New Experiences: the long awaited Chile post

I've been back just over a month and I'm finally getting around to posting about Chile. I guess it has taken me a month to process everything from my first international kayaking trip.

Chile was a very humbling experience.

Alaska's paddling community, though tight knit, it is very small. There is not a high percentage of boaters that are ready to fire it up. That's not to say that there aren't any, as there is a very enthusiastic group, but nothing like the numbers around the current kayaking mecca. My first day in Chile I signed up for a race down IV+/V- right behind Bomb Flow front man, Evan Garcia. After tail lighting the Upper Palguin, I hiked back up to the top to "race" my way down with a bunch of professional kayakers. Race is in quotes because I wasn't really in the mind set after traveling for two days and having not been on moving water for nearly two months. On top of that I more epically failed rather than race; flipping twice in the middle of the first drop, going over the first waterfall upside down, then missing my boof on the second drop and providing the carnage and swim all the spectators were waiting for.

I spent my first few weeks at the Pucon Kayak Hostel with the New River Academy/Huge Experiences kids and instructors. It was the first time I had really been around people that paddled 300 days per year. I would be lucky to get 100 days a year. It a different experience to be the wide eyed questioning newb. We didn't get too much of an opportunity to scout many of the drops that we got to run. The people we were paddling with were incredibly comfortable with the water and the runs. More often than not we would get a quick run down of the line in an eddy then chase everyone through the rapid hoping you had your rights and lefts correct. Having primarily paddled in Alaska, I was pretty knew to being on completely foreign rivers with a group of people that new the run well. Typically back home, if I didn't know the run, there would maybe be one other person in the groupe that knew it.

Not only was I surrounded by some of the best kayakers, the rapids people were running were beyond anything I had ever seen. Not only were the styles of drops different, but what people were willing to run was totally different. There were things that I would look at and think,"People actually run that!?". Yeah sure, you're likely to break your boat, paddle, and helmet, but yeah you can run it. There is rumor that one person ran it clean. Some of the things people were running down there would make The Girdle look like child's play.

The vertical realm of kayaking was a pretty new thing for me too. There aren't too many waterfalls that are easily accessible, and all of the ones that I've come across so far, you really want to make sure you nail your boof. I was amazed watching the best kayakers change the pitch and roll of their kayak mid air. I knew (or thought I did) how to boof, but stomping and plugging were pretty new to me. To say the least, I had a lot to learn.

All in all it was a great experience. I not only got to push my comfort level kayaking, but also culturally. It was nice to know a little more spanish than my last Latin American foray, but I still have a long ways to go.

We didn't get to paddle some of the rivers that we originally wanted to or get to spend as much time as we would have wanted at other rivers. I feel like I know the ropes now, and am eager to go back soon.

The whole trip was more overwhelming and incredible than I could ever blog about so enjoy some Chile Stew. One month of traveling and kayaking in Chile boiled into four minutes.


Photos from Chile are here.

Legalize Ship Creek!

Ship Creek, an amazing class IV creek, has been deemed illegal to run by the military. People have been sent to court and fined for running this gem of a whitewater run. Please help open up this amazing run by signing the petition at Life More Natural. Allan, the founder of Life More Natural (a non-profit organization to help promote a sustainable lifestyle), has put together a petition to save Ship Creek. Once again, please help save Ship Creek.

Also, Timmy J has a court hearing coming up in mid December for a Federal Trespassing charge he received this summer for kayaking on Ship Creek. Many of us have run into the MP's trying to get on or getting off of the run and have had no such charges, but rather polite run ins. Timmy would greatly appreciate a brief letter stating your encounter with the MP's. Your letters will be left anonymous, and it will not be tied back to you. You can reach Tim at kayaker35@hotmail.com. I'm sure he would greatly appreciate any donation you feel acceptable to help pay for court and lawyer costs. It is a small community of kayakers up here, lets help a friend in need.

Thank you!

And now for our feature presentation.....Snowyaking

A "Snowyaking" Movie Review

"Snowyaking" features Jason and Paul in their first grand adventure. The movie starts out at their apartment. Within minutes of meeting up, the two of them devise a plan to do the first winter descent of a small tributary of Rabbit Creek. In no time Paul and Jason have their boats and gear loaded up in the truck and blast into the mountains.

The movie continues with their slog into the headwaters of the creek. The real action begins when the two of them start the first descent. The trepid duo soon find out that kayaks are very fast on the snow and for all intensive purposes can not be controlled. The first drop easily skips the snowyakers over small rocks and tussocks and sends them speeding into a patch of willows. Paul's first attempt ends after landing sideways and barrel rolling down the mountain. Jason fairs much better by crashing into a patch of willows. They soon learn that their only option for stopping is to crash into the willows. The best way to do that is to spin backwards and let the backpack take all of the impact.

The rest of the movie consists of the two adventurers advancing through the rest of the drops to the truck. At one point during the film they run into some skiers. The skiers really seem out of their element in the film. Who would think of skinning up a mountain in the winter and skiing down in a controlled fashion with mettle edged skis?

Screen shots

Paul rocking the atomic hat on the way up.

Jason slogging up the mountain.

Paul's first attempt.

Trying to turn.....

and ending up in an unintentional back "surf"


Off and away

Jason, ready for battle.

Jason, on the move.

Assuming the position

The usual end of things. Note the twisted pack.

Loaded up and ready to cruise.

(No actors, kayaks, or paddles were broken or injured in the making of this film. DO NOT try this at home! The stunts in this movie were performed by incredibly bored individuals, decked out in BMX armor, lifejackets, elbow pads, and helmets for protection, that had no clue what they were getting into. There is no actual film.)

Kayak for Sale

Well, after moving around a bit and dealing with a rediculous amount of stuff. I have decided to sell my Big EZ. So if anyone is interested I'll toss it out there for $300 and see if there are any bites. I would even be willing to teach whoever buys the boat how to roll. Pool sessions are open now, so the learning is a lot easier now than later (the teaching is much easier as well). It is fairly well used, but a great boat for a river runner, and to learn in. On top of that the boat surfed the boar tide last spring at the spring tide! Let me know if you are interested.

In other news, I seem to be dragging the weather around with me. When I went to Houston it snowed, and when I came back to Alaska it decided to rain and melt almost all the snow. Sadly Cassie and my plans were foiled once again. We had planned on going out to my cabin this weekend. However, with UAA closed the last couple days, all of her nursing classes that were cancelled got reschedualed to today. So it doesn't quite seem logical to drive for six hours out there, spend a day there, and drive six hours back. SO, now we have to find some other fun things to do this weekend. Ideas? I guess the Beer and Barley Wine Festival is going on this weekend. We might just go spend a rainy winter day inside tasting beer, perhaps it will help my rock and roll image. Yeah, there we go, I could go for a big delicous beer. I could have a gallon, a big gallon of it.

South Fork of Montana Creek, Equinox Expedition

The South Fork of Montana Creek is a pretty cool run. It is really laid back with some cool drops. The week after John and I ran the creek I took my old man out there on the equinox. We were all about the Flip video camera he had and went crazy that day taking video. We were able to catch all the major drops, and even the name sake for one of the drops (Paddle Chalk, I bet you can't guess which one). So after my Dad slaved away on the video, here is the final project. Enjoy!

The paddling season is pretty much over now and we are in limbo up here in Alaska. It is a bit too cold and the water is too low in most places to go kayaking, and there isn't enough snow to go skiing. I finished up my internship at the USGS at the beginning of the month and have been kicking around trying to figure out travel plans. It looks like I'll be taking off for India on the 28th of November instead of the 15th of October. Until then stay tuned. I've got nothing better to do than go find fun stuff to post.

South Fork of Montana Creek

          With the bit of rain that Anchorage has received in recent days the South Fork of Montana Creek finally came up enough to go back in for a second attempt. At the beginning of the season Cody, Damien and I tried to run the creek. We had two bad swims in the first few drops and decided to walk out. Today it came up enough that John and I decided to go back in for my second attempt. After passing the put in the first time around it was easy to find today. After driving 1.6 miles back the 4-wheeler trail in the 4runner it was an easy hour twenty minute hike to the put in. There was just enough water to scrape through the non-canyon sections at 400 cfs on the USGS gauge (the SF has approximately half the flow as at the USGS gauge). The canyons went smoothly this time around. The drops were distinct and had small recovery pools in the canyons. At this level there were a few IV+ drops, with the majority of the drops being class IV in nature. The canyon was really pretty, and it wouldn't be too hard to portage any of the rapids if one felt uncomfortable running the drop.

           I would like to head back sometime and clear and mark trails from the 4-wheeler trail to the put in and where to take out at the 4runner so that approximately 30 minutes of shallow, wood chalked class III at the end could be bypassed. Perhaps next weekend.

Here are a few pictures of John's

John boofing the last drop (-IV)

Myself on the last ledge

Running the second drop, class IV+ (as you can see we need to start naming the drops)

John's line on the second drop

Looking up the second canyon from the third major drop in this section. You can see the 10' diagonal waterfall at the top.

Yours truly running the hero line on the third drop in the second canyon (IV+). 

Bore Tide Excitement!

WOW!!! I survived the bore tide at the largest tidal difference of the year. I'm not just saying that; half my ride I was trying to figure out how to get out. Here's the full story.

I got back into Anchorage last week and check my email. I had tons of emails to go through, but one stuck out in particular. Chad had sent out an email about surfing the board tide the next week. It sounded like a plan; it was something I had always wanted to go do, and it seemed like a good way to take a break from writing papers and creating geologic maps and stratigraphic columns. So I fired an email back saying that I was down.

Joe, Chad, Amanda and I met up just after 5 today to car pool down to where we would catch the wave. On the way down Chad was relaying to Joe and I what his reconnaissance was from yesterday. By the sound of it the wave would form right before the second pullout past Bird Point and continue on down to the fourth pullout for a 15 minute ride. Apparently the wave would not be much of anything until this point, and it would swell up to form a massive wave. After the third pullout the wave would die down a little and pick up again right before the fourth pullout. That sounded good. I can do that. I had heard it called class five surfing before. It couldn't be too bad, how hard can surfing get?

We got down to the pull out, suited up, and got out on the water after we saw the wave go around Bird Point. The anticipation was ridiculous. First of all there were tons of people lined on the shore either waiting for someone to eat shit or to tear it up. While we were getting ready Jon, the first person to surf the bore tide in a kayak arrived and gave us a little more of a run down. Apparently the wave would form a crescent shape and funnel everyone into the middle. Jon had an eight and a half foot long surf kayak and recommended that all of us in shorter boats to line up for the maw rather than risk blowing off over the green shoulder. More and more reports were coming in that the wave was going to be really big. So waiting out where the wave was going to form was really intense. I had no idea what to expect besides a huge wave, and hopefully a a long good ride. There were five kayakers, Ben, Jon, Joe, Chad and myself and a surfer in the line up.

To say that the wave is really big, massive, or huge is the understatement of the century! It was easily a ten foot tall monster! When the wave formed it swelled up really big then started to break in the middle. It looked like it died down a little bit, but then swelled up again closer to the road. Ben took off for the far bank and I saw him catch a really nice green curling section of the wave. I saw Joe and Jon rise up on green section of the wave before Chad and I started paddling to catch our ride.

The wave hit like a freight train. One moment I was paddling for all I was worth the next I was slammed in the back and deep in the foam pile. There was a fifteen second stretch where it was really awesome getting pushed by the wave and skipping off the oncoming water. After that I decided that was enough and maybe I should try to do something with it. So I tried to carve off to one side. Nothing happened. I couldn't do anything but survive when I was in the pile, and when I was not in the pile I was skipping off the oncoming water. There were when all I could feel was the last foot or so of my boat still on the water while I rocketed down Turnagain Arm. Every time I tried to carve out to the side I would set up in the pile lean over to the side and wait for something to happen. When I would rocket out of the pile I would skip off that edge and have to lean over to the other edge to keep from doing some sort of large aerial face plant in my boat. There were a few times where I would get shoved sideways and side surf or green grind the wave for a while. At this point my thoughts were, "Oh well, it isn't too bad I'll just try to keep it pointed strait and either ride it out or wash off when I flip".

About this time I flipped over, set up and waited to get wash off the wave. The water was really violent and didn't really change. I could feel that I was still moving along with the wave in the seam. "Huh, well I guess I'm not going to wash off this time", I thought, and rolled back up still surfing the tide.

I was starting to get pretty tired at this point and started to try to figure out how to get off the wave. I also noticed that I couldn't really feel that anyone was around me anymore; that I might be the only one still left on the wave. There were a couple times in the beginning when I would get glimpses of Chad off to my right, but I didn't see anyone anymore. Anyways, I was trying to figure out how to get off the wave at this point. I would get in a side surf and surf the wave for a while trying to rest in this position. Occasionally I would get wipped around back to the front or backwards. One time when I got turned around backwards I tried to paddle up and off the wave. That didn't work; it was too steep and tall. After that didn't work I was starting to get a little worried. I remembered that people were saying that the wave died down after the third pullout, but I couldn't figure out where I was. I was either buried in the pile or looking at the sky as I was skipping along. It was about then that I saw Ben off to my right. My new goal was to try not to crash into him. There wasn't much I could do about it.

I flipped a second time and this time I tried to wait out the wave again. This time it went from extremely violent, to really violent, to violent, to not so violent, to a little turbulent, to calm. What a relief that was. I rolled up to see that Ben was swimming, but that he had all of his gear. I paddled up to him, and he was alright. We emptied out his boat across mine and made it so that he could climb in his boat out on the water. Besides Ben and I, everyone else had blown off the wave before they got back to the second pullout from where they caught the wave.

It was a very humbling experience, to say the least. The ocean has a lot of power. The only way I could describe it would be class V surfing. I believe that George, from Alaska Kayak, described it to me like that once. He hit the nail on the head. I am NOT going to surf the bore tide again at that level. I'm not going to go back anytime soon to go surf it. Only until I forget how scary it was and think that it is a good idea again; like finishing a really hard race and swearing you'll never do it again, but still end up doing the race again the next year.

Besides getting pushed up Turnagain Arm by a massive wall of water I have been ridiculously busy with school since skiing finished up. For the last couple months I have been studying for and entrance/exit exam, trying to finish my classes out strong after traveling all over, and out and about all over the state geologizing for my field class. After writing a two papers, and creating a stratigraphic section, and two geologic maps, I have one more paper to write tomorrow and I'll be done with my B.S. in Geology! Saturday I'm heading down to Sixmile for the First Annual Sixmile River Festival for some kayaking events, music and beer down on the gravel bar. Then Monday I start my internship at the United States Geological Survey in the Hydrology division. Now that life is starting to settle down I should really start training for the mountain races this year. With any luck after a few weeks of training I'll feel somewhat descent and be able to hang in with the top 15 or so.

The top picture was taken by Amanda from the second pullout. I'm the one kayaker you can see. If you look closely, off to my right is Ben taking his turn side surfing in the pile.

Here are a few pictures from the field class.

Mt. Moffit (right) and McGinnis (left) as seen from the gravel bar just north of Delta Junction.

The Crew

An evening around the fire.

The size of the trucks they use at Fort Knox is quite impressive. There is a semi on the right for scale!

I'll see about getting more pictures up later.