Monday, March 31, 2008

Eagle Creek in kayaks

I finally ran Eagle Creek in the gorge in a kayak at the beggining of spring break. I had run a variety of the drops before in an innertube, K-mart raft, and just swimming off the falls. I was there with Eagle creek veterans Theron Jourdan and John Jansky. The hike in was not fun, I don't know how people deal with the eleven mile hike into Cherry Creek when four miles was this difficult! The run was awesome, but I don't have the time now for an entire report. The drops where all great, very high quality. I was the only one to pass on Skunichuck with two others cleaning it and one roll between the two drops. Two drops above Punchbowl there is a log in the near vertical log making a portage the recomended choice by way of seal launch on the right. Punchbowl was great, my line was to drive high onto the pillow and hold a right draw stroke into my tuck as I came off and this worked great. Everyone rolled at the bottom which made sense given the type of drop it was. There was one broken paddle and one accidental freewheel that made for some excitement. Punchbowl seems to have a much lower "clean it" rate than Skunichuck from what I have seen both in video and in person. The last bit of info I will add is that I chose to hike back down to the river at a spot just past the second cliff as you are hiking out. The trail is on the far side of a rock slide and is not a difficult hike back down to the creek. This makes getting out of there much more enjoyable and the creek is moving along class II-III from here to the take out and it also saves a lot of time. A thanks to Theron and John for showing me down the creek and Alex for hiking along and videotaping and carrying food. Nice to meet Rick as well. Here is the video -Jacob

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