himself like a fatty at the Golden Corral. Totally sick!" Some other douche was like "Whatever dude, I peeed all over that flounder! He was bottom feeding with the sea-snails from the put-in. He needed my warm salty shower to wake him up! AhAhahahHAHAHAHhhaha!" Just then, the lights went out and the music stopped. I saw the pisser running from a bunch of guys standing around kicking some jackass on the ground. I heard him as he ran, "Oh shit, Rodson did it! He's getting pummeled, RUN!"

TJ: Damn, what night. So you think you could identify the mystery pisser?

Rescuee: OH, FO SHO! Just before I was blinded by splish-splash of pee pee in my eyes, our gazes met. It was most certainly William Lunching. I'd seen him before on those internet, beat-down vids those guys at Shred Really do. You know, the Harry Potter thing. Plus, he showed his teeny peeny to the whole festival the night before! How could I forget?...

TJ: Well, there you go. You win some. You lose some. Drink your booty-brew, son.

The Great Unconformity

2010-06-30T08:31:00.012-04:00

PMBAR, Cohutta and other Racing

2010-05-05T08:28:00.009-04:00

Its been a long time since we've updated the blog. I just know our devoted readers have been sitting on the edges of their seats waiting for the next update...

The Dode has tied himself up in 8 hour exams and now that he is finished is probably poking his brain with a Q-tip. I've been focused on road bike racing. The season has gone well I'll spare you the reports on all the rides and racing that has gone on while on the pavement. The past two weekends are two of the biggest events I do each year and with the focus being on the road I did not specifically train on the mountain bike this year, but I did finally get all the mechanical problems worked out in time to put about 45 miles on it before the Cohutta 100.

We stayed up at Turner's house again this year before the race. We finally got Turner to commit to the 100 mile event as well! We woke up to a slight pre race drizzle and headed over to the start. We rolled up to the line just as the gun went off and the rain stopped. We had pretty good conditions on the trails, the rain made them tacky for the most part with the exception of a few spots of slime over clay. The bridges on Old Copper Road were another story and one was the site of my second wreak of the day. Everyone rallied out to the back of the course and at about mile 50 or so the weather moved in; rain, cold winds, and fog were the order for the day. I believe it was soon after this point Todd G's derailler hanger broke and he jumped in a car to ride around the course with some Brits and Euros. I caught back up with Bell and we descended through the ghostly fog as shapes would suddenly appear and then quickly fade out of sight as we rallied down the mountain.

By the time we got to the last section of trails they were a pig wallerin' mud hole. I went down hard on Quartz Loop landing on my rib on a log and rode the rest of the trails like a bitch, probably loosing up to 30 minutes of time as daintily descended and walked around the technical stuff. The final pavement section was made horrible by 20-30 mph gusts but it was good to be done at near my 10 hr goal: 10:00:54 I easily spent that 54 seconds laying in the mud on quartz loop. It was one of those wrecks were you get up while the adrenaline is still flowing, move your bike and carcass off the trail and then lay back down. Alex killed it with a time of 8:50:16, Nate and Blake came in a bit under an hour and twenty after me after dealing with some mechanical issues in the mud.

Once back at Blake's Alex regaled us with stories of his run in with Michigan Jack who's fuck it all attitude helped Alex along and inspired us all when Alex told of how he had dropped Jack only to have Jack ride up to him later and tell Alex of how when he fell back he had crashed and broke his collar bone (showing Alex his swollen shoulder and collar bone) but he caught back up and rode strong to the finish.

One week of easy spinning on the bike took us into PMBAR, Pisgah Mountainbike Adventure Race, this race is the reason I do Cohutta because you have to do some long easy miles on the mountain bike before tackling the hills and mountains of NC.
Pisgah is tough. This year Alex and I were determined to ride well. We were already committed to all 5 check points having done it the previous year and just barely making it in before the time cut off, Alex picked the worst route imaginable so this year I held the map.

Nate, Bell, Chris Young and Daniel W, Alex and I headed up early on Friday, set up camp and headed to Dupont for a warm up ride. We told Daniel, " This place is awesome huh?, Pisgah... nothing like it!" I got some new chainrings and some Mexican food and we headed off to camp. The next morning we woke up and got ready, going a bit slow and just making it to check in before the cut off. Checked our gear, got our map, bought some raffle tickets and then we were off up Black Mountain. Alex and I checked the map and decided to go for the westernmost check point first then traveling the route to the other 4 counter-clockwise. The other teams with us followed suite. We lost the other guys as Alex stopped to change a flat on the first descent and I took the opportunity to but in some new brake pads as my pads were metal on metal already, I was hoping to get at least one more ride out of them. Alex and I caught and passed the other guys we were with and began our quest knowing that we were riding stronger than last year by far and determined to keep up the pace. We felt great through our third check point in part fueled by our positive attitudes inspired by Michigan Jack. The climb up 5000 to our third check point flew by and we hollered and encouraged everyone on our way back down.
We caught a group we had been seeing all day on the climb up Yellow Gap and felt like we were racing again. When we got back into the trails to pick up the final two check points the pain and fatigue set in. I battled cramps and went into tunnel vision mode trying to keep the pace going that we had maintained all day. Alex channeled the Michigan Jack attitude and kept us moving along. There were some dark times once we reached Squirrel Gap and our positive banter ceased and we rode on in silence. We saw Chris and Daniel at a creek crossing and just grunted at them as we rode by.

We both dug deep knowing that we were "doing something special" ,as Alex said, and I think I pushed myself to near the brink. We knew we were on the way home but had a long way to go. The final descent of Black felt good but I focused on not crashing and making it in safely. We got back with all 5 check points putting us in 7th place. I forced down as much of the burrito as I could but really felt like puking might make me fell better. I sat there and drank a beer and watched my leg muscles squirm as I was sitting still knowing that any wrong movement would produce leg locking cramps. I won a shock rebuild which was hugely needed as I was almost forced to ride single speed due to shock issues between Cohutta and PMBAR. We headed to the Sagebrush for dinner and then I laid in my tent to tired to sleep but happy all the same.

mc

2010-01-28T21:34:00.000-05:00

{despite the lack of photos this is going up to keep the news from going stale, will edit to add photos later, Taste It}

I used to think I was a grill master. I grilled all the time and could nail all types of meats prepared to various gradiations. I always cooked on charcoal only. Lately I've been cooking on gas and have had inconsistent results (although one may expect the opposite). And so it goes; sometimes you nail it, some times you come out ok, and others? well, you heal to come back and do it again another day.

Field reports have been pouring in with the rain from Raven Fork and Henderson Creek at juicy flows. When the weekend rolled around we did a road ride which was nice until Mark suggested that we climb Robert's Mill Rd., a notoriously steep section of road that climbs Walden's Ridge. After a few $1 tacos we headed over to paddle Suck Creek a couple of times and grilled up some dirty bird to perfection.

Another front rolled through early Sunday morning. We slowly rallied and met up at the takeout just downstream of the confluence.
The creek started off narrow and busy. The water level was a little high for a first decent and probably a little too high in general. Aside from portages due to wood and water levels the creek was pretty good quality and there were lines on all the rapids. I think it could become a gem; for a first decent found about 15 years after the gold rush on The Ridge it is of great character. It is most certainly class V, not the anticipated Class IV slides that it was sold as. Rock creek after the confluence had tripled in flow since we were first at the take out jumping from 1.5' early morning to 3' while setting shuttle and 6.75' at the end of the day.

JR found Middle Creek after pouring over some topos and online maps. He later went in and did some work cleaning out the creek and made a couple attempts at checking flows until the fronts aligned and provided enough water for this creek that doesn't even appear as a blue line on most maps. The small drainage and lack of blue line status is likely what led this to being overlooked in the past. The access, of course, is of tenuous nature and bit of diplomacy gleaned from the example set by our teacher Ron Stewart allowed us in that day. The likelihood of this being repeatable and consistent is slim, just as all access seems to be in this area of the ridge.
[Caveat: There have been several instances of people not in the know doing things such as riding around the top of the mountain with a bullhorn yelling out the window and telling lies to a landowner's wife with whom access had been negotiated, that shit won't be tolerated and will be met with consequences. In the instance of the lies we talked the landowner down, next time we may just point out which car is yours and look the other way.]

Turner missed the takeout and ran a huge hole that sucked him out of his boat. He Spitz'd it over to the side and grabbed a tree. Coming through a yard on the side of the river a man stepped up and handed him his paddle. After making fun of Turner for a minute he drove the group of three back upstream to the takeout they had missed where he told us all that the hole Turner swam out of wasn't that big. He suggested a couple of locations that we might spot the boat floating downstream. We arrived to the boat ramp just in time to see the boat float around the corner, just a second later it'd have been out of sight and never seen again. Turner stripped off his dry clothes jumped into my boat and took off around the corner into the fading light.

Another group of charges were a little late to the party and opted to explore a different creek for what is very likely another first decent: Clemmons Creek, They put in below the mini-gorge (which was not cleaned of wood and is reportedly nasty looking when there is no water in it) for the CO style creek- boogy, no eddys, large holes and waves and unexpected wood. They reported very high water and expect that at normal flows it would be class IV. Due to the high flows they completed the run in about 20- 30 minutes.

Today as Burrow ran the second drop of Stairway switch he crashed. He hiked out of the gorge spitting up blood. A trip to the doc revealed broken ribs and a broken clavicle. Sometimes you have to put the meat back on the grill and sometimes you have to eat it well done.

Surf and Sportaging

2010-01-27T13:16:00.002-05:00

I knew it was going to be a good week last Monday when I opened up my bookmark for the National Weather Service infrared satellite image to see three major low pressure systems with solid cyclonic swirling lined up from the Pacific Coast to Arkansas. As the three vortices ripped across the states they drew moisture from the Pacific Ocean, dropping the annual rainfall of many southwestern states in a matter of hours. Tornado warnings in downtown Los Angeles reminded me of that movie "The Day After Tomorrow" and as the atmospheric eddy-line whipped its way east, the moisture from the Gulf of Mexico was pulled north in millions of acre-feet and dumped across the gradient rich drainages of The Southeast.

Last Friday I left work a little early and headed to the Tiney Piney with my surf boat. We arrived at the Whites Creek takeout and the gage read 3 feet. JT, Vagina Boobs, The Red Barron, Badams, and Taylord joined me for what is without a doubt one of the best surfing runs on Walden's Ridge. Mankind is at a loss for good descriptors of waves this good, but let me throw a few haphazardly into the cyberspace: "epic", "sick", and "huyage".

Though the surf was good, it left our vertical addictions with somewhat of an itch, and Saturday we woke early and headed to the home of the Scopes Monkey Trials for some marginar on the mighty Morgan Creek, aka "North Pole".

North Pole has some really classic portaging, and this keeps a lot of people away. In fact, after adjusting for the Portage/Paddle ratio, it might be better described as a "sportaging" run. Above is the first falls, or rather, the portage around it. I think Clay gave this one, somewhat unsuccessfully, back in the day. The maps call it "Snow Falls".

After Snow, there are a few booby rapids that terminate into a sieved out log jam. A quick jump around these to the left brings you to this little cave slide shown below.

Immediately following the slide above is a small slot into this slide:

Bankfull. The human, not the run.

Then it gets good... the portaging, I mean. Here is Taft "Vagina Boobs" Sibley having fun on the lesser walked side of this portage, just above a little clapper drop that goes, sans the current wood situation.

This portage was awesome! All the technical aspects of a classic: ankle breaker boulders, sketchy down climbs, and slippery slopes.

The hard work doesn't go completely unrewarded. With boats and shoes full of detritus, Vagina Boobs lines it up on this little spout:

No portaging required between the drop shown above and the slide shown below! Don't get too excited. The days is only half way over...

Nice form Caleb, I can really read those sponsor logos perfect, but next time let me see a little more "claw".

Then comes the innocuous looking drop (emphasis on "looking") that almost snuffed Crazy Hayes. Merlin of the lowlands made it look quite runnable. Most portaged. Below is the next rapid in the gorge; a sweet and sour little boof to boof. I guess we were really fiending for the portage, because most of the group portaged back up this one to give it a second go 'round. Double, double boof.

Time for a hike with your chosen craft? The hemlocks on the next spectacular portage are quite lovely. This is followed by a couple of photogenic low angle slides. These will make you wonder why we don't come in here with at least twice the flow.

A few booby rapids mixed with a little portaging lead to another big ass portage. You can run a little sneak slide right up to the lip of a mammoth horizon line. Walking on the right will lead you to the lip of Decapitation. The scene of Tim Williams running this one in Vertical Addiction always stuck in my mind. I think it flipped his brim up for him. Below, Merlin considers testing out his full face:

and JT approaches the guillotine:

Decap is followed by this. Its got a kick for sure. You might remember the scene in "Local Hero" where Bryan Prince gets knocked out. It happened here, at "Chili Pepper". It goes better than it looks, just don't try to run it on the right.

A low angle slide flows into one of the highlights of the run: a thirteen footer that doesn't land on rock. Vagina Boobs hates his back, and drops that land in deep pools. He decided to take the ultra-sib rope swing line:

JT raced him to the bottom:

Sib's Splash can be seen in the lower right quadrant. Winner: Team Vagina Boobs!

There is one more big portage after this. The runnout of aforementioned portage can usually be run. Tree branches in the landing prevented us from having this much fun. The are some more low angle slides, a couple booby flops, and an eight footer on to terra firma in the runnout. Richland Creek feels like a back massage when you get there. Hike up and paddle down for a happy ending. The next morning I awoke to the sound of a small stream in my basement. The Captain should be reporting soon with tales of high water first deez, and stairway carnage.

Unicoi Ride

2010-01-18T09:43:00.014-05:00

Tellico- Bald River- North River January 2010:

Alex and I met up Saturday morning for a 5 hour ride around the Tellico River. Alex assured me that this would not be as difficult as our previous ride which kept dropping us into hanging valleys only to have us climb 20 % grades to get back out only to do it all over again.

Our previous ride in late '09 gave us a pretty good tour of the hollows (pronounced "hallers") and the culture that resides within.

This ride through the Unicoi Mountains encountered less development, more consistent and longer climbs and with the closing of the Tellico River OHV area little to no traffic other than the usual bear hunters.
We climbed for the majority of the ride time through sticky mud and then had one long descent from near Stratton Bald back down to the car at the lower Tellico.
53.5 Miles, 6,105 feet of climbing, 5.5 hrs total time.

The Ghost of Mayhem Part II

2009-12-30T10:31:00.013-05:00

or: odds and ends from 2009

The drought of aughts is officially over here at the end of aught-nine as we find ourselves in a rainfall surplus by a monster 20 inches in Chattanooga and 13 inches in Knoxville. The deluge after deluge of Fall aught-nine will live long in the hearts and minds of the jib jedi masters, for the gratitude and appreciation to the great wet blanket is amplified following such an arid beast.

The month of May held many good festivals. Below is the Burrow amidst the ill will of drunk tank on the Beast of the East: Linville Gorge.

It was a fine day in the dramatic canyon. Warm temperatures, good vibrations, and Taylor even found some leftover libations near Cave. Here is Mr Adams dropping out of Cathedral Gorge. What Majesty!

It was discovered in a previous year. Below the 2009 Jimicup Champion fishes with Gandhi while a few zombies await their turn in the depths.

The heat of the summer boiled our brains and our resin. Below is the grand master of Ragnaroks wiring up the first of six new glass stallions.

Behold! I need no stinking respirator! Mikey laying it down while gettin up.

Beware! Gualey 2010. The riders of the glass apocolypse shall be released from their lair. Blinded by the intense blaze of metal flake, the people will paddle helplessly into the shores to escape their wrath. The suns rays will be blackened by the submersion of the world in dark waters. The battle of the doomed gods will commence:

"Brothers will fight

and kill each other,

sisters' children

will defile kinship.

It is harsh in the world,

whoredom rife

—an axe age, a sword age

—shields are riven—

a wind age, a wolf age—

before the world goes headlong.

No man will have

mercy on another"

The Grand Canyon is indescribable. Here are 1000 futile words:

Though it hurts to remember, I will not soon forget the spiritual power of the river and its canyon. We laid to rest a true jedi master in the waters of Lava Falls. Forever he remains in our hearts and minds, and he is immortalized in all that he has left behind.

A Christmas Miracle

2009-12-26T22:01:00.003-05:00

We awoke from our slumber to find water flowing through Sitton's Gulch.

We headed up to get in a quick run before getting back to spending time with our families. The Dode was a bit ahead of us but we had high hopes of catching up with them. We didn't quite make it in time to set shuttle with them but tricked Burrow into waiting on us at the take out. We got on our gear and Broiler realized he forgot his helmet. He rode up the mountain with us to drive the car back to the bottom when low and behold what should he find in the back of the truck sitting at the put in? A helmet! We all got on the river met up with Dode, Full Throttle and Adam just below Big Bang and had a great Christmas run on Bear Creek.

Mach 3 with your hair on fire:
A Dode Throwback

Slayin'

2009-11-13T20:26:00.010-05:00

Lack of updates... but not for a lack of doing. There has been pedal biking, squirting, creeking, deer slaying and working going on.

Ocoee Squirt Gathering from LVM 32 from Lunch Video Magazine on Vimeo.

Read about this trip and see photos at Full Throttle
This has been a great season for Bear Creek, arguably one of the best creeks in the SE if not the nation.

Race Report or "how to attempt to sabotage your own race"

2009-09-18T10:52:00.011-04:00

Joe, Javid and I keeping the race moving along.
photo from thepurplewing.com

I haven't done much pedal bike racing this year. PMBAR, a SERC event at my local trails and the BMW River Gorge Omnium (Road Race, Time Trial and Criterium).

The interested reader can scroll down and read about our epic day of riding in Pisgah during the PMBAR event.
My friend and now pro mountain bike racer James Williams came into town for a visit and urged me to race the SERC event at Raccoon Mountain. I did my best to sabotage my own race by 1. racing in the single speed class, 2. changing my 20t cog for a 19t cog before the race 3. converting my tires to tubeless the night before the race. 4. drinkin' brews
None of these efforts resulted in a mechanical allowing me to leave the 96 degree F race course for some shade, water and more brews. I finished the race in 10th place. I think it took about 3 hours of solid water consumption before I could pee and probably a good week to get re-hydrated again.
I continued NOT training by sleeping late, staying up late, working on my house and drinking throughout the rest of the season.

As the River Gorge event crept up on me, I tried to increase my riding but it was really to late to accomplish anything other than to convince myself I could at least ride the race course without having to stop for a break. The Grubbs brothers, Corey Hall and I went for a ride on the course. We pounded out the first 2/3 rds fast, when we hit the stair step I fell off the back. This was enough to realize I need to upgrade my fitness. After resisting as best I could, using my poor performance as an excuse, Javid and Joe got me to sign up with promises to pull me the whole way to the base of the big climb up Racoon Mountain. Instead we were at the front of the race, driving the pace some and making poor attempts to attack on the flats. Big bad Randy was even going to pull us through the flats but I never saw him again until the Crit on Sunday.
At the start of the final climb I got out front and held as long as I could, finally a group of 10 passed me and slowly widened the gap between me and them. At the second to last steep pitch I picked off a rider. Joe caught up with me on the short down hill but I was able to accelerate past him up the last pitch to the finish for 9th. The time trial started about 4 hours later, we had some time to relax. The brothers Grubbs and I went back to my house to eat pizza, drink some beer and watch Army of Darkness, the third movie in the Evil Dead series. I think I read somewhere that this was the proper way to prepare for a time trial.
After we finished our beers we headed back up to the mountain for the time trial. I was the first one off. My legs felt weary from the road race and I thought it would have been nice to have a TT bike to allow me to utilize some different muscles, but it also gave me strong sense of pride to be one of the few racing cannibal style. Just as I started a storm was starting to roll in, there were some good winds in front of the storm as rolled in. I like to think that being slower than last years time was a result of the winds but it could have been the Evil Dead or maybe the beer. I missed 10th place by about 1 second. Joe was wearing his funny helmet as he passed his 30 second man, Javid, for second place.
Sunday morning was the criterium race. It was mine and Javid's first race of this kind. I was concerned that some sketchy bike handling CAT 5 racer was going to take me out, but for the most part everyone raced smooth. There were a few fresh legs out there, mostly Team Krystal riders who looked like they weren't the type that would have enjoyed the climbing on the road course. The pace was good, throughout. They had enough primes to keep the sprints going. Joe won at least two of them. I got out in the front after one of the primes because the pace was slowing too much and pulled the group around . I think Randy got away with 1 or 2 laps to go and Team Krystal slowed the pace down effectivly blocking, I didn't even realize he was away. I was caught up in the middle of the pack. I should have been up front for the last 3 laps, then I may have been able to do something. I came in with the pack and sprinted for 9th place, almost being taken at the line but was just able to hold the other rider off.

Eight Days in the Middle Kings

2009-08-25T10:39:00.000-04:00

Leisure Tour '09

Gambling on the dates that the water would be good we bought plane tickets to Fresno (shizblarnigan #1) to set out for the Middle Fork of the Kings. We almost got the flow right this time. After paddling the river at high water in 2005 (the flow peaked at 2200 cfs on the Roger's Crossing gauge) we were looking for a low water descent. Hoping to put on at 1250 and have the river drop, we ended up with flows holding steady around 1350cfs, I think this would be considered medium flows. Our plan was to take our time and enjoy being in the canyon as long as possible. Three groups passed us while we were on the river. The first came through with those wild eyes on a mission to get out quickly and be somewhere else, the next we juggled back and forth with as they spent time patching boats but a well planned day off allowed us to get behind them by a day. The final group came upon us while in Tehipiti Valley and only taking an extra long lunch on the Garlic Falls section allowed us to fall behind this group. You may be thinking "Wait, I thought to be a bad ass kayaker you have to bomb the run and be the first ones off the water, training for the green race everytime you paddle." Sure that's fun, but what are you missing?

Getting ready, practicing "HighFive!"

Bryce in front of the Inconsolable Range

LeConte Canyon

Product shot: I show off my Pyrahna Burn and Werner, Tim grabs his nuts, Broiler shots the bird. These are the photos that can get you free gear.

Some early mank

"Meet my right and my left"

As we appeared to the other groups kayaking the river, sitting on the bank in Arab fashion, although Tim is sporting more of the mammy look here

Domes

While the other group repaired their boats, we did this:

Where I got hammered in '05, which is just below where The Broiler was hammered this year, and right above where Helms and DeLa were hammered several years ago.

Some Class III in the Bottom 9
More Leisure Time

Previous high water trip in '05

Notice how much more sunny and happy this trip was...

Team Jib's exclusive California Highway Patrol escort into the fire zone... no shit, I'm serious.

Just like the Little Dutch boy at the dyke Bryce plugs the hole in the tire with his finger... The Broiler, with his hands on his head, wonders if the shizblarnigans will ever cease.

for a great summer read

Mayhem Part I

2009-05-21T14:48:00.014-04:00

All Hail Cron! The rains have returned!

May has proven to be one of the wettest months that the SE has seen in at least half a decade. The action started off with a skunking at Pocket Creek into a mission on a lesser run "jewel" known as Stone Coal Bank Creek. There was plenty of water, but only a short stretch of three point five uber-gnarly burlefesters. We chose to probe the first of said three and opted for the high line round the other two due to instantious decapitation consequences.

Here is Captain Kirk looking for the bottom

Caleb in flight

The next morning we returned to the greater Chattanooga area with Pocket Creek in mind once again, but The Bear was 16" and rising, so we decided to take the bird in hand. Putting on The Bear whilst it rains at 16" can be a Hair raising experience. The water finally caught up with us around Revelations, just in time for the hardest part of the run. You know it was scary when the cameras stay dry. Charge.

The next day it was back to Rock City for some more LLTrust action. We had an enormous group, but thanks to our previous days warm up, our ninja skills were already on the razor's edge.

Will Chargit Pruett

Howard Tidwell, West Prong Legend, forgot his lifejacket

If you're into evil you're a friend of mine

Cloudland Canyon has an incredible tractor beam on it at times. After a day off it was back to the Bear for a solid 15 incher. For reference I will send you to Paul's headcam footy posted previously...

Stairway sans paddler

Back to Chatty. Next day. Time for some bday margignar on downtown Signal Mtn. I've been thinking about this one since I heard tale of Ralphy's last decent. We got in there at around 1 foot, and it was not enough water. The kayaking in there is fringe. There are some really good drops and some really scary ones. Bring your nutsack. It needs a little cleaning and 4 -5 more inches of water before I go back. Trip highlight was definetly my subterranean swim out of 9mm. No one fired up Superman.

Rainbow Falls could be oh so good

Kirk and Caleb above Sierra

Caleb in the ultra tech seal line at Sierra Slide

Clay and his crew member

These drops would be awesome with more water

The week was rounded out by what my have been the "second successful descent" of the Trail Fork of Big Creek. Tony and Kirk put a good bit a of work into this one, and I'll be damned if they didn't finally find something worth a damn. Those who dare will be rewarded greatly by 500 ft/mile for two miles, if you can catch it. Stupid fun, but watch for wood.

Part I of the opening set "Ernesto"

Mikey's sickass mystery sequence

Penalty Box, low light, bad pocket hole

Link Up

2009-05-12T10:24:00.007-04:00

Paul put together this headcam footage of some of the drops in Bear Creek:

Below Neil gives Zoltan a run for his money:

Photos: Ted Hayes
Rescue: Paul

Survival Mode

2009-05-06T11:14:00.011-04:00

The first weekend of survival mode started with Jerry's Baddle a combination kayak and bike race in the Green River gorge. Its always fun to paddle the Green and see the NC folks.

I was pretty slow in the kayak but for being in a short boat where most everyone that places well uses a long boat I felt ok with my time. I got the second fastest bike time.
Cory Hall made up a ton of time on the river and passed me in the flats after the standard takeout. I caught him toward the end of the bike ride and we were able to work together through the false flats and headwinds on the last portion of the course. Cory took second place. Javid beat my total time by 4 seconds. Everyone that raced the "Greenman" from Chattanooga took finishes in the top 10.
View the results here: RESULTS

The following week we got a little more rain and got some runs in on Suck Creek with good water. I tried to do a little bike training when I wasn't working or boating to get ready for PMBAR This year was my second year doing the event. We try to stay laid back and not blow our wad early in the race. Alex and I seemed to pick a route that almost no one else was doing, which was fine with us but I believe we put in more miles than we needed to.

Our route was something like this:
blk mtn> Buckhorn Gap> 476 > FS 5018 > Horse Cove Gap> Cantrell Cr > S Mills> Bradley Cr> FS 5015 (to Yellow Gap) > FS1206 > FS 5000> FS1206> Laurel Mt > Pilot Rock > FS 1206> HWY 276> FS 5041> 475 B> FS 225> 475 B> 5041> 276> FS 477> 5058> 5022> Black Mtn> Finish

It took us around 13hrs. We rode around 80 miles in Pisgah and completed all the check points. We finished late and stayed the night in Brevard at Nate E's house.

After waking up and having a huge breakfast at The Barrel I made my way back to Chattanooga where I headed straight to Bear Creek. The Bear was at 24" so we ate some more food, hiked around Cloudland Canyon and generally wasted time until it dropped down to about 20-20.5" and put on late in the day. I was exhausted from the Pisgah race and almost opted out but couldn't pass up on the opportunity to paddle The Bear. I knew that I didn't have the energy to handle a major beat down but that at 20+" the chance that there would be some action was high. We headed down stream and we ran Surrealistic Pillow for the first time in a couple of years. At Fishbowl I headed for the left line and didn't quite get left of a small piece of flow so I missed the boof and augered in deep. I resurfaced on a back ender that moved me toward the center of the hole. From there I had a few window shades and back enders and decided to pull while I still had a little energy. I swam for the surface but couldn't get there, I went for about 2 recircs before I came up and was able to swim over to the ledge on the left. Bryce got my boat on river right and my paddle floated right over to me. I got my shit back together quick and we blazed into Knocking on Heavens Door> Stairway to Heaven> Cosmic Trigger> Big Bang

I needed a rest day on Monday but went back to the Bear after work and caught it still running at a low but fun 8". I met Clay W. over there and we paddled with Jeff W and Dave L. who were doing their 7th lap. Tuesday Suck Creek held all day long at around 4.8-4.6' so I headed over there after work. . Rain again on Tuesday night and Wednesday morning brought The Bear back up to 15". Again I headed over after work and had a great day, catching it around 14" which was just what I needed to get my head right about that run after my swim over the weekend. I plan on doing some resting tonight and it looks like more rain on the horizon but what I should really be doing is working on my house...

April Showers

2009-04-06T16:24:00.029-04:00

steeper than it looks, down the gut of Rock Creek, Lookout Mountain

Rain has consistently been in the forecast here in East Tennessee, and its apparent in things like relationships, to-do lists, and other "responsibilities". Water off a ducks back you might say, because its been nothing short of a chargefest 'round here. Last weekend tKnoxville made it over to Mr. Watty's for a little adventure kayaking. They hiked over the mountain and pulled a big scoooooop on all the other boaters that showed up at Anaconda just in time to watch 'em charge 'er down the gut, no scout. No time for pictures. "Hiking over from the Straight Fork is the only way to go." -N. Helms

This weekend it was a little "after" work West Prong Friday, followed by an alpine start on a Lookout Mountain "gem" into Classic Cain mission Saturday.

Insurance Bluff

Rain Lankin back in action

Lovely Lula Lake Falls: Big ups to the Land Trust

"How many portages did you do?" -Lane

backyard stomping ground

fully charged from the warm-up

Rock Creek warm-up

Rock Creek has been off the radar screen for most Chatt. boaters for a long time. Bryce and Brent went in for the first decent around 10 years ago and never reported that there was much too it. It took a Knoxville boater going back in on a solo mission to really open the eyes of everyone of the quality of the run. Access is on private land and permission is easy to get, but required before going into this creek. The land managers have been very open to the idea of having kayakers as an additional user group here. Rock Creek has probably seen more decents in the past two weeks than it has over the past 10 years. It is a steep but relativly clean run, but still reminds the paddler of runs like Middle Creek and North Pole. The only requests of the land managers thus far is to stay low key, small groups (which I think we are pushing altely) and don't get hurt.

I have been trying to stay off Suck Creek lately opting instead to get after work runs in on Cain> North Chick. which is classic and allows for more of a river running experience by offering the possiblility to stay in the boat for 9 to 10 miles rather than short 1 mile laps.
T. Martin you still owe me a booty beer, don't think I am going to forget or let it slide! Your photo will be on this blog soon enough.

he's gonna be a daddy soon

Of Boojum and Bicycles

2009-03-19T10:06:00.005-04:00

Back from the desert with all fingers and toes attached. Started the trip off with a Hueco crushing sesh with the Danimal into tequila sipping at secret radium hotsprings. Drove to San Diego for crew rendevous, then pushed the muff for about 700 miles from Ensenada to Loreto all detours included. With the additional "blue blazing", we made it from San Diego, California, United States of America to La Paz, Baja California, Sur, Mexico in 19 days. Highlights include our all day ride into 30 mph headwinds in the high desert plains, secluded beach camping with natural, tidal hotsprings, the start-up of Crusher Industries (look for the spring line-up "Photo-op One" to be dropping in department stores too soon), and new prophetic incarnations of the prophet boojum, who is not. who is. who. (insert elightenment).

Click here for the full photo spread from eye of Rodson

Middle Creek

2009-03-16T14:25:00.027-04:00

A long slow drizzle that started late Friday the 13th and continued through Saturday only got a few creeks in the Chattanooga area up to a runnable level. Suck Creek got up to around 4.5' North Chick. Creek ran at a minimum flow, and many rivers on the plateau came up as well.
I met Jeremy at the takeout for Middle Creek to asses the level. The new gauge was reading 1' and we weren't sure if the creek would have enough water, but it is a thin margin between not enough water and too much. A coin toss determined that we would drop into the gorge... "best two out of three?" Just then Nick pulled up fired up about trying something new and with the nudge of his enthusiasm we headed up the mountain.
We hiked down past Rainbow Lake and stayed on the trail until we got past Rainbow Falls and proceeded down to the creek.

Every time I go in here I tell myself I am never going back. I tend to go back about once a year, I must forget. But after this trip I find myself not coming to that conclusion. Having enough flow and it being cleaned out minimized the portaging to only two mandatory portages due to wood. Next time I think we'd all like to bump it up as far as the water level goes, and with a little more work with a saw and another motivated but small group I'd go in again.

The run is about a mile long and drops around 700+ feet. I think we managed to run just about every runnable drop amongst our crew. There were probably 2 others out there that would go but you'd have to take the hit, and someone else has already taken the hit for that glory.

I am not going to provide any sort of river description other than to say its steep and dangerous; full of sieves and undercuts. In fact just to give an example there is water flowing down stream to the entrance of "shoot me in the face with a 9" that is coming across the top of some boulders which pours into the rocks at the runnable line, below those boulder is a pool (fed by a sieve above) with a falls that falls into the back of one of the caves near the landing of the first drop, this falls actually falls back under the flow going towards the entrance. If that description doesn't make sense it is because the structure of the rapids and sieves that create them often don't make sense.

Sierra Slide

First Decent of the center line of "Dirty Willy"- Nick M.

Superman Slide is a full on chargefest. There are two drops that make up the entrance that are still unrun and remain there for the taking... its only your face...

tighter than the picture makes it look.

A little more boogy gets you to Craze Maze. The top drop has been run before, this trip was the first descent of the second drop, the third portion of the drop, which consists of a three drop series and is really the best part, has been run but was portaged due to bad wood.

Setting Safety to avoid a 25 foot drop into a sieve:

2009-03-10T13:39:00.006-04:00

Andy D is riding in Mexico- check his progress here: crazyguyonabike

We got some rain and got to go kayaking in Alabama, saw lots of friends paddled a few river miles, good times, no photos, no video.

A great cyclist was lost in Chattanooga, our deepest sympathy goes out to David's family. Below are several links to check out on this:
Chattanoogan
Suck Creek Cycle Blog
Suck Creek Cycle Blog more
Drunk Cyclist: Rider Down

Our boys at LVM did a feature on squirt boating on their "monday morning mad house" series and the video featured some TJ action, watch the video here:
Lunch Video
check out their other stuff on the link to the left.

Got a report back from the annual march get together, which I was bummed to miss this year, that there was good water and nice weather for a green run and heartbreak ridge ride. It was also reported that "the big game hunter" now has a bike. Look out fat bottomed girls!

Stay bright, be seen and crack a cold one.

2009-01-11T10:31:00.026-05:00

Trip Report:
"The Bear roars again"

The Chattanooga area received several inches of rain January 5th and 6th. We decided to wait for the river to drop to 22" or lower before we put on; January 7th. Lookout Creek had peaked at over 8,000 cfs the evening before. We put on with 21" on the gauge and healthy flow coming in from the tributaries. Most of which formed beautiful waterfalls spilling into the gorge.

We knew we would need to scout most drops due to the high water moving the wood around in the gorge. Most all the wood was avoidable except some wood that has fallen in just above Omega. Get out well above the entrance to avoid the log. You can still put in below it and run most of the drop. After our trip some people pushed the log into Big Bang which required the assistance of another group of boaters to push it over the drop where it disappeared. You must boof here and the right side pocket where you can pencil in (pocket- protector) is out of business. Use caution until the log can be located and/ or removed.

Stairway to Heaven;
David Cohen

Curtbag testing the Big Bang Theory

We had clean lines on Revelations, Momentary Lapse of Reason and Armageddon and entered the boulder gardens, where it always seems like the action is on; Daniel Creek adds substantially to the flow. Casey hiked out after having enough of dealing with a sinking boat. We lost one other member of the group who decided to hike off as well. Aside from some wild lines off Stairway, that will likely be campfire material, there was very little carnage.

Lookout Creek at the end of the day:

Crushing New Years Eve

2009-01-05T20:09:00.005-05:00

It seems that dry weather has temporarily made itself scarce here in East Tennessee, which has certainly made all water loving mammals happy, but during the drought of the past few years other avenues of adventuring were explored. Over the holidays an old friend returned from "the land of enchantment" to explore some southeastern geology. Here are some shots from the Devil's Racetrack, an interesting rock fin protruding from the edge of the Cumberland Plateau near Carryville.

Danimal half way up, cold stoked

The view down from the belay station at the top of the first pitch (look at little Walden asleep in the sun, what a good puppy)

Danimal charging pitch number two

Looking off the top into the Tennessee Valley

Rock Fin

So thats why they call it the Devil's Racetrack...

Here is why we didn't climb this route when we came here during the summer. Huge jug half way up the first pitch is a giant bees nest. Yikes. Luckily they weren't home when we were there.

Suck It

2009-01-02T10:17:00.007-05:00

(((^^^666^^^)))

2008-10-06T14:19:00.003-04:00

It was the year 2008. It was The 555. Seven riders mounted their steel ponies and headed for Portland, OR. They completed their task and have risen to demigod status. Their foolish bravery has spawned another two-wheeled movement. The 666. Six states. Six centuries. Six days. Its all happening Spring 2009. Stay tuned...

Tour A La Bama

2008-08-30T09:09:00.008-04:00

The first reaction that most people had was something like, "are you crazy?". I would usually then explain that we would get up super early and ride before it got too hot, and that 70 miles a day isn't that hard on a bike, especially when you've nothing else to do but push the pedals and eat. Cool, clean hotel rooms are a luxury that make the heat of the day all the more tolerable, and we would spend a number of hours basking in the chilled air of someone else's power bill. Was this convincing? Maybe to some, but to others we must have seemed a bit masochistic. But, as you can see from the sequence of photos below, it was clearly the bikes that went crazy...

With a little good fortune and a lot of good food we made our way from Lookout Mountain, TN to Destin FL, in about 6 days. Day 1 was a beautiful ride out Hwy 157. Rolling hills, beuna vistas, and fajitas for two when we arrived at Weiss Lake, AL.

Susanna, Roller Coaster Road, Day 1

Days 2 and 3 we followed Hwy 9 from Centre to Wetumpka. We awoke on our first morning on the road to local news stations warning of poor air quality for this to-be the hottest day of the year. No problem. We made a short jaunt from Centre to Heflin, about 50 miles, and found respite and barbecue near Interstate 20. We went to bed, planning on getting up super early and trying to knock out a bunch of miles before lunch the next day. 6:00 am and some Hardys biscuits got us to Goodwater before lunch, about 50 miles. We found more awesome barbecue and tried to loiter in the A/C as long as possible, but the magnetic pull of the road got us rolling again by 1:00. As we rode into Wetumpka, we were both finishing our first ever centuries and the weather that had been building behind us all day was just beginning to break. We walked to the closest Mexican restaurant between breaks in the rain, and toasted to sore legs and sweat over some more fajitas.

Typical Hwy 9 Scenery

Fed up with chicken trucks and rednecks in mudslingers, I picked up an Alabama Atlas and Gazetteer on the morning of day 4. Now it was time to get lost on some county roads. The weather began building behind us again, and by noon we were hiding from lightning at a dog kennel in Downing. The first storm passed and we found ourselves trying to ride through sand in BFE, AL. By the end of the day, we had waited out another storm at some random church and had been invited in for a Wednesday night Bible study. We graciously declined and headed into Troy in a light drizzle and dwindling light.

Sand Road

Opp was our next destination, and our fifth day on the road would prove to be that of our muscular discontent. We were quite fatigued this day, but only had a quick 50 miles on roads less traveled. Opp was our favorite town, we ate steaks and seafood at a quaint little restaurant and, so that we could drink a beer and play some billiards, became members of the local club "Regis' Four Sons".

Fun with Fatigue

It was in Florida on day 6 that we finally got caught in a giant thunderstorm with no shelter. We found a low spot near a culvert in the road and huddled together hoping the lightning would not see us. It didn't and we made our way to Niceville, having our first and only flat tire on the way. We celebrated with some more seafood on the sound and some redstripe while picking which sail boat we would buy for our next adventure...

Success

You must be joking...

2008-08-29T14:26:00.004-04:00

I did my first road race last weekend. CAT 5 road race that ended in a climb. Achieved my goal of being in the top 10 by the skin of my teeth... 10th place.

I didn't think there was much doping going on below the pro level until I was reading the drunkcyclist's blog and stumbled upon this link to a forum all about doping... I don't even know what to say about this.
I've got my own form of doping and plan to do lots of it tonight. Think I'll start things off with a lager and move on to the ales from there.

2008-08-14T13:33:00.005-04:00

Keepin' Up with the Joneses

I've noticed that lots of other bloggers have important causes they promote to their vast readership be it conservation of rivers in canada, green practices, research on terminal and chronic diseases, looking at boobs, and last but certainly not least... general self aggrandizement; not being one to be left behind TJ also has its causes. I present to you one cause TJ has deemed worthy enough to champion... Bringing the movie RAD to DVD release.

We will work hard to keep you up to date with the latest progress in this most important endeavor.

Please Hammer Don't Hurt 'Em

2008-06-30T15:45:00.003-04:00

On Saturday night several other lazy cyclists and myself decided to sign up for the Southeastern Regional Championship pedal-bike race being held at Raccoon Mtn. on Sunday. Despite our lack of preparation we felt the need to defend our home turf. The SERC series is a regional race so it brought out fast men and women from around the southeast, I hoped my home field advantage would garner me a few spots in the standings.

This was the first XC race I have participated in, typically my focus in cycling, if you can call it that, has leaned towards the endurance side of the sport. So going all out for two hours was quite a change from the long duration events done at a more sustainable pace.
Race Recap:
After a series of phone calls between the local lazies to determine when we'd show up at the event, planning to arrive as late as possible to increase our odds of missing the start, we had a brief team meeting before warming up and lining up at the start.

I was off in the single speed class. The first bit was on paved road and I got off the line fast enough to be in first place at the first turn, second place at the second turn and the pattern seemed to continue... I ran out of gear as the road got flat to slightly down hill and lost several more places. When the course turned into the woods and got technical I rounded a corner to a pile up in a technical section. Since I knew the section was there I was commited to a line I thought would be there around the blind corner only to find a bunch of wheels and feet and legs I had no time to slow or change line so I ran into the tire in front of me and had to dismount the bike and subsequently lost a couple of places, I was bummed, had I been in front I may have made up a good gap here.
Back on the bike and chasing back up to the leaders I came off the end of a bridge and my handle bars rotated around in the stem. I rode it like that for a while but finally decided that I'd have to fix it. Lost some more places and started getting swept up by the leaders of the sport class. I was able to bust ass and catch a few more single speeders but the leaders were gone.

TG came across the line bloodied from a botched jump, I wish we had photos of the gore.

So I learned several things that will hopefully help me go faster next time. I was bummed to lose spots due to the pile up and the mechanical but I probably wouldn't have done much better without those mishaps, but maybe less bad.

- make sure your bolts are tight enough on your bike before you race, but not too tight
- if you are really serious, gear accordingly (i.e. if they modify the loop to take out the worst climbing and give you a paved start take off the 20 tooth and put on a 19 tooth freewheel)
- now that you've geared accordingly get out in front of everyone else because most of the racers suck ass at technical riding
- stay out in front because riding a hill behind a geared racer (even if he is the leader in that class) sucks, and despite how much you want to kick him in the forehead off the trail so you can get by it's easier to just pick up your bike run past him and get back on, I think this also helps to demoralize the geared biker as well.
- don't race in the afternoon in the end of June
- preemptive strike against cramps
- plan to have your mechanicals later in the race, in the early parts everyone is amped up, a mechanical failure later in the race seems to create less of a gap to make up

old photo dump: TJIB/ TDUB after Cohutta 100

Summer Time BBQ

2008-06-20T11:28:00.004-04:00

Since it is summer time most of us are riding bicycles (except people who own 4 wheelers)

Looks like its time to put up the mtn bikes and fixed gears put on your sister's jeans, grab a white belt, scarf and get out the push- fix

I've really been into this lately, I started riding the fixed gear with flat pedals and no breaks back in '94 but I just didn't feel the zen like connection to my ride like I do with my fix-push board. The skidding competitions are the best.

This should be cool for a few minutes and then I am going to find some other old forgoten useless object to make cool. I think I'll go back to wooden rims on my bike to get the true zen experience of bicycle riding, all you other fools are just posers.

Homeless man: "Do you know why hipsters are no good at karate?"

Me: Huh?... no.

Homeless man: "Because they can't get past the white belt"

"To Serve Man"

2008-04-01T08:15:00.004-04:00

Well we haven't updated in a while...
Here is a working draft that was written for March:

Gustatus Similis Pullus

March like a lion. I wish I had sat down and blogged some over the course of March it was a busy month. Unfortunately now you'll just get a laundry list of happenings of the month.

On the 5th everyone got together to celebrate the life of Daniel D. with a run from Alum Cave to the Overlook on the West Prong and then a bike ride at Kitsuma. The rest of the week we paddled Suck Creek and Cain/ North Chick. here in Chattanooga. The following Saturday Bear Creek ran.
Lots of biking: rode across GSMNP, paddled the Bear again with Andy D, Nate H and some Asheville boys, rode 65 of the 100mi route for the Cohutta 100 with Turner, paddled Suck Creek, lost a teacher mentor and hero as Ron Stewart passed away. Ran the Bear again. We thought alot about Ron as we paddled that day and it was good to be with several others who had learned alot about boating and a little about mathmatics from Mr. Stewart.

Sometime later Nate Helms, Chris Young, Alex Ransom, Jason Rodwell and I met up at Blake Turner's house to ride the Cohutta 100. It rained the night before. The ride was good. Jason Muirell beat Floyd Landis, TASTE IT!

A couple of weeks of relaxation later Nate Helms, Chris Young, Alex Ransom and I met up in Brevard area to race PMBAR , awesome event and format. Brad Kee won it, TDUB!
I think we'll be back for Double Dare this fall.

A couple days ago we went to the Green River Narrows and had a great group of old friends. As we were relaxing on the rocks below Sunshine Bryce said, " I wish I had this group going to California with me" or something like that. He left for CA yesterday with a couple of squires. They should be fine, they'll just need a few pairs of clean underpants.

they'll probably be more biking than boating and I'll try to update this blog more often for all our dedicated readers. {echo}
omg

Of Hog's Heads and Misdirection

2008-01-15T08:19:00.001-05:00

More Rain!

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 Family

We 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.

2007-12-31T08:52:00.000-05:00

A Great End to 2007. a trip report

A good slow rain fell on the Southeast late Thursday night and all day Friday, Dec. 28th.
I was able to get out of work early enough to catch one run on Suck Creek. Suck started running around 2:00 Friday afternoon so most folks were able to get several runs in.

With most of the rain hitting the Smokies and NC, as usual, we made plans to travel for the weekend.

I headed towards Knoxville on a solo mission to meet up with Andy Dodson to paddle the West Prong. The place was packed with boaters and tourons. The weather was a beautiful sunny day but I didn't take the camera since photos don't seem to do this run justice. We met up with Blake Turner and Nick U. for a run down the upper section. Eichhorn and Bryce, who had decided earlier in the day that they weren't going to go kayaking realized their foolishness and headed up to the mountains to meet us for a second run.
This was my first run on the West Prong and I thought it was everything it is made out to be. I think its best described as an amped up Foss or Money Creek or a really tamed "bottom 9"
The scenery is spectacular there are lots and lots of tourists. We saw some big old ravens at the takeout which Blake Turner proceeded to tell me were only black birds... how did that run on the other side of the mountain get its name? That must have been Blake talking, not Mr. Turner.

The next day, Dec. 30th, we headed through the clouds to the other side of the mountain to run Raven Fork. Raven Fork always seems to run around New Years. We found a good level to take a couple of first timers down. The gauge at the bridge was 9" brushing up to the 10" mark. It had rained a little that morning and the night before and although we didn't check the gauge on the way home it felt like the river came up a little bit, maybe to 10", 11" or more, evidenced by the Oconaluftee USGS gauge

Things Fall Apart

Taking first timers into the Raven Fork is always fun. Sunday was no different. The amount of fog in the gorge only added to their anticipation as it was difficult to see the rapids from the trail on the way in. A slight misty drizzle kept the gorge dark.
There is new wood in the small slide below Headless Horseman, stuck right against the wood that was there previously. Wood also warranted a portage of Mortal Combat.

Andy.

We made our way around Big Boy and showed Taylor and Eichhorn how not to run Mike Tyson's Punchout. I came down the last part backwards, flipping upon the landing, I tried to brace back up right, at the point that I was about halfway back up I saw myself heading for a pocket in the right wall. I got stuffed in the pocket and went under the wall. I'll spare the reader all the should've, would've, could've that goes through someone's head after they decide to pull their skirt. The end result was that I grabbed my, paddle, camera, boat and the tree trunk coming down off the river right wall. The boat proved too heavy to hold onto and still be able to hold onto the tree trunk so I let that go. I wonder if my Perception airbags that crapped out about 8 years ago had been replaced if I would have been able to hold onto the boat? It washed into the eddy on the bottom right of the ledge below. So it was just me, my gear and the tree. Andy was in the eddy and I looked over at him and wondered why he was watching me still in his boat. Andy had landed at a strange angle and pulled his ribs. After some kind words from me Andy struggled out of his boat and up onto the rocks on the river left where he made a weak toss of the throw rope which landed like a Oregon State field goal kicker's kick, too short. A situation like this is why its best to have more than two people in your group. Bryce was able to get a rope to me and I swung over to shore above the ledge that was just downstream. I got my boat drained, and Andy got ready to hike out with injured ribs.

Eichhorn sliding right

We continued on downstream living up to the motto that started off as a joke, "Always Leave a Man Behind" The remaining rapids went well and everyone met up again at Mr Watty's house.

Middle Creek

2007-12-10T09:32:00.000-05:00

After a late wake up and having my coffee I got a call half expecting it to be about going biking in the afternoon after the trails dried out a bit. The boys had done some preliminary research and found what was thought to be a runnable creek.

A quick shuttle was set, the covert put-in was as successful as one could expect when walking around with brightly colored 80 gallon tubs and we were on the river. We worked our way downstream, finding the level low and dropping, wood and debris from the fire over the summer slowed our progress both in the water and on land.
Highlights:
"Shoot Me In the Face with a 9"- Middle Creek 3rd time run from the top down. Everyone else put in inside the cave.
One scary ass pin: involving wood underwater, not visible, everyone else boofed it, one man went deep and caught it in the lap, on top of the sprayskirt, any kayaker's worst nightmare, but alls well that ends well.

Hand-paddling Underground

Look here if you want a description: http://www.americanwhitewater.org/content/River_detail_id_4276_#rapid1493

Notes From the Underground

2007-12-06T08:53:00.000-05:00

Incoming Wire...

while many suffer here in the drought stricken south, one man rejects this and takes it upon himself to rise above this condition of boredom. Here is his story:

Successful expedition to the Himilayas.
I left the states in early Oct. and headed to India. The US team got together in Dheli where we hired an opium addicted alcoholic driver to pilot our van. The teams main mission was to paddle the 5 sacred tributaries that make the Ganga or Ganges River. After a 2 week session on the Tons, Supin and Yamuna, as well as a couple of broken boats, class V first descents, no white people, no beer, very little English, and the first westerners to enter a village or two. We decided it was time to head to Rishikesh for a new driver, a couple rest days, and a replacement for the broken boats.
Then it was off up the Alakananda and the Mandanakini for a couple more weeks of paddling, seeking out the goods, visiting some sacred places, and living large T.J. style in the Himilayas. The last two drainages turned out to be the highlight of the trip. Easy access, tons of different runs, one or two possible first d's and lots of action both on the river and off. We also grabbed a couple days trekking in the Himilayas surrounded by 6000m peaks and working the legs a little. Than it was back to the rivers. On our last drainage of the trip, we ran into North Carolina's own JJ Sheapherd and his team of international boys. We hit it up together for a couple days before going on our own respective paths. We finished our planned expedition in 5 weeks, and decided it was time to wrap it up in India and make our way to Nepal.
Nepal is the shit. We left India took our 1st of many sketchy bus rides and crossed the boarder into Nepal early in the morning, only to find ourselves caught in the middle of a Maoist caused student protest due to a bombing that killed 25 people and stopped all east west travel. After 5 days isolated on the boarder the political groups reached an aggrement and travel was on. We made our way to Pokhara and the Annapurna Drainages. We linked up with some Scottish boys and lost a couple of our own, as we fired up 2 sweet runs out of Annapurna Sanctuary. Then it was off to Eastern Nepal, Kathmandu and a couple runs off of Everest. I'll do another update with pictures and some river descriptions later in the month. Now its off to the rocky mtns for powder season and a bit of work.Cheers, Stan #43 On Tue, 4 Dec 2007 08:14:25 -0500

Gentlemen of Leisure

2007-09-12T11:17:00.000-04:00

The dam releases of the Gauley River are upon us.
Gone are the hot summer days of leisure boating.
Squeezing into the squirt boat for one more mystery session at the local sink spot or pulling on that ringer pfd for a relaxing squirt run down the Ocoee are only foggy memories as you seal the skirt at Summersville.
No, leisure boating is over. Its on in the big water, undercut ladden rapids such as the one who's name strikes fear in the bowels of any semi-sane squirt boater, LOST PADDLE. Sure those boys look so debonair through most of the run but know that they're puckered "tighter than Steely Dan's assholes" on that rock below the Meadow.

Why do I call it leisure boating?

Stuff enough foam in your fake jacket so you know which way is up, slip into some metal flake and charc in for a ride on the "poopship"

How We Roll Part II

2007-06-17T19:22:00.000-04:00

Or: More Colorado Dilly Dally

NOTES: Treasure Canyon

-high alpine scenery

-"unique" character

-"worth doing", once

-deadly portage just before crux drop "Twizzler"

-no "OBJ style" anything

makes mouths happy

Good Idea: Stop off at the Wolf Creek "tunnel of love" for some "roadside", high-water action. Put in just upstream of large culvert under highway 160 on the west side of Wolf Creek Pass. Take out after you've had enough.

Bad Idea: Risk life and limb clinging to loose rocks on sketchy scree slope only to be turned away from twenty-footer by near vertical walls.

Good Idea: Head to Durango for Colorado Gazeteer and Thai food made by cowboy.

... and your dad is still a bitch, kid.

Interesting Idea: Put on Lime creek late in the afternoon on an a hot day in June.

Bad Idea: Break your borrowed Werner in Adrenaline

Good Idea: Follow local's lines on Lime creek late in the afternoon on a hot day in June.

"colorado classics"

Good Idea: For Epic Winter Riding, Check Out Treasure Mountain Hut

http://www.treasuremountainhut.com/

Backcountry's Finest

PLAN B.2: Run the Upper Animas from Silverton to Tacoma

PLAN C.2: Avoid the cold wind and rain in the various nooks and crannies of Silverton. Head over Red Mountain Pass . Doddle in Ouray. Head to Orvis for a soak. Eat more cheeseburgers. Drive dirt roads for miles in the dark. Pull over and sleep in the dirt.

un-run 60 footer in Animas watershed

PLAN D.3: Big Cimmaron

PLAN E.3: West Fork Big Cimmaron. (First D anyone? I hear its just ripe up there for exploring.)

PLAN G.9: Take advantage of recent cold snap and falling water levels. Head to Crystal drainage. Yule on the high side. Resort to plan H.9.

PLAN H.9: Head up the North Fork of the Crystal. Cross the creek? Definately. Get turned back by snowed-in road. Definately.

PLAN I.a: Good Idea? Bad Idea? at Crystal Mill Falls

run to the hills

Good Idea: Come back to Yule the next morning.

the mystic is a sick stick

Bad Idea: "Check" the wall at the bottom of slide shown below.

boldy going

Marginal Idea: Get rejected by rooster tail and get sent careening into giant rock pile at river-right, bottom of slides shown below.

Reality Check

Good Idea: Skip like a stone at the bottom of this massive slide

elephant gunner

Bad Idea: Put in too high upstream on Yule creek.

Good Idea: Running the crown jewel of Colorado's park-n-huck.

happy ending

How We Roll

2007-06-12T14:00:00.000-04:00

Or: Spirit of the Hawk Flies with Beta

charge

PLAN A:

May 31st. Beta Team Leave Chattanooga. Drive to New Mexico. Paddle low water ditch mankfest El Rio Santo Cruz. Paddle The Embudo. Observe first ever gaging station installed by the USGS sometime in the late 19th century. Wait on Charlie Team.

O Captain

PLAN B:
Charlie Team arrive. Alpha Team call and advise all teams to continue to the Middle Fork Kings ASAP. Bomb Embudo with Charlies. Charlies become convinced that California is the place to be. Drive north to Treasure Canyon. Part ways with Charlie Team on the 4th.

Michael Jackson or Magic Johnson?

very local: Atom Crawford

PLAN C:
Receive call from JC Sprayer. Yule is on the way in. Drive to Penitente Canyon. Sleep amidst giant boulders. Awake and drive to Yule in the AM.

penitente

PLAN D:
Awake amidst giant boulders. Realize Yule is very far out of the way to California. Head to Durango. Maybe stop at Wolf Creek waterfalls.

Some interesting folks in these hills: Jayhawk the Prospector and Jerry Garcia look-a-like, migrant "fisherman" near false put-in. Both friendly

PLAN E:

Remember about Treasure Canyon. It is on the way to Durango, in a way. Stop off in Del Norte for some internet. Kings looks too high. Call Alpha Team and inform.

it didn't give me one

PLAN F:
Charlie Team and Beta Team will stick to Colorado park-n-huck and high-water mank. Fest.

A big game hunter in his habitat

Stanimal out

Fest

Below Average

2007-04-11T11:15:00.000-04:00

It ain't gonna be August this year

RESEARCH PROPOSAL FROM TJRC

2007-02-16T16:53:00.000-05:00

“What Happened to The Bear?” – a look into the facts surrounding the mysterious lack of rainfall on Lookout Mountain, GA (TJRC, 2007).

Figure 1: 27 Years of Streamflow Data for Lookout Creek

There are many theories as to why the sacred Bear does not run anymore. Some have blamed development upstream, sinkholes opening in the watershed, general drought, and even an invisible “rain shield” held in place by mystic forces of the netherworld. Though many of these seem plausible, none can be proven by mere rhetoric. Thus, the Team Jib Research Council (TJRC) has put together a proposal for a scientific study to analyze all the contributing variables and to determine, once and for all, the cause/s of this horrific tragedy. It is the belief of a few members of Team Jib (TJ) that the current lack of rain over Lookout Mountain, GA is due to a curse brought upon the residents of the southeast by a certain council member who shall, for the purposes of this study, remain nameless. This study will be base on scientific evidence, such that no bias by superstition or wanton paddy-cake in the realm of ideas will influence the findings of the TJRC.

Fruit of Labors

2006-09-18T12:07:00.000-04:00

into the void

Upon arriving at the trailhead we are greeted by a couple of old friends. Wild B. Walleye of South Carolina and Fuzzy “The Fuzz” Fuzzington of the southern hemisphere, are packing up their kayaks and getting ready to go for a nice little day hike up to I-Finally-Made-It Meadow; the put-in for Upper Cherry Creek. With the sun starting to make its descent, we quickly follow suit. Godwin and Tubes, equipped with fancy Salamander kayak backpacks, are the first to get started, followed by Captain Ralph, Third Reichhorn, and myself fifteen minutes later. Kris Pistopherson realizes he left his precious fishing pole at the lake, just has to have it, and goes with Broyal on a 45-minute mission to recover it. Already getting a late start for the eight-hour hike, we are a little concerned with their decision, but unwilling to risk our asses, we head on without them.
A hundred yards down the trail; I have already had it with my pool noodle backpack and resort to the classic “porter style” of kayaking schlepping. I push ahead of the Captain and Reichhorn until I make it to a split in the trail and a sign that says “Styx Pass” to the left and one that reads “Kibbie Lake” to the right. Having glanced at the map, I know that the trail goes over Styx Pass before dropping into the river, so I take the left trail. Thinking that everyone had done the same, I don’t wait here for anyone, but press on while the feeling has temporarily left my neck and shoulders. Another few miles and my neck starts cramping so bad that I lye down in an ant’s nest beneath a giant burned-out redwood, and wait for whoever will be next.

granite crevasse from afar

The Captain rolls up a few minutes later and we chow on a couple of energy bars, some goo, and the rest of our water while we wait for Reichhorn.
“Where do you think he is?” The Captain asks me in a somewhat rhetorical manner. I respond with a hell-if-I-know shoulder shrug, and ease into the cockpit of my kayak for a little post lunch rest.
“Let’s take a little nap and he ought to cruise on by and wake us up here in a sec.” I say as the warm sun lulls me into a rather deep sleep for such afternoon as this.
The next thing I know, The Captain kicks my bow and I come to.
“How long do you think we slept?” I ask.
“I’m not sure, but I think it might be a lot longer than we planned.” He replies as he looks to the west to survey the nearly sinking sun.
“Still no Reichhorn, huh?”
“Unless he passed us while we slept, and surely we would have seen that.”
“Yah, surely we would have seen that.”
“We best get some miles under us while we still have some light.”
“Yah, let’s get the fuck out of here.”
We awkwardly remount our kayaks to our backs and heads and make a move for the put-in. I pull ahead again, and force myself into a beast of burden mindset: staring at the ground, trying to reach my happy zen place, and hoping with every step that around the corner will be the river. I cross the mosquito marshes of death, navigate through granite kern maze, and finally reach the edge of the ridge and spot a fire in the valley a mile below. Overcome with joy, I make a beeline for the fire and quickly lose the trail. With dark quickly approaching and the mosquitoes still swarming I make it to the river and let out a primal holler to signal my presence to those who built the fire and are chilling across the river. I receive a similar call in return and hear the voices of Godwin, Tubes, B. Walleye, and Fuzz. Totally exhausted, I cross the river, drag my shit up the bank, and dive into the cool water for a refreshing bath. The Captain appears shortly there after, and we crowd around the fire laying on our cramping backs and wondering where the rest of the crew is. Hours later, Broyal and Kris come stumbling down the hill with their two-bulb LED headlamp, bloody legs and a trail of mosquitoes. This means that at some point they have either passed Reichhorn, or he has gotten lost somewhere along the way. Broyal walks up to the fire, looks around and asks,
“Where the hell is Reichhorn?”
Everyone is silent for a moment and then The Captain replies,
“I am not too concerned about him. He has some purification tablets and I am pretty sure he is carrying his own pot. I just figure we’ll stick around till noon tomorrow morning and, if we have to, run Cherry Bomb the morning after. Surely he will show up by then.”
After our first taste of the scrumtralescent bag meals, we sit around the fire staring up at the stars, half-expecting to see Reichhorn’s headlamp coming down the hill, and feeling glad that he had not been carrying Aquafienda. Sleep isn’t a difficult task as we dream of the wild rapids we will ride the next day.

Tubes, Fuzz, Godwin

We awake to the sun beaming down and illuminating our impressive high sierra camp. I look to the west and see the moon sitting aloft the white granite ridge above us like a giant pale marble about to roll off the hillside. The pool by which we camp is deep and clear, and the rocks provide a nice diving platform for a morning dip.

author, pre-launch

Into the crystal blue pool I flip, finding the water surprisingly warm compared with many of the snow fed rivers I have been on in the past. It is quite the compliment to my morning yerba mate. I keep looking over my shoulder at the hill we had all descended in the last hours of the day before, hoping to see a dot of red plastic making its way down, but every time I scan the horizon, I see nothing. We wait till one o’clock and decide that Reichorn must be terribly lost or already back at the cars, and make the decision to get moving down river towards The Cherry Bomb Gorge.
The top few miles of the river are like riding a little silver ribbon through a white granite paradise. Many low angle slides and a couple steeps ones send Tubes into a state of hyperbolic mania and he laughs himself hysterical as we begin to enter another gorge that provides some bigger, more challenging drops. Around every corner more giant bald domes stand guard to intricate canyons like gates to a goblins castle. It is hard to stay focused on the whitewater at times because of the breathtaking beauty of this magical place.
As the sun is just dipping behind the walls of the canyon, we come to a spot that B. Walleye remembers as the trailhead for the portage around Cherry Bomb. Beyond this point the canyon walls totally commit one to running the entire gorge down to Flintstone camp. B. and Godwin quickly decide to leave their boats, hike their gear around, scout and drop the bomb in the morning.
The thought of taking one more step through that mosquito infested wood sends shivers down my spine, and as I gaze up at the trail going straight over the granite wall in front of me and then back to the river that falls off the face of the earth and into that unknown abyss, I hear Tubes behind me,
“No way in hell I’m gonna hike my shit anywhere right now. I’m going in!” and Fuzz replying,
“Here that, mate! I guess I’ll have a go at it!”
Broyal and Kris quickly follow Tubes and Fuzz off the next horizon line, leaving the Captain and I staring at each other, scared shitless, but not wanting to regret our next decision.
“You want to go?”
“Yeah man, fuck it.”
“Yeah, fuck it. Let’s go. I don’t want to hike my shit around this gorge either.”
So we jump in our boats quickly so as to catch up to the rest of the crew who were about to round the corner and disappear out of our site. We slide into an eddy with them at the edge of the earth, and Broyal laughs,
“Well well well, looks like we got a couple more takers to this after hours party!”
After rolling into everything blind except for Cherry Bomb Falls we come out to see a couple of fellow southerners, calling themsevles Disney Landers, hanging on the rocks at Flintstone Camp. Gotta love it that everyone in there was from the south except one Oregonian, a Kiwi and a pr paddler that decided it would be a good idea to run this river by himself.
“Had any of you guys been in there before?” M. Mouse asks as we walk into Flintstone still high on dropping the C-bomb,
“Uhhhh, I think Broyal had once, but that was three years ago and before his laser surgery so I’m sure it looked completely different, not that he would have remembered it anyway.”
B. and Godwin look at each other as they listen to everyone talk about the majestic inner gorge. I guess the anticipation of waiting through the night was going to be a little too much for them. B. rallies Godwin and Stokesberry to head back up to the top and run that shit while there is still a little light left. The Captain and I decide to go check out the view from the river right side and watch the boys giv’er from over there. All goes well minus Godwin’s scary ass pin and swim in the last slot of the cherry bomb gorge, and everyone heads back to camp for some tasty bag meals. We fall asleep under the stars on the smooth, flat granite as we listen to the teacups quietly thundering just upstream, like a pacifier for the ears.
The Disney Co. are up and out early the next morning after eating everyone’s food and talking about how much more water there was when they came through. The rest of us hang around until noon taking our time and basking in the moment before getting ourselves prepared for what lay in store just around the corner. After a little pre-run scout, we jump into the next gorge, which is highlighted by the “perfect 20” and ends with a big bang called Double Pothole Falls.

would you like some peanuts, sir?

We make our way down the next beautiful set of teacups and then unanimously decide to walk the infamous kiwi in a pocket, which spits one out at the base of dead bear falls. Fuzz is feeling the go-go juice and walks back to the lip of dead bear, and aces a nice 40-foot alligator entrance. The rest of the day is filled with high quality rapids and a few portages due to low flows. The river has really dropped since the day before, and according to Disney, even more since the day before that. Most of everything goes off without a hitch until we get down to the last gorge before the lake.
We approach a river wide horizon and before anyone has a chance to jump out, Broyal drops over the edge. B. remembers the drop and gives a short description to Fuzz while I blindly follow whoever was in front of me off the lip. Turns out to be an easy, near vertical twenty-footer, and I surface at the bottom thrilled to have just plopped off such a nice drop. I turn my boat upstream to watch the surprised faces of the next few probes, and turn back around just in time to see myself floating into the next rapid.
Tubes, Kris, and Broyal are in the pool below giving a confusing paddle signal; wildly waving them back and forth. I am not sure what to think about such a signal (cause everyone knows “stop” is a paddle held horizontally above the head), but it is too late to eddy out, so I wait till I am at the lip, see an upside down blue Gus in the hole, and barely get enough rightward momentum to punch the hole and avoid a cave on the left.
As I land directly on the hull of the boat with a thud, I dig in with the turbo thrusters and pull myself out of the backwash and into the pool. Turning to survey the situation, I see Godwin’s upside down boat surfing a nasty hole backed up by a giant boulder and feeding into a burly, sieved-out cave.
Tubes says,
“I haven’t seen Godwin in while, I think he’s...”
And Captain replies,
“ I am pretty sure I landed on top of him, and the way that boat is cart wheeling, I know that was no rock I landed on. I thought that fucked up paddle signal meant go left; luckily I started out driving right.”
The Captain paddles around the giant boulder just in time to see Godwin swimming out from under the cave at the back of the sieve, and turns around again to see just another kiwi in a pocket.
Fuzz is taking a ride like no other I have ever seen. After The Captain and I land directly on top of Godwin’s boat, B. Walleye and then Fuzz come through and do the same, except Fuzz gets stuck in there too. Apparently he mistook the fucked up signal to mean go left also, and drove straight into the meat. As he surfs, Godwin’s boat is disappearing and then surging from the depths like a great blue whale coming up for air and aimed straight at Fuzzy’s face. He flips a few times, but manages to get back up right, and continues to fight like beast that knows he has met his match. He screams,
“Rope! Rope! Throw me a fucking rope!”
We frantically look around, and see that there is no place to get out and attempt a rescue. I think about popping my skirt and throwing a rope from my boat, but then realize I will be pulled right in there with him. Finally after a good minute, B finds some slack water on the river right, manages to claw up to a tiny ledge, and starts throwing a rope at him. After the fourth or fifth try Fuzz really begins to dig in trying to pull himself past the boulder, and we hear a loud snap. Tubes yells,
“Oh shit, there goes his paddle. His paddle is broken!”
His paddle breaks, as well as his teeth, but he is still holding on for dear life. Finally B. hits him with the rope, he flips again, and everyone grabs the rope and pulls him out. He comes to the surface looking like a wet vampire with his newly augmented grill. Somehow, B. manages to lasso Fuzzy’s boat and we help collect the rest of the yard sale. After catching his breath Fuzz exclaims,
“Fuck, mates. This bitch is hardcore till the very end!”
He opts to walk the last few drops due to his broken paddle, and we make our way over the last few horizons and into the big blue lake. After a thorough safety de-briefing we head across the two-mile lake paddle as dusk is setting in. Upon arriving at the boat ramp on the other side we are greeted by none other than Reichhorn, patiently waiting with the suburban. He had taken the trail to Kibbie Lake, hiked an extra eight miles, survived testical cancer, and spent the night by himself in the mosquito hell fuck near the top of the ridge, before giving up and heading back to the car. Unlucky bastard.
It sure doesn’t take much of that warm beer to get us drunk, but then again, maybe it is the single malt. We camp on the lake, build a big-ass fire, and recount the past three days adventures as the bottles are passed around.
We awake the next morning with stiff hangovers, sore muscles, and ravenous hunger. The other boaters in the area are headed to Cherry Creek “proper”, but we decide to drive into Groveland, get some breakfast “proper” and check levels at the library to see where our next destination will be. The word on the street is that everything is too low, except maybe Hell’s Kitchen, and even that is questionable.
As we wait for the library to open Broyal says,
“Three years ago, when we did West Cherry, Upper Cherry Creek, and The Middle Fork of the Kings in succession, the level on Cherry was higher than it is right now. We headed straight for the Middle Kings after we took off Upper Cherry. It seems we might be in the same position...”

mighty horizon

(Photos courtesy of B. Wallace and B. Meadows. Unauthorized use of anything on this site will result in pain in one form or another. Better ask somebody.)

buena vista

2006-03-31T21:28:00.000-05:00

things come and go
like sanity, babies, and snow
you never know
when the blade swings low
and next your ear
you might hear
the swish swash of death
drawing near
what will a person do
hide in boxes
and run from blue
that'd be as near to dieing
as swallow to chew
it impossible to know
the sun, rain and snow
without the truth
that all will come
and all will go.

Want Not

2006-02-02T09:24:00.000-05:00

For breakfast we had tequila, trout, and transcendental meditation.

This was a happy time with friends and without the cares of the normal bullshit one must deal with in order to get the trinkets that modern society presented us. I now believe the only thing that one really needs is medical insurance (unless you have reproduced sexually of course or are on the dead beat dad list). Why should we want to not work when we are old? You are too old to do anything cool, so why not work?
Why do people care? Why do people think their ideals are so right. Do they think they are special...get melted down to the bottom of a river in a creek boat about three fathoms, see how special you feel.

Meet my left and my right

2006-01-31T17:56:00.000-05:00

Babel Tower before god intervened and invented different languages:

The level was 2.9. Babel to bridge in four hours.

The real men of the day doubled up on it. They know who they are.

Two roads diverged in a wood...

Turns out they both ended up in the eddy.

Prophetic Words

2006-01-31T10:02:00.000-05:00

This is the first entry by yours truly Kristopherson Vegas...Don't be alarmed I have been lurking in the shadows watching what has unfolded in the last year. I have escaped from the evil prison run by the turbine testers. A new era shall begin; one fraught with exploits not yet seen be the common man. Point being...I don't give a good damn shit about anything anymore, fuck you. The cursed year of '05 is gone and it should beware the monster it has created.

A band of pilgrims will be gathered and the exodus will soon begin. Save your pennies and look to the horizon. The world of kayaking has seen what a small group of Hamiltonion descent can do in its arena; soon others will too. The world has not yet known a force comparable in academic, cultural, and all around bad-assical heroes as the mythical band known only as TJ.

The call of the lunar influenced sinusoidal rhythm of H2O + NaCl in the liquid state calls, as does the pure form of the blessed polar molecule in the frozen state, piled in crystalline form, atop formations created long ago before the time of man.

...stay tuned and prepare...don't be afraid; our time is short and must be utilized

Narrowly Escaping The Clutches Of Satan

2006-01-26T13:51:00.000-05:00

Ted post horror trip-out sesh
During the dryer days of December The Captain and I went on a scouting mission to the elusive Brush Creek into Roaring Creek. Dubbed "Morgan's Ugly Cousin" by Councilman Cumnock, Brush is a typical plateau run chocked full of sieves and undercuts of mammoth proportions. The investigation revealed some promising drops, spaced between series of gnarled boulder gardens, whose runnabillity would only be known with a full juice bar. The Captain returned with his Rancho Rumbla for some maintenance a few weeks later, and prepared the ditch for its first decent in quite some time.

Jason running from his own demons

With the rains of a few weeks ago, the time had come. I met Ted H. and Jason M. at the Boot around 1:00 pm and we headed to the Seventh Day Adventist compound atop the ridge. As we approached the gates of this impenetrable fortress, I sensed a disturbance in the force. The Great Beelzebubbler had forseen our plans. Realizing that this might be the last day the prophet Aquafienda had seen in her most recent orbit of Landerhoff, we quickly dug a great tunnel under the Adventist's armour by which to access the holy land and where we would bury Ted's vehicle. There would be no use for combustion engines on this tour. As we donned our water suits, I heard a noise coming from the dark void behind us. We gathered our wits and means, and made a dash for the surface. As the light of day again pierced our crania, I turned to take one last look at Ted's mighty four-wheeled stallion, but it was gone. In its place, rising out of the darkness, a mono-winged, wolf-dragon was hobbling toward us at a not-so-alarming rate. He jumped, and batted his wing wildely and came crashing down a few feet further. Again he did this, and as he landed a great thud resonated through the tunnel. Fractures in the earth branched out from his position like growing snowflake arms reaching for the light. He sniffed, snarled, and reared back to stand on his hind legs, flatulating as he did so. From his butt, a plume of black smoke emerged. The dark cloud swirled about his feet and from this nebula miniature flying skulls, with firey eyes and sword tongues, came at us laughing shrilly. It was apparent the Great Beast had shat himself, and as he looked down to asses his mess, we siezed the moment and made a run for the water with the fear of Hades coursing through our veins...

These two drops are in succesion, the one on the right is followed by the one on the left. That is because I have dislexia.

Chucky's Revenge

2006-01-25T18:06:00.000-05:00

Back on the blogging scene like a fiend.

Spirits have elevated due to one of the wettest Januarys in a while.

Within the first three days of the new year some Jibbers got out on the shit.
Even New Years three day weekend i should skip work another day to go falling. So el dudes showed up at work to load boats in front of all my coworkers, I told the boss that he was in charge for the day and we were off.

Upon arriving at Raven Fork the level was 16" upon leaving it was 15.5" About halfway down Tubes and I decided the level was optimal and that we didn't think you would want to do it any lower. A few rapids later the third member of our group, Big T, mentioned that the level was a little on the high side of good but he said he didn't want to get our juices flowing too early by telling us before we put on. At any rate the level was fantastic and we had a great day on the water. Only two boats were broken when we decided that we should seal launch in around Mangler instead of sliding into the tree. Tubes said, "hey look how long he is in the air." It was much higher than we expected and much more shallow than expected and everyone had a good laugh as my bow went about three feet into the water before I pitonned and resurfaced with a bent bow with a big stress crack. But I think that was better than Tubes's back jarring boof and Big T's boat breaking launch into the pool below. Next time I'm sliding into the trees. The ole' back can't handle that kind of fun anymore.

Then just last week the Plateau area was greeted with a bit more rain and it awoke the great one from its slumber. A very long slumber it was indeed.

The Bear was running on Wed. and once again I skipped work, or at least most of it, and made way for Lookout Mountain. The gauge was reading 11" but with all the tributaries and ground water coming in it was more like 12" which means Stairway has enough padding for a good run. I was supposed to meet Randy R. for a run down "Brush Creek Proper" but by the time I was done with the first run it was too late to make it to Graysville, so I opted out and went for another run on The Bear. Notice how it is called THE Bear. Very few creeks recieve a The in front of their name and the Bear definatly deserves it. It has big drops and a great boogy section. After the second run I headed north and hiked up Roaring to the confluence with Brush and got footage of the crew running the last drop of Brush. Maybe Randy will give you a report at a later date.

Before, after and during all this Suck Creek was running which is nice because it is so close to town and its roadside. I believe it drops around 245 to 260 feet in its mile that typically gets run. There's always a party at Suck. I think I got burnt out on Suck though I skipped going over there for a couple of days with no regrets. I'll be ready for it to run again but at that time it was getting monotonous and it was helping my skills improve about as much as reading about kayaking on the internet.

Well I guess I'll sign off until next time llueve de de, maybe Randy will tell you what he done did.

Love,
Captain Ralph

Welcome to the new era

2006-01-02T19:54:00.000-05:00

What the hell do you think is going to change? Maybe your calendar ran out of pages, but I'd say that is about it, otherwise your still fucked.

The polls are in and only one good thing came out of '05- CA trip(2 river sexpedition) Maybe you'll read about it... "Meet my left and my right. Keep it real; represent what? My Nuts!"

All those that matter hope to see a change in the way of things for '06. I hope that today's journey down the trail of tears is not indicative of things to come. Give me a second to refill my vodka.

Got to get the bug fogger out in the morning. Let those little buggers start out a new in '06. The cabin is set to blast at 7:30 am. Everyone has had a little bit of blood letting on there minds. If that's what it takes then so be it.

Here are a few things to not forget in '06 WMDs?, Scooter, Abromoff, Enron etc., The right wing blogger posing as journalist, Please tell me the last time the USA went into a country to spread democracy and was successful?..(i.e. did not result in some form of backlash; examples support of Taliban in war with Russia, support of Pinochet and Noreiga), free speach zones..., ohio/FLA elections, rendition, no bid contracts in Iraq and New Orleans, Abu Ghraib, amount of money vowed to fight AIDS ahh but do not be deceived the liberals will try to fool you as well. Oh, time for more vodka already? Dawgs are on too. As I was always told its not what is reported in the news, its what is not reported that is important.

oh shit I almost forgot this was supposed to be a kayaking blog. Well, don't be a (!) go kayaking if you can. If you think reading about kayaking on the internet is going to make you a better kayaker you are sadly mistaken. If you suck then well, you suck.
Since you clicked here to read about kayaking here is some real old school, illegal, shit to whet your appetite for destruction...

Look forward to Randy R.'s more positive posts

Progressing Degradation

2005-12-13T17:37:00.000-05:00

In the days of yore when the gods blessed these lands with rain, there was a small canyon hidden on the back of Lookout Mountain where the lads of the day would go to test there skills. For years the changing of seasons meant the skies would open, filling the drains of this planet to their banks, and sending many on a journey into the inner sanctom. On the special days when this particular creek found flow, all the children of the land would rejoice, jubalent gatherings were held, and there was much celebration.

Then the Cursed came.

The sun came out. The plants dried up. The ground turned to dust. All the children cried.

The Bear has not run since his donning of the number 13.

Downstream and upstream progressing degradation can be natural erosion.

The blood of the cursed must be spilled.

"I must be cruel, only to be kind..."

2005-11-17T17:55:00.000-05:00

One day a young lad decided he would help contribute to a project aimed at bringing the whitewater world into a new era. He decided to go out and buy an expensive video camera and carry it around the southeast and California. This young lad began to slowly amass footage of the Jib Council's wisdom, hoping to make a video documenting The Jibber's rise above the other pussywillows of the world. In his pursuit of The Truth, the lad sifted day and night through fact and fiction, digging deeper and deeper, looking for the pearl that would set his message apart and forgo the contemporary standards. This young lad found a cache of ancient wisdom stored in The Archives of Northern Georgia, and went to The Keeper to request the use of said ancient footage. Yet, low and behold, the lad found that he had been deceived and his life's work had been for naught.

Lad: Great Keeper of the Archives, I beseech thee for the lost tapes of Jibberdom!
Keeper of the Archives: Your footage has been given away to The Great Knows.
Lad: What is this disheartening message you tell? Has the trust of Jibberdom been infiltrated by some surly leviathan?
Keeper: The Keeper has spoken! Now leave my presence for you have irritated my hemorrhoids!

And so, distraught, the lad returned to the secret jibencampment to relay the news that the Archives had been plundered by barbaric aliens. The Council held an immediate summit to discuss plans for retribution:

King Tubes: There is only one course of action we can take. WAR! We shall awake before day break and hunt these fools like the animals they are!
Captain Ralph: But sire, we know not the ways of these foreigners. We shall track them and learn their patterns, so we can creep upon them in the night and snuff them with exact execution!
Little Lando: What, should we suppose, are the intentions of this great Knows? Will he use the wisdom for good? Or evil?
Brother Broiler: I have reason to believe The Knows has intentions of making a virtual guide book of our very own local creeks. I say we seek the advice of The Lady Luck, Aquafienda, in the mystic courts of Mt. Sativa. She will guide us in our search for retribution.
Captain: How dare he! The Keeper has betrayed us in assisting such an evil and misguided exploitation!
King Tubes: Yes, Captain, this is indeed a sad day. And dear Brother, you have again showed me my own blinders. Aquafienda will know the intentions of The Great Knows.
Kriste O. Pherson: Has anyone seen my other poagie?
Captain: The brother is right. This matter is of more importance than any of us can comprehend while blinded with anger and confusion. We should seek the wisdom of our lady.
King Tubes: It is decided. We wake at daybreak and head for the mountains!

As we speak, the council seeks the elusive Aquafienda. What will be their course of action? Only time will tell, but meanwhile, I believe the school of hard knocks needs to add a course on good decision making.

Lurk Skywalker Lunching

2005-11-15T17:08:00.000-05:00

here is a little snack pack for all you lunchables out there:

how will we go?
in rain and flood then snow?
maybe quakes and fire
is what god desires
to end this freakish show.
and who will outlast
time’s destructive path?
the rich? the poor?
the ones who know more
and had brains so big
that they chose to dig
a hole in which to hide?
these fat little rats
with translucent skin,
white beady eyes, and
spines of small size,
will crawl in the bowls
with worms fear of owls,
hating each second they’re in.
squirming and whining,
they wish they were dining,
in the feast halls of days long gone.
till one day desire,
consumes them like fire,
and they creep back to the top.
the sun hits their face
and they vaporize in place,
cause they lost their old tough skin.
but there, just before,
they become nothing more,
a fancy site they will see.
the earth in a place,
a time and different space,
hurling itself 'round the sun.
what will be there?
a tom, dick and hare?
or bugs with six legs
and snakes laying eggs?
i guess no one knows,
till times decompose
and then we'll have an answer.
but be sure that one ribbon like song,
will sew the worlds together.
hummmm life moveth on,
strike times shaking gong,
and please will you pass me that…

ADDITIONAL NOTE:
wednesday night is The Rodson's debut in the folk-like rock band that is SOUTH HEIGHTS
pictures of this momentus occasion to follow

"I'm lovin It"

2005-11-10T22:33:00.000-05:00

I love the internet... You must as well... Well you're here aren't you?

I was going to post some shi yesterday it would have been sweet cause I was pissed but then I went running.. Oh well maybe next time. Randy R ain't been writting so this place is commandeered for NOV. 10. I think he might have been put off by some fags on the internet who told him this wasn't worth reading.

I especially like clicking the next blog button... Sometimes you can read about politics, science, squash, swinging, and sometimes there are pictures of hot chics.

Occasionally I read about kayaking on forums upon the world wide web. It's usually pretty boring until someone starts some shit up. Today's highlites were:

/

and the surprise follow up:

Here's a real zinger:

also the forum on boof.com has been reaalll niice them peoples panties is all wadded up no matter how you slice it.

I like the way the internet has become a good information source for kayaking and how people also use it to boost their own fame and/or egos
some have been quite successful.
I like to use the internet to video scout. I haven't gotten out of my boat to look at a rapid since I got rid of dial up.

another entertaining read is when Rush Sturgen asks the reads of the caliproduct forum why everyone is all hating on his crew man. Why ya gotta be hating on YGP bro? The internet is sweet because you can post something that seems ok while at your desk and then once it is out there you realize you made yourself look like a pussy.
This is what a pussy looks like: (!)

see what I mean ( at least I can edit this later... I think)

on a side note sometime when you get a chance look at a blog called write this shit down I like that guy he seems unhappy.

How 'bout those politicians ehh?

daa da da da daaa....

The Gravitational Force Between Two Objects...

2005-10-20T19:52:00.000-04:00

...is inversely proportional to the distance between those objects, Newton might try to tell you, but on this night, it seemed that the physical laws of the universe did not apply. There we were, having just emerged from the depths of the MFK stinky, filthy, ravenous and exhausted, ordering burritos from a young Latino named Angelo. His namesakes’ 24-hour taqueria had been like a shimmering oasis amidst the desert of closed eateries this Fresno night. We sat down and began devouring our hot re-refried bean feasts with our eyes barely cracked enough to see our plates when, simultaneously, we all felt the enormous force pulling at our attentions from across the dining room. And there they were, the most humungous tatas on this side of the sierras, sitting aloft the chest of young Latina muy bella. Like the peaks that had drawn us to this side of the continent, they gripped our stares with their sexual gravity. Besides the occasional under the breath, oh my god, no one spoke a word, but sat there stuffing our faces, locked in by the massive fertility symbols. She was obviously with her boyfriend, but no one cared after being in the wilderness for five days. We were happy to be alive and to be able to enjoy such a lust. We finished up and slowly began filtering out the door, trying to come up with excuses to stay within there presence just a moment longer (oops I left my napkin on the table, better clean up that mess). As we stand around outside trying to figure out how all six of us fit into that four door Dakota, we hear a voice behind us:
Boyfriend of Beauty: “You guys staying at the marinas?” (so it sounded to us)
Tubes: “No, we just ran the Middle Kings, we’re going home.”
Boyfriend: blank stare
Us: blank stare
Boyfriend: puzzled look and Spanish murmur
Us: blank stare
Boyfriend: “No, you been starin at my girls, essay!”
Broiler: “Naw man, she was staring at us”
Boyfriend: “I don’t think so holmes, she says you was starin at her!”
Us: blank stare
Us thinking to ourselves: “I wonder if this guy has a gun. Hmmmmm, maybe we should go.”
Broiler: “Well, I guess we’ll be going.”
Boyfriend: Spanish murmur
And so we left and drove all night, just to miss our flight home, but that is another story altogether...

Before Now

2005-10-20T19:24:00.000-04:00

In the time before the blastoplast, before man had fully comprehended his fate, time allowed for observation.
Constraints now propel him toward a point in the future, still unknown, fully disconnected.
These are some things observed in the ether before the tunnel was constructed.

The Planets Align

2005-10-18T20:15:00.000-04:00

Near the end of this past July, Mars and Venus came running around the sun with just enough gravitational pull to allow the mighty gates of LeConte Canyon to swing wide and swallow the souls of a few fortunate humans. Here, their tale will be forever burned into the silicon of cyberspace for all the children of the land to take up and weild like blades of days forgotten. Enter not with the assumption that these are modern day heros or half witted wallywomps. These are ordinary men, with feet and hands of similar make to you and I. Their bodies, like yours, are mostly just a substance that, quite ironically, is the same substance they so eagerly desire to tame: Water

Joint me as we ride this pony to its death in the mystical tale of Nine Deadly Punishments

what can i say

2005-10-18T16:41:00.000-04:00

that's right. tj is on the bloggin scene like william tell on a 747. but after all this waiting and anticipation, hours of laboriously treading through the information muck hole, and an aquatic chemistry biffing, i come to find my pursuits in finding the perfect name totally worthless. someone has beat me to the blogger man, and stolen my name.

so add an 's' and you have jiblogs. maybe i like it better anyways. this way, after the rest of the rats spread the word and some total loser decides to come looking for my shit, they will find an even bigger pile of shit made by some tight ass from wisconsin.

but speaking of shit, here is what you really want to see anyway:

while in the dollar general, one might stumble upon one of these fluffed up, nastier flavors: winter green

Stay Tuned! more prodigious bull shit coming...