Spring Has Finally Kicked In!!

Wow...what a winter!!! Huge snowpack yielding incredible skiing, snowboarding, and alpine climbing. One of the best in years. Huge snowpack = awesome paddling and the kayaking season has definitely kicked in. Just take a quick look around Durango and you'll find a lot of excellent class IV/V/V+ paddling. One of the most committing and awe-inspiring runs is the Baker's Box section of the Animas River. Looking at the pics, you get a feeling for the run...deep gorge with no escape...Class V+ rapids stacked up - the first 5 can't be scouted...totally awesome. I've had a chance to get in there quite a bit this spring before river levels get too rowdy. Low flows are around 500 cfs and high flows around 1000 cfs. It's been run by a few at higher flows, but be careful. Here's some more pics for you.

The feeling is like no other run around Durango or Colorado for that matter. Totally immersed in an incredible whitewater setting where traffic is non-existent and walls polished smooth by time. Getting worked in here is a religious experience. Every drop is complicated by a sieve situation and swim can take forever to recover from. In some parts of the run, you'll have to swim a Class V+ drop because there's literally nowhere else to go. Hiking out...well you can see that it's going to get epic.

South Silver Creek

After 3 straight weeks of instructing kayaking, I needed to get out and paddle for myself. My friend Zak (Kiwi) was down in Coloma staying at his regular crash pad so I decided to head down and pay him a visit. We were throwing ideas around when we decided to hit the South Silver Fork of the American River. Things were dropping out and this little gem was high on my hit list. My other Kiwi mate Bean said it was a granite fantasy land so there you have it. At roughly 600 ft./mile, the run is nothing but slides, tea cups, and boofs for just over a mile. Hello horizon line!!!

Autobahn showing her love!

The first rapid you encounter is called Autobahn - a long cascading slide into a pool. Zak knew the run like the back of his hand so after we hiked down to the put in and hopped in our boats, he casually mentioned head on down that way and hang on. Just the kind of beta I like! Tell me where to go but let me figure things out. I paddled out into the current a began the descent down smooth granite lovin every minute of it. Crashing into the pool at the end, Zak looks at me and winks "again?" Hell yeah! So we got out of our boats, hiked up and ran it again. What a fun slide. I found myself laughing half way down and hit the pool at the bottom giggling like a kid.

The run continued on with many boofs and fun slots. All are really cool where you're boofing into a tiny place and making a move. After all this you arrive at the Tea Cups section. OMG!!!! Boof after boof, slide after slide, you cruise down stream with awesome horizon lines and airtime. Although the Tea Cup's section is primarily plop and drop, you'll want to know where to go and how to land. Several of the Cups require landing on a redirect and making a move, or knowing where and how to boof to make the next move. Fun, fun, fun!!!!

Tea Cups

After we dropped our way through the Tea Cups section, we got to the meat of the run...Skyscraper into Offramp. 2 big drops that are not too technically difficult yet awe inspiring. Skyscraper is a fanastic drop. At around 80 ft. tall, it starts with a slide and keeps on going. Once done with Skyscraper, you cruise a small slide and drop into Offramp - a 30 footer to end this series of drops. Sweet as.... Once you start heading down Skyscraper, you're pretty much running on autopilot. Things are happening quickly and you're reacting to adrenaline rush. I managed to head a little too far left on the lead in to Offramp and hit the shelf sending me flying through the air. What a great couple of drops!!! After a quick portage around a boulder garden, we move quickly downstream. Zak knowing the lines added so much more flavor to the run. I didn't get a chance to scout anything beside Skyscraper and Offramp. Everything else was boating by beta. LOVIN IT!!!! The lead in to the final drop is fantastic. A series of Tea Cup-style drops one after the other. We boofed our way down to Plastic Surgery. Our last taste of verticality. I was certainly not disappointed. "Alright...boof right then right again. Mind the second hole after the boof. Pretty much scrape the left side of your boat on on that big rock and get forward. See ya down there". Then Zak was off. It was quite nice being there by myself not knowing what was up downstream. Obviously by the horizon line, there was something big. Also, there were several people hanging out shooting pics so there must have been a nice drop ahead. It turned out to be another sweet drop of the South Silver. The South Silver Fork of the American is a granite fanasty land that shouldn't be missed.