Friday, June 8, 2007

Lover's Leap on the S. Fork of the American



The second day of the trip took us just a bit above the kyburz section to the Lover's Leap section of the S. Fork of the American. We put in at Strawberry and took out about 5 miles downstream. The pace felt slow that day but it would turn out to be the pace of most of the trip. Paddle up to the horizon line - first guy jumps out and looks at the rapid. He then decides if he can describe the line to everyone else or if we should all have a look. When it gets really juicy is when you have two guys out - one on the right and one on the left. The guy on the right looks confused so he looks to the left who looks even more confused. They both shrug their shoulders until one suggests right down the middle. The other will then shrug as if to say "Why not?" and then they will both tell us its not really worth looking at. This is not the most reassuring feeling.

Lover's leap was full of quick bouldery drops with some sieves and logs. We even came upon a massive logjam that completely stopped up the river. The water was obviously coming out the bottom but it looked stable from the top. As we walked across the trunks of 6 ft diameter Ponderosa Pine trees we realized that these massive logs were all just loosely arranged and were not stable at all. People were falling through all over the place. Imagine being in a log rolling competition while trying trying to carry a 40lb kayak and if you fall too deep you might get sucked under.

Here's a pic from the bottom of the logjam (unfortunately we didn't take any from the top so you'll just have to use your imagination):









The rest of the run was very good boating but no major rapids. More pics to come soon.



















Tulley loves him some backwards boating:

1 comment:

Jason Aytes said...

Yeah brotha, glad to see you are giving the Math and Science a break to run some class V. Looks like you are having a sweet trip. I know all to well about someone to get out and look at a rapid and having nothing but looks of confusion. Be safe and have fun.