Big South

After we left the Crested Butte area on Saturday night, kind of late I must add, we thought that we were in for a little 5 hour drive. Nothing bad remembering that we drive 7 hours for a great run regularly; however our drive north to Big South was longer than we had thought. After pulling in at 6:30 in the morning Boyd and I slept sitting up in the cab of our truck. Three hours later we were awake and talking to the other guys about the run they were about to do.

The hiking trail on Big South

With 11 miles of hard class V/V+ at high water, Big South is considered to be within the top five runs of Colorado. The gates opened on Sunday and, although it was at high water, quite a few boaters showed up to enjoy the run. Some of the guys that Boyd met up with were Marty Cronin, the co-founder of Jackson Kayaks, and Clay Wright- a world class kayaker from middle Tn that also paddles for JK. A very good group of people to run this river with.

Flow Dog

Since I am not a solid class V/V+ boater yet, I wound up being a shuttle bunny for my first time ever. I gave Boyd and Clay a ride up to the put in and then drove the truck back down to the take-out so that they could get to the truck when they get off of the river. After dropping off the truck, I hiked the Big South trail with Flow(Clay's doggie), one of the best dogs I have ever met. The Big South trail follows the river, so I hiked it hoping to catch up with the guys. Flow kept me company on the trail as she warded off evil bears and mountain lions!

Trail on Big South

After hiking 8 miles, the trail started to veer a little too much from the river. If the paddlers came down I would have missed them, so Flow and I decided to turn around and hike to a cool rapid that I could definately catch them at called Slideways. While waiting on the guys to come down Flow and I played fetch and hung out in the sun.

With 11 miles of class V/V+ creeking I was a little worried about Boyd. Driving all night, three hours of sleep, and no food can knock someone off of their A-game. I knew that he was stomping the river- I had just hoped that he wasn't too worn out. By the time that the group came to Slideways they all looked tired, but they were still doing well.

Clay Boyd

After Big South Boyd and I headed over to Fort Collins to grab a hotel so that we could get some rest and take a shower since we had not had one in five days. During the five minutes that it took for us to get a room a stray bullet hit the back window of Boyd's camper top causing it to shatter. Already tired from no no sleep the night before, we were both in a pretty bad mood. We spent a lot of the night cleaning out glass form the back of his truck. We duck taped the window for now so that we could sleep while still feeling safe. I must say that it is quite a good ducktaping job! Boyd and I decided to spend the next day resting a little bit; so we worked on editing our footage and vacuuming the glass out of the back of the truck. That night we headed back over to the Big South area to meet up with some other boaters that were going to run Big South the next day. We camped there and wound up running shuttle for them the nthat morning before heading out to Salida, Co.

At Salida we got in some good surf. Sorry guys no pictures, but I will tell you that I got some awesome surf! Boyd still played in easy in the hole while still managing to land some beautiful loops and even an incredible space godzilla. We are planning on heading back over there soon so you can bet that we will have the cameras out! After surfing we headed back over to the Crested Butte area. Today Boyd managed to get two good runs in on the waterfall section of Oh Be Joyful before the rain hit.

As of right nowit is 3 in the morning in Gunnison, Co. I haven't had a shower since Sunday night so Imma need to hit that up before I crash.

Fun Times

Samantha

First few days in Colorado....

Alrighty guys, so Boyd and I are in Colorado living it up! We left Wednesday and since then have had a few great adventures. The drive was long, but the wonderful Harry Potter books on cd helped us get through it fairly well. We were greeted with a wonderful lightning storm right when we came into Colorado. Just like usual, every county that we had to go through was under a tornado warning, but we kept on truckin' to Crested Butte watching the wonderful lightning show. The mountains are big, the weather is comfortable, and I am still kinda suffering from altitude sickness.
We had to take a wonderful road called Cottonwood Pass and this was the typical scenery along the Pass. I have never seen snow in June; but I must say that I absolutely LOVE it!







This is me at the top of Cottonwood Pass, which just so happens to be a Continental Divide. It was windy and cold up there, but it was also breathtakingly beautiful! After the continental divide we headed over to the Oh Be Joyful Campground near Crested Butte, where the scenery was much the same. Nestled in the mountains of the Crested Butte area were several creeks on our Colorado hit list. The creeks that we hit over there were The Slate, Oh Be Joyful, and Daisy- which is one of my personal favorites.

Friday, after a night of wonderful sleep, we decided to go look at Slate and OBJ. I was suffering a bit much from altitude sickness so I decided to play it cool that day. I did a lot of hiking to get some good footage of Boyd stomping the creeks. Our first stop was the Slate. The put in was a Beaver Pond, and yes it apparently got its name from all of the beavers that live there. It is a good creek that I should have done, but instead I was too timid and opted not to.
Pic of Boyd scouting a drop called Wicked Wanda on the Slate. He decided that it was too low to run. It is a beautiful run, but a bit hard to hike because that ground is mainly made of slate and it gives way pretty easily. Just ask Boyd about that, he portaged a log jam and wound up getting some pretty deep cuts on his palm because the ground gave way.( more pics of Slate coming) After the Slate, we headed over to Oh be Joyful which was just down the road; the run actually pours into the Slate. To get to OBJ you have to cross part of the Slate, and since we don't have a 4 wheel drive, we were forced to hike. The water was a bit low, but still runable. After we hiked our boats about a mile up the steep mountain terrain, I decided that OBJ was a bit too intimidating for me. Yup, all that work just to back out of the run- well at least I got some good pictures. When we were about at the put in another boater pulled up and he offered to take Boyd the rest of the way up and to paddle down with him- which was good bcz he would of had to do it alone. Since it was getting late (they put on at 6:00) they only did the waterfall section of OBJ.




A picture (by me) of Boyd at Dead Zone, a 25 footer on OBJ.











After they took out the same guy that gave us a ride up, Michael, gave us a ride back down to our campsite. Nice guy! In fact, all of the people, especially kayakers, are all so nice! Very different energy from the East coast boaters for sure!

The next day, our last day in the Crested Butte area, we decided to run Daisy Creek and go back to Oh Be Joyful so that we would have enough sunlight for Boyd to run the whole thing. The hike up to Big Wood Falls on Daisy is not nearly as bad as the hike up OBJ. After seeing the falls (and passing up two rivers the day before) my mouth started watering and I so wanted to run it. Of course, Boyd ran it first . He ran it beautifully! I was able to get some awesome pictures and video of his run!















After Boyd, it was my turn. The place that we put in was a little sketch, he had to rope my boat down to me. Right when I put in the water was moving fast! A couple of little schutes lead straight into the lip of the falls. I saw my line and went straight for it. The water was moving so fast that as soon as I saw the lip of the falls I was already launching off. I got pushed a little bit and corkscrewed of the lip, flipped, got drug over the slide right below it, and rolled up just in time for the hole at the bottom :) For my first time on Colorado-style water I didn't do too awful! So after I got over my disappointment in my line, what did I do? Ran it again, of course!






Photo of me at Big Wood Falls by Boyd. My second time down was much better! I went a little left of my original line. I knicked the right wall with my bow, hurting my knee a little bit. But other than that I had a great line down and I wass a happy camper.




I absolutely loved Daisy!It is really one of my favorite runs.












After Daisy we headed back over to Oh Be Joyful for Boyd to get a run in with plenty of daylight for footage. What a great day! Boyd got in quite a few great runs allowing me to get some great footage from a lot of great angles. This is actually my favorite ones!
The 25 footer is such a great, photogenic falls. It is a bit weird though. Two out of the many times Boyd ran it he hit himself in the forehead with his paddle. There are two parts of the Creek: the waterfall section (which is what Boyd ran the day before) and the slides section. This time we had enough daylight for him to run both sections. The slides section is just a whole bunch of slides that are full of timber and send you flying really fast. The most famous of these slides is called Avalanche. Here's a pic below. It is such a big slide that I could not fit it all in the picture. The slide ends in a pool that is dammed up by logs. You have to push yourself over the logs to get to the next slide.


























The first two days that we spent in Crested Butte were awesome; what a great way to start off a Colorado trip! Great people, great water, great times! Can't wait to hit the next river!

Samantha