On the move down from Montana I bought a sweet LL Huck, a bigger rounder boat for when the tiny play kayak just doesnt cut it. I was originally hoping to use it on the class 4 drop section in Cody, but never happened. Yesterday it saw the creek it was made for. It was a truly epic adventure!
Red River I think it was called. The book called it class 4 creeking. we saw the pics and watched the videos. game on. If you dont know, classes go from one to five, that latter being extremely difficult and dangerous. as we put in the read and ran the top two miles like cake, and really fun little pourovers and boofs and snakey maneuvers. The creek is only a 4 mile stretch before it coagulates with the Rio Grande Middle Box. So were thinking "no problem, we ll be back in town to BBq by 5". Not the case. After 6 swims, two pin/wraps, some emergency strainer portages, my lost boat, two zdrag recoveries, lots of scouting, and lots of abrasion, we made it out of the last two miles of the creek to the Rio. Holy Shit. Then after that we had a 3 hour commute on the middle box to our completely unlocked shuttle car, where no one stole the beer, ariving at a prompt 8:45 pm.
The Beat Down:
Fearing foot entrapment, I did this kiddy cannonball slide down a rough rapid. It hurt. So do my knuckles and helmet.
The birthday paddle never left my hands, though it took some abuse with me on the swims.
I finally got to mechanical advantage a pinned boat off a rock. it was rad. glad I brought the gear, unfortunately when we found my boat 1 mile downstream, the unpin kit was still IN it, so we got to use some live bait, and muntner hitches to retrieve.
Overall awesome experience. Saw an elk too!
Also broke the K-stik last weekend dropping into a mile long Class 4 rapid. Talk about Oh Shit!
