Cheoah, North Fork of the French Broad, and the Little River Canyon

Chris Baer, Charging the middle line at Bear Creek Falls on the Cheoah

Here is a quick kayak video from North Carolina, Georgia, and Alabama, paddling with a super wide variety of my favorite characters.

Chris Baer, sitting atop an amazing rubber chicken launcher

The North Fork of the French Broad
Paddling with Paul Buttler, and Hank Rankin is a blast, they are young and full of go getter energy. After finishing our first lap the day light was dwindling. I almost couldn't believe my lips, "We ought to go for another lap". I was pushing the day light again. We slid off the embankment for another hot lap, we had barely finished the last major drop and it was basically dark. We bebop-ed our way through the long run out and hiking up the takeout path in the pitch dark.

Cheoah
Be careful out there, coming down my very first ever Cheoah lap, there was a large tree pinned just below the surface of the river. I eddied out and got on a small rock overlooking the strainer. I was absolutely disgusted by what happened next, one by one and some times two at a time struggling class 3 boaters washed in to the tree and became pinned. Thankfully Andrew Holcombe, and a hand full of other kayakers had placed them self's near the strainer, and where able to pull the would be victims up and over the log. After an hour of carnage Andrews team moved down stream and left me to play with the few people making a late second lap.

A couple days later I received this email from Matt Dolian,

I just wanted to send you a quick note and tell you how great it was to see you and the other guys with the training and skills required take time out of your day on the Cheoah to make sure everyone was safe at that strainer. 

I also wanted to express how great your enthusiasm is when it comes to whitewater. Your excitement is contagious and it definitely led to me bucking up and getting my ass in a kayak. After one year of solid boating, I can honestly say it's the best thing I've done with my life and I really wanted to thank you for being a great ambassador to the sport.

Jacob Kowalewski, Brad McMillan, and Chris Baer routing through Bear Creek Falls

Little River Canyon
Finishing up a great weekend on the Cheoah Wes Dewit offered up another adventure, The Little River Canyon in Alabama. The flow was exceptional low, Wes hadn't kayaked it in 10 years, and I had never seen the river. We treated it as a personal first descent scouting almost everything and realizing that the river flowed equally above and under rocks. The rapids were sieved out, with major hazards only a couple inches away. Slowly we made our way down the river, and six hours after putting on we had completed the entire 11 1/2 miles of white water.

Another Adventure brought to you by Chris Baer

Grand Canyon 2011

just another day in the big ditch

Grand Canyon for 27 days, too many stories to write down. Here is a bunch of photos with a couple fun words.

Just another beautiful beach

We Had very varied flow, notice how far the boats are up the beach

the boats tucked up in the Deer Creek micro eddy

 The side hikes during the winter months are perfect, nothing like going on a 10 mile hike in jeans and a sweatshirt.

Brian Newman lining up a big piece at Crystal

cactus on the way up to the Nankoweap Granaries

another beautiful sunset

The scenery never lets up

Dan lining up the big wave in Crystal

Dan Wylie hammering Crystal

Fish, being FISH!

Fish going big early on in the trip, look closely and spot Jane hunkering down on the front of the boat.

Fish and Jane finding the sweet spot at Hermit

Fish deep in Deer Creek Canyon

classic Grand Canyon shot from the Nankoweap Granaries

Grease meet water

Fish with one big Grease bomb

That is a motley crew

Marjie matching the travertine water of the Little Colorado

Koreen and Julie standing in front of Hermit

Jeff Catlett and his 18 foot boat buried in the good stuff

Jeff looking like a submarine resurfacing from the depths

The scale of the Grand Canyon is hard to comprehend, Look close to spot Jeff crushing Hermit

Marjie, Jane, Minna, Koreen, and Julie playing in front of Elves Casum

Marjie ditching her kayak and taking the sporty "swim" line

Chris Baer, with Havasu canyon in the back ground

Miles, looking for the big line at Hermit

Miles with a proper Grand Canyon beard

Minna at Vasey's Paradis

Minna thinking about going for a couple more "newmans" before leaving Havasu for a night cruse

Looking up stream at Phantom Ranch, the true point of no return

The dark walls and moon a near Christmas Tree Cave

Jane and Minna creating the sound track to Red Wall Cavern

De-rigging Project Mayhem in the middle of the night

Rooster heading down stream on another beautiful February day

Is that a pyramid? I don't know but it sure is pretty

Red Wall Cavern and a little lens flair

Wes, Miles, and Dan making there way through Deer Creek

Most of the crew steming around the fridget water in Deer Creek

Wes, Dan, and Miles making there way down Deer Creek

We saw snow on the rim the entire trip

 

The temperature difference from the top of the canyon to the bottom is very noticeable. It is typically 5-7 degrees warmer per 1000ft drop in elevation. That means the rim gets snow and we are in T shirts tossing horse shoes.

got to dry out those underoos some where

Wes in front of Havasu Canyon

We launched February 5th and took off March 4th, 27 days on water.

There was fourteen people on the trip, three of which had very limited rafting experience, one of which was Michael the mayor of Durango. 

The weather was great, highs in the low 70s, and lows just above freezing. 

Our flows were all over the place usually around 20,000. That much water made some of the rapids pretty darn easy, and gave a couple of the bigger rapids a couple fun BIG options. 

We managed to have 5 flips on the trip, including Jeff the morning of his birthday. I think Jeff just wanted to wash the rest of the whip cream pie off.

Please leave any questions or comments below and I will try to give you good answers. 

Chris Baer still felling a little weirded out by not being a mile deep in the Grand Canyon with a bunch of good friends.