Hurry Up and Wait: CO Quickie 2013

Below: Source of the SlateRiver, photo by Adam Goshorn
 Below: Adam Goshorn OBJ Rock Sledding, photo by Matt Jones
Flashback to June 2013… I was in my last week of work before a much needed and much anticipated two-week paddling trip to California.  Despite the fact that California was experiencing another low water year, my good friends Matt Jones and John Kern were both still willing to make the most of it with me and we had come up with a hit list of rivers that we thought would still be viable.  Unfortunately, around this time our plans hit a wall.  John flipped over while playboating on the Ocoee and when he instinctively went for a back-deck roll, he face planted on a shallow rock.  The result was several cuts to his face and forehead and a lot of stitches.

 Below: Boofing big on BigWoodFalls on Daisy Creek, photo by Adam Goshorn

Below: Paradise Divide, high above Crested Butte, photo by Adam Goshorn
The cuts and stitches on John’s forehead made it impossible for him to wear a helmet for at least a few weeks.  Matt and I had our vacation time locked into the previously agreed upon timeframe, so there was no way we could delay the trip for John’s recovery.  Unable to change the timeframe of the trip, our three person crew was suddenly down to two.  With one less driver, and perhaps more importantly, one less person splitting the cost of gas… Matt and I decided we would scrap our California plans and try to catch the end of the snowmelt season in Colorado instead.

 Below: Matt Jones on the first drop on OBJ, photos by Adam Goshorn  
 Matt and I drove straight through, 23 hours, from my house in Mentone, Alabama to Clear Creek, a tributary of the Arkansas River outside Buena Vista, Colorado.  Clear Creek is always my favorite run to start or end (or both) a trip to Colorado.  It is a fast, fun run with easy logistics and free camping at the take-out.  We stepped out of the truck and immediately unloaded boats and geared up.  This would set the tone for our whirlwind eleven days in Colorado.  All told, our trip resulted in us doing fifteen runs, on eleven sections, of nine different rivers… in eleven days.  Including boating straight out of the truck on the day we arrived and boating the morning of the day we departed for the drive home.  In addition to Clear Creek, we also paddled Pine Creek section of the Arkansas (x2), the Numbers section of the Arkansas (x2), Royal Gorge of the Arkansas, Oh Be Joyful (x3), Daisy, Slate, upper East, Slaughterhouse section of the Roaring Fork, Bailey’s Canyon on the North Fork of the South Plate, and Eleven-Mile Canyon on the South Platte itself.

Below: Adam Goshorn on one of the early slides on OJB, photos by Matt Jones

 In addition to getting on such a variety of runs in only eleven days, two other things stand out to me about our trip.  The first is that despite having only one vehicle, we only couldn’t find shuttle twice on the whole trip.  We ended up hiking our shuttle for one of our runs on Oh Be Joyful and Matt biked our shuttle for the upper East River.  However, everywhere else we were able to somehow work out shuttle logistics.  A few times we were able to meet up with other paddlers, but just as often we ended up getting shuttled by random hikers we met along the way or hitch hiking in some of the places with more traffic.  Most paddlers expect to help each other out and to be helped out by the paddling community, but we were feeling the love from all sectors of the outdoor recreation world.  It seemed like we were lucking out at every turn and it really added a very positive vibe to the whole trip.

 Below: Matt Jones on OBJ’s biggest drop, photos by Adam Goshorn  
 The other thing that stands out in my memory as being unique about this trip is the slow pace life and strange daily schedule of our time in Crested Butte.  We were camping at the forest service campground on the SlateRiver, which serves at the take-out for the Oh Be Joyful and the SlateRiver.  Due to being there near the end of the short Crested Butte paddling season, we needed to wait as long as possible each day to allow enough snow to melt to raise the water level enough for padding.

 Below: N.F. Slate turbo gnar, photo by Adam Goshorn
 


 Below: Adam Goshorn OBJ sliding, photo by Matt Jones
 

So, we tried our best to sleep in each day and we would usually spend most of the middle of the day exploring the maze of forest service roads that network the mountains in the area.  Eventually, we would make our way to whatever run was the destination for the day and put on the water around 5-6:00 PM.  Putting on the water so late in the day made the water levels much better, but resulted in only being able to do one run per day.  This was very different from my previous time in Crested Butte (in 2008) where we paddled multiple runs almost every day.  However, in retrospect it forced us to relax a little more and enjoy the beautiful setting, rather than just rushing to the next run… a lesson we all need to be reminded of periodically.


Colorado GoBro Reel 2013 from Adam Goshorn on Vimeo.

Until next time…

 Adam Goshorn


Below: Colorado Sunset, photo by Adam Goshorn
 

Below: Goosenecks defined on the East River, photo by Adam Goshorn

 Below: Paradise Divide at 11,250 feet , photo by Adam Goshorn

 Below: One of many cascades high above Crested Butte, photo by Adam Goshorn

Lookout Mountian Living

I consider myself lucky to call Lookout Mountain home. This is a little video shot here on the mountain during the very wet spring of 2013. Good time with good friends on good runs and all close to home... it doesn't get much better than that!


Lookout Mountain Living 2013 from Adam Goshorn on Vimeo.

Until next time...

-adam

kayak session

Spring Flings 2013

Below: Adam Goshorn on Little River Falls, photos by Pat Smith

 

Sure, spring doesn’t officially begin until March 20th, but the seasonal rotation in my life doesn’t exactly follow the official guidelines.  This year, my winter was composed of back to back trips, first another raft-supported trip on the Grand Canyon and then down to the creeking paradise of Mexico for the holidays.  My spring paddling season started almost immediately when I got back home the second week of January.  Although rains and good water levels had returned to the southeast in December, I had been out of town for most of it, so January was the kick-off of the local creeking season for me.  This year the good water levels that started in December didn’t let up until throughout the whole spring.  So many good times on good runs with good friends… I’ll let the pictures share the rest of the story.

Below: Adam Goshorn on Little River Canyon, photos by Jay Howard

 

 

 

 

Below: Matt Taylor on Little River Falls, photos by Adam Goshorn

 

 

 

Below: Matt Taylor entering Asleep At The Wheel on Allen Creek, photo by Adam Goshorn

 

Below: Matt Jones catching a huge boof in Asleep At The Wheel, photo by Adam Goshorn

 

 

Below: Pat Smith exiting Asleep At The Wheel, photo by Adam Goshorn

Below: Matt Jones on the West Fork of the Little River, photos by Adam Goshorn

 

 

Below: Jesse Carter running Eye Of The Needle on Jones Creek, Photo by Adam Goshorn

 

Below: Matt Taylor running Bow Down on Jones Creek, Photo by Adam Goshorn

 

One weekend late in the spring my friend John and I drove up to the Russell Fork after work on a Thursday, planning to spend a 3-day weekend paddling the gorge.  However, after arriving at 1:00 AM and sleeping in the car in the pouring rain all night, we awoke to find the Russell Fork Gorge too high and our plans ruined.  However, with lots of water in the area we salvaged the weekend into an awesome time and ended up doing four different runs in three different states over the course of the weekend!  Here are some of the best shots that resulted from that weekend.

Below: Travis Overstreet single-blading the Kettles, photo by Adam Goshorn

 

Below: Adam Goshorn on the Kettles, photo by John Kern

 

 

Below: Jeff Greenough finishing the mandatory portage, photo by Adam Goshorn

 

Below: Forrest Fewster on Crash Test Dummy, photo by Adam Goshorn

 

 

Below: Adam Goshorn on Crash Test Dummy, photo by John Kern

 

Below: John Kern on North-South, photo by Adam Goshorn

 

Below: Forrest Fewster entering Two Blind Mice, photos by Adam Goshorn

 

 

Below: Chris Fewster finishing Two Blind Mice, photo by Adam Goshorn

 

Another one of my favorite days this spring was a day when a crew of six of us paddled Upper Teddy Bear into Lower Teddy Bear into the Chairlift section of Little River Canyon, taking out at Canyon Mouth Park.  This Bear Creek is known as "Teddy Bear" to avoid confusion with the more difficult creek by the same name further north on Lookout Mountain.  This Bear Creek may be easier, but offers a much longer runnable section and getting to paddle out on Little River Canyon at about 9,000 CFS was just the icing on the cake of already great day.  Most of the time paddlers either run the Upper Teddy Bear or the Lower Teddy Bear, but not both.  Typically if the water is high enough for the upper section, the lower section is too high... and if it is low enough for the lower, the upper is typically too low.  However, there is a perfect level (around 12" on the gauge at the lower put-in) where the upper isn't too low and the lower is on the high side of runnabality, but still manageable.  For those who find themselves there at this perfect level, the result is one of the best runs around as paddlers are able to put in at the top of the mountain and drop around 1000 feet of gradient, over 13 miles through three distinct sections that all have their own character.  The upper is a tiny stream with big bedrock slides, the lower is pushy river running (somewhat similar to the Tallulah at 700+, minus Oceana), and the paddle out on the Chairlift section of Little River Canyon is big water fun with grand-canyon sized wavetrains!  It was raining all day so I didn't take any pictures of video, but John Kern put together a nice video from the footage he took on his GoPro, which can be seen HERE.

Teddy Bear Creek (AL) Upper/Lower from John Kern on Vimeo.

 

Until Next Time… 

Adam Goshorn

Below: Adam Goshorn on Johnnies Creek, photos by Jay Howard

 

 

Mexico 2012 Part IV: The Upper Jalacingo

If you’re wondering if there are still new rivers out there waiting to be discovered, consider the fact that paddlers only started exploring sections of the Rio Jalacingo in 2008 and a full top to bottom descent wasn’t done until 2010.  This is even more telling when you consider that the Jalacingo flows into the popular Pezma Section of the Rio Alseseca, a short distance upstream of the famous Cascada Tomata.  Despite the Rio Jalacingo hiding in plain site, like a lot of runs in Mexico, it was the lack of access that kept it unknown for so long.  Unlike the Rio Alseseca there are no major roads crisscrossing the Rio Jalacingo and figuring out access points in rural Mexico is no easy task. 

 

Blow: Matt Beauchamp boofing into the heart of the canyon, photo by Adam Goshorn

 

By the time we had a chance to run it in late 2012 the necessary access points were all known… just not by us.  Once again Julian was the only one in our group who had done the run before, but only once and he had ridden there with others and wasn’t entirely sure of the route.  Never the less, he figured out the logistics with a combination of what he remembered, a few notes from Vicente at Aventurec, and asking a few helpful locals along the way.  As is typical in Mexico it took us several wrong turns to eventually find the correct turns to find put-in and take-out. 

Blow: Matt Beauchamp on the entrance slide into the last drop, photos by Adam Goshorn

 

 

At the put-in, the Upper Rio Jalacingo is a small creek that is about 20 feet wide and looks way to low to possibly be a quality kayaking run.  Throughout the day this would prove to be the nature of some sections of the creek.  The width of the creek varies greatly and in wider spots paddlers are scooting over almost dry rocks, while in other places very narrow basalt canyons channelize the water so well that there are actually a number of strong holes to watch out for.  We all agreed that if the water was high enough that the widest spots had a nice boatable flow, the canyon sections would be out of control.  The canyon sections were the main attraction of the run anyway, so wheelchairing through the wider spots is simply the price of admission to the magical basalt underworld that is the Upper Rio Jalacingo. 

Below: Deep in the Upper Jalacingo, photo by Matt Beauchamp

 

In addition to the awesome canyon sections and wider sections that require a bit of wheelchairing, there are also a number of mandatory portages, some of which would be disastrous to accidently attempt.  Impressively, Julian remembered all of the portages and made sure we all caught the right eddies for the appropriate exit points above each.  Other highlights of the run include a sweet 20-footer into a box canyon.  It probably already has a name, but we jokingly referred to it as Little Silenco, due to its similarities to the much larger and much more dangerous drop on the nearby Rio Alseseca.

Below: Julian running the 20-footer, photo by Matt Beauchamp

 

 

Below: Christine running the 20-footer, photo by Adam Goshorn

 

The last drop of the run was a huge, twisting slide sequence into a 20-footer.  Most of the group gave it a go, but a couple of us decided to bypass it and begin the hike out.  It is probably the only drop of the whole trip I regret not running.  At the time I was tired from a long day and just didn’t feel like taking the possible hit from going oververt and landing on my head.  However, sitting back at home, I find myself thinking a lot about that final drop.  It is certainly one of the most unique and awesome sequences I’ve seen anywhere.  Sitting here, I do feel the twinge of regret in not giving it a go, but that is the great thing about paddling.  There is always next time and that drop will be there waiting.

Below: Ben entering the final sequence, photo by Matt Beauchamp

 

Below: Wade on the final sequence, photo by Adam Goshorn

 

Below: Mikkel finishing the final sequence, photo by Matt Beauchamp

 

In retrospect, the Upper Rio Jalacingo turned out to be my favorite day of the entire trip.  It was simply such an exceptional run, with unique drops, and a distinctive character that is all its own.  I can’t think of another run that is very much like it and I think it is that uniqueness is what made it feel so fresh and new to me.  It is certainly what some would describe as a “work run” and that can be a turnoff for some people.  Those who prefer bombing down roadside runs without having to scout or portage should probally just stick to the Roadside Alseseca.  However, those who are willing to work are rewarded with passage through some of the most impressive basalt canyons anywhere.   

Until Next Time,

-adam

If you missed the other installments of this trip report, you can find Part I HERE, Part II HERE, and Part III HERE.

Below: Adam in the early stuff, photo by Matt Beauchamp