Moormans River Adventure

Plan for the day: meet at 10:30am, check river levels (since its rained a TON in the past couple days) to see what fun creeks are running, pick one, and GO.

Actual events of the day: I slept through three alarms and six missed calls, having been up late working on a paper, and finally opened my eyes circa 11am. John's 9am meeting didn't finish until 11:30. Multiple logistical snafus later, and after about 45 minutes of debating which river to run (Hardware is above some people's heads, Balcony is too far away, Tye dropped too low just too early, Conway is a little too far away and not enough is known about it, Bullpasture is too high and too far, etc), we decide on the Moorman's River, just west of Charlottesville. The crew assembled plans to meet Dave at the put-in, but then snafu number 30 of the day occurs, and directions get mixed up. We finally put on the river at 3:10pm.

And we had a FANTASTIC run. Beautiful day, great group of people, really fun little river to explore. (personal first D also...and it felt great to get on something new after running the LJ and Balcony about a hundred times this year).

Here are a couple pictures to evidence the fun of the day:

Group shot from behind


Dave surfing a fun little wave

Davis on the same wave

John surfing

Me seal launching off a cool rock

and landing waaaay too flat.

Attempt number two didn't hurt quite so much.

John preparing to launch

launching!

This day was the best day I could have asked for to have as my last day on the water in Virginia until the fall. I couldn't be happier. :-)

Soggy Springtime Fun

It's official. We had about two days of sun all spring. And its still raining. Which is PERFECT kayaking weather. Maury, Lower James, Balcony Falls on the James have all been run multiple times, and all were great days on the water, with one sobering exception: at the end of my one run down Goshen Pass, we found out that there had been a fatality earlier in the day right above the rapid Devil's Kitchen. Our thoughts and prayers have been with the family and friends of Mercer Oast. God Bless. Needless to say, it was very sobering to find out while on the river, and was a potent reminder of the power of the river.

Here's a selection of photos taken this spring:

Lila and me jumping off Jump Rock at Balcony Falls

Outdoors Club Officers Pic at Balcony Falls

Bob running Balcony (I wont mention that hit the hole and swam)

me filming at Pipeline in Richmond

Ryan smiling for the camera in Pipeline

John G in Pipeline
ditto

John T in Pipeline

and again


Ryan

Group shot! (Lower James in Richmond)

Meghan seal launching at Balcony
Dave
Dave finding his mystery move!

Bob, me, Kelsey at Balcony

John T styling Corner Rapid on the Maury (and nicely helping me with my portage by transporting my boat)

John T in Devil's Kitchen on the Maury

John and Brad unpinning Bob's boat

All in all, its been a great spring on the water. I've got one more run in planned for Thursday, and then its off to Costa Rica to study Spanish for five weeks! Sadly though, I wont see a kayak until July when I get to Jackson Hole, where I'll be working for Rendevous River Sports/Jackson Hole Kayak School and the Teton Raptor Center...both of which should be a blast.

Global Warming has its perks

Saturday was a beautiful day in Virginia, 65 F and sunny, so my friend John and I went down to the Lower James in Richmond for a couple of laps on this short, fun run. Here are some photo highlights:

Me in Hollywood (taken by mtwash125 on flickr.com)

Same (taken by mtwash125 on flickr.com)

Same (taken by mtwash125 on flickr.com)

Me on the second drop of Pipeline (taken by John)

John surfing in Pipeline

John surfing deep in Pipeline

John seal launching into the canal in between Brown's Island and the city. We parked at Belle Isle and so had to walk back up from below Pipeline, and decided to paddle part of the way in the canal.

Overall, we had an incredible day. We got two laps in, and on the second one, I nailed Hollywood. I had never run it so cleanly--such a sweet feeling!