USA Part 2

Im not really sure where my last entry finished and this one is going to start off. The later half of my trip seems to have all faded into a blur of kayaking and way to much driving with a 4th of July party in crouch thrown in for good measure. I know we spent far too long in both hood river and  banks/crouch however i cannot complain about this as Little White, Truss and North Fork laps are just so damn good that it seems you have no reason to leave. Very little photos/footage was taken in hood we were too busy enjoying laps without having to get out of our boat.

Zac finding his wings off big brother

Between our times spent in hood we did manage another trip further north into Washington and get a couple of runs down the ever classic robe canyon of South Fork of the Stillaguamish River (again no photos ive been really slack with my camera). Following this it was suggested that we check out the Upper Upper North Fork of the Skykomish a seldom run waterfall section nearby. We knew the run to be a two mile hike in followed by two miles of class III-V with three 30 ish foot waterfalls thrown in the mix, sounded good to us. I took off first on the walk and waited a mile up the track after half an hour without seeing the others i realised that yes i probably had gone the wrong way...Fuck! I turned my ass around and eventually found the others on the correct trail having only doubled the length of the walk and added an hour to what was going to be a long ass day.

Myself rolling through the 'Portage' rapid on Robe Canyon

Zac trudging through the last leg of the hike

The river started out well with half a mile or so of clean class four boulder gardens, spirits were high, flow seemed good and we were excited to see these waterfalls. Coming round the corner to a river wide logjam we immediately knew we had found the first one, with a tonne of wood above and below this perfect 30 we had to leave behind until the wood cleans out (which could be a long time). Just below we could see the river dropping away into waterfall number two. This one was good to go ( after an hour or so sawing limbs off a tree across the river at head height), I was fired up and got straight in my boat to give her and hopefully give the other boys some confidence it was as good to go as i said. 

Selling it with a perfect line. stoked!

Josh gave her next in his usual style...Flat off everything

Zac coming through with a less than ideal line and some good down time which still worked out fine

Immediately below i could see the river canyon up and drop away even further around the corner. While i had been cutting out the wood zac had scouted and informed me it carried on for a quarter mile or so and was definitely the definition of V+ kayaking. Me and josh were intrigued so went for a look ourselves and realised he wasn't lieing, the two of us were so fired up however we were ready to give almost anything a nudge. The rapid consisted of 5 must make moves, the first three were relatively straight forward however with no room for error, number 4 was a 6 foot drop with a nasty pocket on both sides and lead straight into 5 which cascaded in a mess of holes and laterals for the last 100 meters or so. No pics once again sorry but we both crushed the lines and were stoked to be at the bottom.

Pov shot of myself launching into the meat of the final section 

At the bottom brett and zac met us and decided that they were not feeling it anymore and were going to bash back up to the trail and walk out whilst Josh and I carried on. Lots of wood and grade III-IV followed until we finally reached the last drop. A sweet 35-40 footer, unfortunately it was already after 6 and we decided we needed a third man to set safety so had to give it a miss. I will certainly be back to bag this one at some point in time. Reaching the car about 7pm it had been a long day and we were in much need of a nice warm beer.

Next im not really sure what happened, we ended up back at lower lewis falls at some point. Then rallied back to crouch for the 4th on route to the clarks fork box which would hopefully drop in for us in time.

Myself launching way flatter than planned

Josh and Zac going for the simultaneous jump / drop!

Im not even going to try explain crouch on the 4th i could never do it justice, just try imagine a town of normally 500 odd people erupting to 5000 all with fireworks in the town center launching them with no regard for the safety of the people around. Fun times! We ended up spending a very chill week in crouch getting some north forking in and a senic float down the deadwood.

Loaded to the top 7 people 6 boats and a 2 door truck

Deadwood lake such a beautiful place

Fire, im not sure why just fire!

Ok im sitting in LAX an starting to get sick of typing so this next part is going to be brief. We made our way towards the Clarks fork box stopping for huck of lower mesa on the way. I screwed the line worse than i may have screwed any other in my life, some how it worked out tho.

Myself falling backwards into the seam on the right of the first drop ( i dont reccomend trying this)

Zac happy not to have followed my line

Josh kills a freewheel off number 2

Next up was a drive through yellowstone (really cool but but way to many tourists) then were at the clarks fork of the yellowstone. Meeting two other random boaters we put on for a day stretch and honeymoon to test the waters and see if we thought the water had dropped enough for the box. The runs was sick and good to go so we rallied back to town gathered overnight food set shuttle and were ready to put on next morning.

A super fun hole on the honeymoon section

Dawn patrol - packing up at the take out ready for the box

The jetta loving life

And a chipmunk

We eventually met Stan and Dave at the put in Dave was to be our guide and the only one in the group of 7 who had done the run. We knew it was to be on the high side of good but decided to put on and if dave thought it was still to high take off at the bottom of honeymoon...and thats exactly what happened much to my disappointment as it would be my only opportunity as i had to fly out in 2 days time. Guess i just have to go back now.

Time to let the next adventure begin like i said im sitting in LAX waiting to board a plane Mongolia bound, my father and I are about to attempt to self support motorbike ride from one corner of Mongolia to the other in a straight line. Sounds like a good time to me next best thing to kayaking! Good work if you managed to read this far i certainly do not blame you if you just gave up and looked at the pictures.

Oh and here is a sick shot of some lightening over Salt Lake City