Tapirs

Just a few more days of school and the freedom of summer.  The past two weeks have been great.  Lots of Fishladder and Centerlines laps... finally starting to get comfortable with some water in the river.  Definitely looking forward to running the 'Crack' when it gets down a bit more.  This summer should offer up lots of boating opportunities.  Hoping to get some time on the 'Green' with Gnarls, the 'Black' in upstate New York, the 'Ottawa', and a trip to the 'Rado.  It's been great to get a lot of time on the river with Ornstein since he's been in town.  Hoping to get some new pics up soon.  Until then, here's a picture of Strongarm's new girlfriend.  What a nice ass!

Old Friends and a Quick Roll

Over the past two weeks the Potomac has offered more than its fair share of new and exciting adventures. 
Pags and Steveo introduced me to a new cliff jump.  I stared at this behemoth many times over the year, but had not seen anyone jump.  Pags eagerly led the way up the rock outcropping to the sloping pitch towering high above the river.  It was at least fifteen feet higher than the normal jump across the river.  I lept off the rock and did my typical disoriented flailing free fall.  I failed to pull my arms in tight an ended up getting dewinged.  Think of landing with your arms out like chicken wings and then having them wrenched suddenly and painfully upward with an incredible amount of force.  That is getting dewinged. 

Center Lines have been in at good water levels.  Last Thursday I follwed Beakes down for a quick lap and then headed over to the Virginia side for a park service meeting about river access at Fisherman's Eddy.  Beakes and I walked into the meeting geared up and dripping wet.  The room was packed with the usual suspects.  The conversation went back and forth about how to handle the enormous log jam creating a dicey walk down to Fisherman's Eddy.  The park service was concerned people would follow kayakers down, and end up in a bad situation.  Multiple solutions were discussed, and ultimately the park service seemed genuinely interested in creating a situation favorable for kayakers. 

After the meeting I met up with Scott, Sean, and long lost Monica Gokey at the Irish Inn for a few beers.  We caught up and shared stories.  Monica and I made some plans to meet up and boat the next day.  We ended up meeting John Greer for a few laps down Center Lines and Fishladder.

On Sunday it was more great lines.  Scott, Monica and I hit up Center Lines and Fishladder.  I got subbed out in the hole on the lead-in to Grace on my second lap and ended up nearly going over the handlebars over Grace.  I gave a big brace, flipped, hit an offside role and continued straight down through the Ledges and Fingers. 

Big rain in the forecast.  Wedding is a few short months away.  Looking forward to a big reunion of dirtbags.  Together once again in the same place.

Cheat River Festival 2010

In the week preceeding Cheat River Festival, I set out to resurrect the grease car.  My ambitions were simple: buy a battery and get it started.  I accomplished this task fairly easily with a mission into the depths of overboard commercialism known as the Rockville Pike.  I picked up my battery and got and got a quick bite to eat at the Peruvian chicken shack.  One hour later, the new battery was in and I was driving the grease car.  It felt great; a little like I was rebuilding a lost dream. 

Unfortunately, the dream died a quick death.

Friday was race day.  One hundred and fifty kayakers in one big lump waiting for the signal.  The Cheat River Massacre is the largest mass start downriver race in the world.  It was my first time racing in any race.  The rapids on the Cheat are fairly simple.  Folks usually plod their way down at a leisurely pace of three to four hours.  Race times are much faster, usually in the order of ninety minutes or less.  This is pretty quick considering the course is twelve miles of fairly consistent class three/four whitewater. 

Steveo

The only thing standing between me and the race was the three and half hour car ride out to Albright.  I drove out to Calleva to meet Steveo, Pags, and Simon.  We loaded boats and hit the road.  Steveo decided to ride shotgun with me.  All was well until we started into western Maryland.  The interstate starts to rise and fall with some fairly steep grades.  As we neared Albright, the car seemed to get a little slower with each passing hill.  By the time we hit the backroads, she was barely moving.  I switched on and off between the defunct grease mode and diesel for the last ten miles.  We pulled into the campground in Albright and the car stopped running.  We rolled to a halt and hopped out.  We made it.

Steveo and I could not believe it.  I knew the car would make it out, but it now looked like the grease car, this legendary machine, was not going to make it home.  The idea of losing the car in the middle of West Virginia was too much too bare at the moment.  We had only ninety minutes to race time. 

We geared up and hit the water.  The flag dropped and we were off.  It was an awesome experience.  Pulling out from behind the bridge pilings, surfing the wakes of other boats to catch a bit of a free ride, and heading into rapids without really knowing what was coming.  It was definitely a different way to run a river.  I immediately loved it. 

After the first few miles the race stretched out into groups.  I was next to the few same guys for the rest of the way, passing and occasionally being passed by a few boats.  We headed into the last set of big rapids and a dude with aviators sunglasses came up next to me.  He looked pretty familiar, but I was not sure where I knew him from.  Directly in front of me was an aquaintance from Ecuador, Brad Buddenburg.  Billy and I paddled with Brad and his wife Katie when were paddling in the Quijos Valley a year before.  It was great to see him on the river.  I ended up finishing right behind Brad, and ahead of the mystery aviator man.  It turned out to be Tyler Houck, one of Curt's buddies from the Columbia River Gorge.  Tyler had a great race finishing second in the short boat class. 

After the race we grabbed a few free beers from a keg in the takeout parking lot near the Jenkinsburg bridge.  It was literally the greatest beer to ever hit my lips.  It was a local brew, nothing too fancy, but the atmosphere and my incredible thirst made it memorable.

Parking Lot before the Race

Most of the racers jam into a big yellow cheese bus to head back to the campground.  Pags and I stood in the back as the bus inched its way out of the canyon.  Every bump had us plastered against the rear window.  The kids sitting next to us were getting rowdy and drinking Coors. 

We were pretty tired after the race.  We pulled our cars under a big Willow tree near the put in, cooked some food and fell asleep pretty quickly.  In the morning we woke up and headed to the Upper Yough. 

We had a great day on the Upper Yough and saw more than a few familiar faces.  On the way off the river I passed an awkward bunch of hooligans who turned out to be old friends.  Travis Overstreet and his gang of southern Virgnia boys came to the Fest ready to tear it up as usual.  I caught up with them for a few minutes, chatted on a few glory stories and headed on.  Pags, Steveo and I caught a ride with Simon and these guys from D.C. I didn't know.  When we got back to the put-in, Pags and Steveo had to head back home.  I had to stay because the legendary grease car was on the side of the road near Teeter's campground refusing to start. 

Simon and his two friends gave me a ride back to the festival.  We took the scenic route home, stopping to shoot a .40 gauge pistol at some beer bottles in the middle of the woods.  The beer bottles were drunk and causing a ruckus.  We had to show them who was boss.   

I was not sure what to do about the car.  I did not want to resort to towing it, too much money, but the only other option was selling it, and I was not sure how I was going to work that.  I decided to mull it over for the evening.  I camped near Scott and Katie.  I walked around with Travis for a while at the festival until he decided it was time for him to go to bed.  I ended up hanging with Sean Devine for the rest of the evening.  We commandeered and empty pavillion style tent, chairs, bag of free beer and pretzels and wiled away the rest of the evening listening to some killer bluegrass music.

In the morning, Scott and crew hit another run through Cheat Canyon.  I stayed behind to deal with the car.  I sold it to a guy named Doug.  He came and towed it away in the rain.  It was a sad moment.  The legend was finished.  I drove Scott's car to the takeout to pick him up.  On the way I discovered the Drive by Truckers.  They are my new favorite band and track eleven on their album 'A Blessing and a Curse' informed me life was going to be a world of hurt.  I agreed.

Over the years I've had some epic car rides, but that afternoon the car ride back with Scott turned out to be one of the best. Great conversation and great music that did not let up until we were back home.

It was another amazing Cheat Fest.  They usually cannot be beat, and this year was no different.

The link below will bring you to the race results page if you're interested.
http://www.cheatriverrace.com/2010RaceResults.htm

End of the Line for the Grease Car

Fishladder Series

The weather was perfect on Sunday afternoon.  I met Mark and Scott for some Falls laps.  After a run through the Fishladder and a lap through center lines, we started talking about the lack of a Fishladder link on the Americanwhitewater page.  The Fishladder consists of six slides in quick succession.  It moves quickly and is often much less photographed than the rest of the lines on Great Falls.  We decided to take on the afternoon project of photographing each of the six major slides in sequence.  We plan on heading back out again, but here is what he have so far.  It's hard to imagine a better way to spend a Sunday afternoon. 
(The first shot is not from the Fishladder, but I had to pay homage to Scott's sweet boof)

Scott Anderson, 'Grace Under Pressure'

Scott on the first slide of the Fishladder

Scott, second slide of the Fishladder

Mark Loeffler, second slide of the Fishladder

Third slide, 'Under the Bridge'

Mark, fourth slide

Mark, fifth slide, 'Around the Corner'

Long view of the last slide

Last Slide

Big

It was big. 
Scott called me on Friday afternoon.
'You wanna' run the Fishladder?'
'Definitely.  I'll meet you at there at four o'clock'. 
I called Pags to see if he was game.  He was in the midst of driving a school bus back to Calleva.  I assured him not to worry.  I could fully outfit him with gear.  He was down. 
I usually shy away from higher water levels.  I am trying to break the habit, move out of my comfort zone. 
We ferried around to warm up, boofed over the dam and headed downstream.  I followed Scott in to the first slide.  I hit the wall stroking hard, backentered near vertical and threw a huge brace to keep myself from flipping.  I pulled into the relative calm of the river right eddy.
Pags was coming in hot.  He hit the wall with full force and stopped dead in his tracks.  In an instant he was facing upstream front surfing the first slide.  Scott and I looked on with a small sense of urgency.  We didn't really want to entertain the idea of a swim.  Pags eventually surfed over the top of the pile, a bit stirred, but not too shaken. 
Scott headed into the second slide.  Pags and I elected to check out the river right line known as 'Tight Squeeze'.  We had never seen it before.  We approached it quickly to find a large log blocking the entrance.  We banged over some rocks and started to appreciate the name of this short section. 
We met Scott above the thrird slide. 
'We'll see how it goes'. 
He disappeared into the center of the huge wave.  Pags and I sat for a brief moment, contemplating the size and speed.  He took off.  I paused for another moment and let go.  I blanked out as I hit the wave face.  I came through hurtled toward the river right wall and straight into the fourth slide.  I ducked under a fallen tree with downhanging branches and launched into the river left eddy.  I admitted my gut wrenching fear as we laughed at the absurdity of the size and speed at higher water levels. 
We discussed the fifth and sixth slides.  Scott and Pags wanted to run straight through.  I thought I might eddy out above.  A few short seconds later we were careening around the corner and headed straight into the last slide.  I looked right and decided to follow them straight into it. 
In mid-slide I watched Pags surf the top of the pile.  He blew out as I smashed into the ten foot wall of water.  I crashed on through and eddied out screaming at the top of my lungs.  I sat in the eddy with Pags.  We just looked at each other and yelled.  We looked at the sky slapping our hands in the water next to our boats.  Smiling.  Smiling.  Laughing, smiling, breathing sighs of relief and gratitude. 
In the midst of it you can feel it. 
It makes sense.
Sometimes the only kind I know.

See you on the river.