FIBArk 2011

FIBArk is a white water and river festival that takes place in Salida, CO every year in late June. It is basically one big excuse to party. I personally like FIBArk because they have a lot more for the non boater than some of the other area festivals. There is not too much to report from Salida, Colorado this year, as much has already been forgotten, however, the story below may be the weekend's winning portion of the moron-a-thon.

VOLUNTARY CARNAGE: On Saturday, after a little creeking, our crew hit Brown's for some downriver play. Approaching Zoom Flume, we decided that it would be much more hilarious, fun, and spicy to just float through the damn thing without paddling, four guys across, while simply holding on to each others boats. We knew we would get destroyed but went for it anyway. We were just right of center when we entered, rode a few waves, hit a huge haystack which threw most of us into a huge, simultaneous stern squirt, and although we tried hard to hold on, the two center boats folded over on each other. The outside boats got away without a chundering, but the two of us in the middle got to count a LOT of fish. :)

Have a look at the pictures. From river left to right is Frankie, myself, Chase, and Ben. The photographer missed our entry, the stern squirt and the implosion, but you can see some of our carnage. It was hilarious. The looks on Ben's face are priceless.

Click here to view the photos: Whitewater Photography

Euro Report Part 2

I arrived in Slovenia on 14 Jun 2011 to meet up with my new friends and do some paddling on the Soča river near Bovec. For the most part, the Soča offers class II-III paddling in a beautiful setting with crystal clear water flowing out of a Slovenian National Park. The water was so clean, we literally drank straight from the river.



We had five people and four boats, so I took one for the team and rented a playboat from a local vendor for 15 Euro/day. The clunky Wavesport turned out to be neither a good river runner, nor playboat. Despite the fact is was brand new this season, the outfitting hasn't changed since the EZ was introduced a decade ago. Like I always say--F-it, it's a rental, and it was destined to take some hits........and it did.



Bovec is a popular European kayak spot in the summer for obvious reasons.



Plenty of spots to chill and have a good time.



This place has lots to do from skiing, biking, rafting, kayaking, partying, and more....



The last day we set off to run this slot canyon, high up on the Soča river. The canyon grew deeper and deeper the farther it ran, so it was difficult to do a quick scout. We should have spent more time, but we thought it would be easy from what we could see. Big mistake!




Simon and Toby scouting the lead in.



The drop above leads right into this.



A little further down stream, I was in the lead and charged right into this sieve. Luckily, Simon and Toby got spooked and caught the eddy on river left, or they would have ran right into me in my pinned rental.



I pulled the skirt and managed to climb out while my boat got caught in the siphon below. I'm damned glad I wasn't swimming.



This rapid signaled the end of the line for us as more siphons were awaiting below.



Good thing I had my new 5.10 water shoes with sticky rubber to help me climb the slippery, wet limestone.



Toby lost a game of Rock-Paper-Scissors and got sent down for the rescue. Thank's Bro. It is good to have a solid team. He had the best rope work of anyone I have paddled with (sorry Mack--it's true).



We should have paid attention to the signs. We put in above the double "XX's" on the right side of the sign.

Box Elder plus Juice Sauce

Teva Steep Creek Race 2011

Euro Report Part 1

So I arrived in Germany on May 25th, picked up my new boat and started paddling in Austria on May 27th. I was lucky to run into some raft guides in Haiming that let me jump on one of their trips for 5 Euro. We ran the Imst Gorge of the Inn river in Tirol. Nothing scary, just big water class 3 in a spectacular gorge. I met a Scottish bloke by the name of Simon at the takeout, and immediately all hell started breaking loose. The Tyrolean Rampage began. We quickly scored a shuttle from Simon's friend Doug and ran the Lower Oetz River (class 4). Then we grabbed a shuttle with the raft guides and ran it again. I can't say enough good things about this river, it is a classic, with continuous waves and holes from top to bottom. 12km in length. The next morning we stepped it up a notch and ran the Upper Oetz, which is a class 4+ classic, and very continuous at the grade for 4 km. Feeling pretty good about our paddling we headed to Landeck and began scouting the 2 km Inn Shoot. Holy crap this thing looked big and fast, with giant keeper holes the size of my RV. We decided to put on, and quickly discovered it is much bigger and faster than it looked from the scout. We were committed. The run turned out pretty good with me having dry hair, and Simon only one roll. The Inn Shoot dumped us out into the Landeck Gorge (6 km of class 4), which was a welcome relief with no stress. We got a ride back to the car with the local fire department in a rescue van. On day three we ran another tributary of the Inn called the Sanna, which was 7km of continuous class 4 waves and holes. Here we ran into a British group we fondly referred to as the Brady Bunch. We ran the Lower Oetz again that day with Bobby, Cindy, Peter and the rest. The next day I had to drive back to Germany, so we quickly hit the Upper again with the Bunch. I don't remember the chick's name, so I'll call her Alice. Alice swam out of a giant hole, but her dudes managed to recover the gear. After some coercion, she did her Booty Beer so karma is restored. All in all, 8 sections of river ran in 3 1/2 days. Highlights are on this video.

http://vimeo.com/24469567

On June 9th, after working a week straight, I headed back down to meet Simon for some more paddling. This time, we headed to East Tirol where Simon will be guiding the rest of the summer. Simon wanted to hit some waterfalls, so I recommended the Wasserfallstrecke Defreggenbach (Waterfall section.) I had seen it in some vids and thought it was clean. Simon agreed so we took the sketchiest pass I have ever driven from Italy into Austria. A 15% one lane switchback pass over 3300 meters in the rain. Simon was reading the guide book about this river and was strangely keeping quiet about the run. I should have known something was up. It wasn't until we had "set shuttle" and were getting dressed when I asked "what does the guide rate this section?" He responded "it has a bit of 4, a bit of 5, and a bit of 6." I said fuck it, we'll just have to make sure we can catch eddies so we can scout, and off we went. About 1k in we saw a giant horizon line and got out of our boats to scout the monstrosity. Sure enough, it was class 6 at the flows at hand. The entrance was guarded by a giant keeper hole, and the landings looked beyond sticky. On the second drop, all of the river right water was pushing into a cave, right where you would be swimming after attempting the first drop. The portage turned out easy. Here are some pics and vids of the mini gorge.

http://vimeo.com/24870619

Next, we discovered the logging section of the river. This part would require Paul Bunion and a Blue Ox to clean out. These were the worst strainers I have ever seen. More portaging!

Finally we were nearing the end of the run, when we hit a blind turn in a cliffed-out gorge. No way were we gonna run it blind, and thankfully we scouted. It took about a half hour of sketchy climbing on loose dirt and rock in the rain to get to a place we could see. This is what we were faced with:

It was a mandatory run because we were way too far into the gorge to escape. We decided to go river right. It was a sketchy line and I went first. A log and a boil protected the entrance, and the drop finished off with a hole. We both made it fine and rode some boogie to the takeout. Then we hiked 4 km in a thunderstorm back to the car.

The next day we got some really fun big water runs on the Isel river.