The Intraweb Home of Andy White

Date:  2009-05-15 5:30pm

Run:  Arkansas River – Frog Rock (highway put-in to BV play park)

Flow:  ~1700 cfs

Class:  III

Temperature:  maybe 60-70 deg (decently warm)

Buddies:  Chadwick Shoults, Fino

Description:  We started our trip down to Buena Vista around 1:30 on Friday afternoon.  We got to Ruby Mountain campground around 4:30, and decided to do a quick run from the highway put-in to the BV play park (Fractions/Frog Rock w/out Fractions…).  The run was pretty easy, everyone got down pretty clean.  We took the usual line down Frog Rock rapid:  just right of the hole on river left.  The entrapment spot was sort of underwater on river right.  At house rock, we got out to scout, and it didn’t look nearly as bad as it did last year at 3000 cfs.  Chadwick took the right line and made it down clean.  Fino and I took the left side.  There is a large hole just to the left of house rock that you can avoid to the far left.  Fino made it clean, but I caught the edge of the hole and got flipped, but rolled up easily in the washout.

Carnage:  Nothing serious besides a few rolls

Date:  2009-05-07 5:45pm

Run:  Lower Clear Creek (Below Rigormortis down), Golden Play Park

Flow:  230 cfs

Class:  IV, III

Temperature:  maybe 70 deg (warm)

Buddies:  Chadwick Shoults, Randy P, Nick, Alan (last 3 guys from coloradokayakers.com)

Description:  Lower clear creek at 230 is a little pushier than 170, but still pretty bony.  I definitely bounced off a lot of rocks on the way down; luckily it wasn’t my head bouncing off rocks though.  I had a pretty clean run all the way down, although I felt like I could have done better.  Started working on a back-stroke brace, which I think might come in handy at some point – a mastery of many types of braces is so key to staying upright.  Overall, it was a nice day, I think everyone had fun, although Alan had a couple swims.  Luckily no injuries or anything like that.  We walked around the rusty metal death-trap dam and put in right below it.  I took the left line around the boulder in the middle, and it was fine.  Randy and Nick took the right line and it was fine too.  The dam hole looked pretty nasty, but possibly doable if you had some speed.

Carnage:  A few rolls at the bottom while not paying attention.  Alan took the brunt of the carnage with two swims, but they weren’t too bad.

Date:  2009-04-29 6:20pm

Run:  Lower-Lower Clear Creek (first tunnel down), Golden Play Park

Flow:  140 cfs

Class:  easy III

Temperature:  70 deg (warm)

Buddies:  Nick Lamb, Chadwick Shoults, Fino

Description:  Just a quick after-work run from the tunnel down to the library hole at Golden.  It was a nice day.  140cfs is super low, but doable.  I’m looking forward to the flows coming up.

Carnage:  None

I’m going to keep a log of all the kayak trips I’ve gone on this summer.  I wish I would have done this the past few years, because now I don’t have any idea about which runs I did when, and at what flows…  Here is the first entry:

Date:  2009-04-25 9:00am

Run:  Lower Clear Creek, Golden Play Park

Flow:  170 cfs

Class:  IV, III

Temperature:  40 deg (cloudy and cold)

Buddies:  Fino (James Orofino), Fello (Rafaello Sacerdoti)

Description:  It was a pretty cold day, but I managed to stay dry and mostly warm (except for my hands).  Lower CC at 170 cfs is pretty low, but it’s actually pretty doable.  I ended up bouncing off of a lot of rocks, but I felt pretty comfortable for the first run of the year – I guess all the work last year has paid off!  Elbow falls was good, and screamin’ 1/4 mile was good, but bony.  Portaged around the gnarly diversion dam, just to be safe.  When we got down to the playpark, the School of Mines were doing a cardboard boat race for a freshman projects class, which was pretty funny to watch.  The Golden playpark has changed a lot since last year, they’ve done a lot of work trying to make better surfing holes.  It looks pretty promising, can’t wait for the flows to come up some more.

Carnage:  Stayed upright, except for one stupid roll in the play park (laziness)

My good friend Chadwick Shoults just posted a kayaking video from our recent trip to Deckers/Waterton Canyon, near Conifer, CO.  It was a great video documenting all the drops on this short, but furious III+/IV- run, and somehow a popular kayaking website eddyflower.com saw it and decided to post it as a video guide for Waterton!  Although, as for being a run guide, try not to do what I did – e.g. get flipped three times (one not seen in the video, and one more almost-flip), all at inopportune times.  It was a fun, but challenging and humbling experience.  It is good to be reminded that I’m really not that great, so I don’t go off and try something stupid.  Here’s the video:

http://eddyflower.com/RunDetail.aspx?RunId=76