Van Work, Fish Camp, and Myers Branch Pioneering

For a few years I have been hoarding random outdoor gear. For instance, i found a good roof basket for close to nothing and bought it, stuck it in my garage, and never used it. I have had my van since 2007 and it has had the ugliest boat mounting situation known to man. It hasnt bothered me much since i normally just pile all the boats inside and people sit on the couch/bed. My spare tire has been bugging me with its ugly space hoggy-ness. I decided to cut off the racks WELDED to my gutters, install some gutter towers, and install my basket with tire and bumper jack mounted on it. It involved some sawzall work, grinding, and paint/sealing work ... FUN.

Glorious Chariot

Layin' it all together

Fish camp is a gathering we have on the north fork every year (since last year). This is a random fall on the float from victor to the little long pool crossing. Fish camp weekend was awesome and we even made shirts for the event.

The day for myers branch was drawing closer. The first week in may was special, "Creek week" arkansas style was upon us. Newton/Searcy county had been getting demolished by heavy rains all week and we began to salivate. "The run we had worked to cut out has got to be going off," we said to ourselves. We met up early and headed to aqua bliss.

Scouting was a must in the first gorge. Discuss that sieve on the right boys. pssst.... video

Todd gettin' it done dropping some gradient and punching some holes

Weird little slide/slot move

Angled Slide on the way to the tongue. Great lead in rapid.

Joe heading down the tongue about to slot move it up

Todd

This was a dare/personal challenge to catch the bonus eddy in between two boulders on the edge of the hole. JB: 1 ; Hole: 0

Need i say more? this creek has it all

Joe hitting the drool line.

Best rapid. Which way would you go? you guys get to find out later which way we went.

Joe sure is probing hard. She goes.

This creek is great. The hike in is comparable to eating scissors. The rewards are worth it though, I will be there again and again. I couldn't ask for a better paddling group to explore with. The comradery among us three amigos is unparalleled. Safety is a huge topic on our trips and i appreciate their cautions and unwillingness to get "comfortable" even though we have all seen what each other can do.

South Cedar

After hitting up some east water i parted from my road gang and stopped off in nashville and hung out with annie's sister erika and her husband ben. We sat around an inner city fire and drank some home brew that was extremely tasty. As strange as it sounds, there is actually a pretty cool feeling you get while sitting next to a fire in a huge action filled city.

i tried to impress some strangers by challenging them to a shotgun contest with my homely coors light... i got owned!.. amazing talent in nashville (not just vocal!). Check out "Heypenny" http://www.heypenny.com/ for some amazing music and unique video technique. Ben (middle) is lead vocals and dj (right) plays bass. the 3rd member pictured (left) will be named as "Victor" for winning the contest by far.

After I got back i got a call from joe saying he had hit up some goods on south cedar at a phat level. I had watched joe C's video before... i was instantly drawn in by the double crux rapid chief. The lead in looked like it was filled with crazy cross currents just waiting for that unsuspecting boater. The other two drops didn't look bad either. A 15 footer with a boof shelf on the left and a little pocket rapid with a nasty wall ride " buster" or a sweet "booster" line on the left.

My gear was still drying from my trip when joe calls and says "lezzz go south... cedar." We loaded up and made the trip through the gray area to the goods. The level was lower than the day before but still definitely worth the trip.

The falls were perfect and the left boof line was going (wait for the video). The Butt Booster/Buster was a little bony on the booster side so it was buster that day TWICE. Chief was still cheif and good to go.

Joe C firing it up in perfect pose

Butt Booster/Buster.. SHARP


Looking downstream at chief. Chief is so long you can't really get a picture.

I'm sure this is why Joe C dubbed this rapid Chief

This place is a wonderland of spillways. This line is still yet to be run. The middle line in the far left of the picture was fired off fairly recently. If we didn't have pressure from johnny law there would be pictures and footy of another perfect auto boof on a separate spillway. Too bad.

Defnite thanks go out to both Joes for sharing this wonderland.

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.

Taking a break on crab orchard.. what a fun run with no real beta to go on.

Pretty rapid. This was the highlight of the trip along with the beautiful scenery.

Cumberland range

Chip gettin' it done

Beautiful drop on the Tellico

This thing screams take my picture

This is for my lady

Baby Falls

Diaper Wiper

Had to...

That middle boof line is so sweet

eddy

Bald River Falls

Don't say i've never given you any pictures ken.

Jared's knee

2009 has been awesome. There is so much more left of this year. where will we go? what will we see? Stay tuned.

Flapjack Falls First Descent out of order September 2008

I forgot to add this to the timeline. This had been swam in by todd since he was a kid. When he talked about this "awesome 22 foot fall" first descent possibility that was roadside, i was skeptical. His definition of roadside is different than most people's. After we hit this, word got out fast! we now have several groups of people wanting to probe this but not willing to due to wood. When we ran it we put in well above the falls and there was a few trees that made things interesting. One flushed to the lip and got cut .. but fell into the pool! the creek is full on all the way to the confluence.

Scouting in April. Waiting for the rain

Flapjack Falls, the day of the goods.

At the lip

droppin it

Actual trip: September 2008, after several inches of rain the farmer's pond came up high enough to spill over and create our wonderland. It was gushy that day and the curtain was surging off the lip. There were no eddies to catch .. even over 100 yards upstream so bracing was a must. This was a long awaited first D .. over a year of planning.

2008 ending

After getting back from Colorado and settling into a real work schedule I realized something. I still had roomates! yuck. I knew if i was going to get a woman to settle down with me that the buddies who eat random foods and leave dishes everywhere or who had terrible bathroom habbits had to go. I spent 45 days working 13 hour night shifts ( 5:30 - 6:30) doing refueling. It was an experience i will never forget. Nuclear power is: amazing, scary, brilliant, crazy, and an accomplishment for mankind all at the same time. Seeing the reactor internals, removing fuel from the vessel, and putting new fuel assemblies into a pool full of old fuel sums up very very very briefly what i did for a month and a half.

I had saved every penny of my refuel work and bought a ring and got enough for a downpayment on my own house. I started looking for a rustic abode and found one. A nice cabin style home with some acreage. After the home was acquired i took some money over to annie's dad's house and paid.... i mean i asked desi and mark if i could marry their daughter. Surprisingly they said yes!

random camping fire

mah new crib

I proposed to annie on a trip home in December. I had bought the ring before I had her parents consent (brave or stupid?) and had been hiding it in one of my drawers containing two things i knew she would never touch: my pistol and some socks. I hid it in not one but two stained ugly socks.

When the trip came around i had an even harder task of keeping it secret on a fourteen hour drive with an overnight stop in dallas along the way. At one point i even stowed it in her bag! It rode under the driver's seat most of the time, she wondered why i refused to let her drive... that was why.

Contentment

Pictures with the fam. keep in mind this is just one aunt's children/grandchildren. Our family gatherings used to get rediculous on my mother's side of the family.

She said yes!!! On the beach, cold, wet, and raining. how romantic?

Mexico. Pre swine flu. look at that pina colada.

'08 was great. Now more work and remodeling was coming up.