boofhome: 2009: Droppin' Gradient

2009 had a great start. I was in a new house, annie got a good job and was enjoying work, Life = good. We got this new bundle of joy whose legal name is longer than mine "King Henry Von Bradley Bean." He is just about the funniest dog that i have ever owned. He isn't the brightest apple but at least he is amusing.

Henry enjoys disc golf! ..until about hole 3... then he just enjoys the disc bag

This is one of Henry's poses. It's called reverse bean.

After the first few months of the year i got that itch... that undescribable feeling when you know you would just sleep better if you could have some foreign water beneath you for a while. I had planned to head east but wasnt sure where. After looking at AW and looking at the forecast i figured everything would be going off. I was completely correct , maybe too correct.

In the week or two before i was to head out Todd asked if i wanted to cut out a creek we had been talking about. Of course i was down. We didn't know the name of it, only that he said it went and he had seen it while scouting turkey. With a quick 1 mile hike down a feeder creek we were there. At the same time we hit the confluence of the two creeks the chain saw was rev'd up (using approved technique, method, oil?.. etc) and in action. After a few miles of hiking downstream and sawing frequently we decided we were ok with the run and hiked out of the gorge. The hike out was simultaneously rewarding and exhausting. 30 degree.. in steel toe (whooops).

Feeder creek rapid

1st gorge with bad cave slot/seive showing in left of picture under overhang. you will see this in the video and it is not pretty.

looking downstream at the first gorge

end of first gorge, last drop. 8-10 foot off angle slide under an overhang

2nd gorge first rapid. off angle slide with about 15-20 foot before a 4-5 foot drop/hole with a must make slot move with some carnage potential.

The boat and a half wide slot with bonus eddy shown in left corner. undercut anyone?

This is what we thought was the last drop.. maybe we were tired or lazy. We were wrong. The last drop was the best and most technical/most consequencial. Ill leave it for the run photos and video for you to decide.