Date:  2009-05-16 11:00am

Run:  Arkansas River – Brown’s Canyon (Ruby Mountain to Hecla Junction)

Flow:  ~1800 cfs

Class:  III

Temperature:  50-60 deg (partly cloudy)

Buddies:  Chadwick Shoults, Fino

Description:  When we got up, it was about 40deg and cloudy, so we decided to go into town to eat and see if it would warm up.  We ate at Evergreen Cafe, which was pretty good.  Chadwick and Ashley brought 8 month old Braxton along, which was pretty cool.  He did pretty well the whole time, but I think he got a little worked up during the night when it was windy and kind of cold, but that’s pretty reasonable.  I don’t think Ashley got a whole lot of sleep, but besides that, it was a decent first camping trip for Braxton.  We finally got in the river at around 11:00 right by our campsite (#15) at Ruby Mountain…  how convenient.  The water was cold, but the air temp wasn’t too bad.  The run was good overall.  The wave at canyon doors was decent, but hard to get into.  Zoom Flume was the best rapid as usual.  There was kind of a bouncy line to the right, and a slack-water line to the left, but also a large hole on the left at the bottom.  I think we all took the right line through the waves and made it through clean.  The rest of the run was good – boily eddy lines all over, and some fun drops and wave trains.

Carnage:  Fino had a wardrobe malfunction (skirt blowout) and ended up having to swim out of his bow-stalled boat, but that doesn’t really count as a swim.  No other carnage.