Upper Cherry Creek

Ever since I hiked into Cherry Creek four years ago I have wanted to go back and paddle it. Not until this year has everything fallen into place and I have actually made it back there. Upper Cherry Creek is a three day trip with the first day being a 12 mile hike with your kayak and overnight gear up the hill to the river. I was pretty nervous about the hike. Being a female I am not as strong as most kayakers and hike ins and portaging is where I notice that. However I wasn’t going to let that stop me. After arriving at the trail head at 1 am the night before we managed to get our gear ready and start the hike at 10 am. Just in time for the midday heat!

The Trail. Photo – Tim Collins

The hike was going well and I was surprised at how fast I seemed to be moving when I noticed a log cabin. I knew this wasn’t a good thing as there hadn’t been a log cabin last time I walked in there. I spent sometime trying to find the trail with no success. So not one to back track I decided to charge ahead and find my own way to the river. Luckily after paddling across a lake somewhere above cherry creek I hiked around a dome and found my way to the put in. (If you ever see a cabin on your way into Cherry Creek just go right) I was pleased to find that I hadn’t lost too much time on my detour and I wasn’t the last one to make it to the river.

The hike into the Granite Planet. Photo – Allison

The water was lower than what we would have liked but there was still plenty enough to paddle. After spending the night at the put in we packed our boats and headed down stream.

Laura on the Put In Slide. Photo – Eric

The first part of the day was very mellow at the water level but it is such an amazing place and the rapids were still fun so we were stoked to be there.

One of my Favourite Places. Photo – Allison

Then we arrived at Cherry Bomb Gorge. I was definitely feeling a little nervous at this point as Cherry Bomb Gorge is something that I had been thinking about running for years. There’s something about dropping into a steep narrow gorge with the only exit being down stream that tends to make kayakers a little nervous. But at this point there was no turning back so down into the gorge we went.

Me flying off Cherry Bomb. Photo – Tim Collins

Looking back into Cherry Bomb Gorge. Photo – Allison

 

Tim on Jedi Slide. Photo – Eric

Gareth boofing his way to Flintstone Camp

Photo – Eric

It was a good feeling to arrive at camp having finally run Cherry Bomb. Flintstone camp is an amazing place and with some good friends there’s not anywhere else I’d rather be.

Tim and I getting some more granite slides in. Photo – Laura Farrell

Home Sweet Home for the night. Photo – Laura

The next day we woke up and hiked back up to run the section before camp again before heading downstream to yet more quality rapids.

Routing our way back to camp. Photo – Dee Harrington

Me boofing into Double Pothole. Photo – Laura Farrell

Laura and Gareth in the Waterfall Gorge. Photo – Eric

 

Laura Farrell firing up Kiwi in a Pocket. Photo – Eric

Upper Cherry Creek is classic California Creeking all the way to the lake. It was an awesome way to end my California season before heading back to work. One thing is for sure though I will be back!

Photo – Dee Harrington

Getting a Little Dinkey

When my wrist finally recovered from tendinitis I was pretty fired up to finally go kayaking. I got a couple of runs in on the South Yuba and South Silver and I was beginning to feel good in my boat again.

Me on South Silver’s Skyscraper – Photo Dee Harrington

So when Laura said that she was heading to Dinkey Creek I was pretty stoked to go too. Dinkey Creek is one of California’s many multi day trips and is done over two days. Getting to the put in for Dinkey can be a bit of a mission with a maze of dirt roads to find your way through followed by a relatively short but scratchy walk down to the river.

Gareth Tate making his way to the river

However it is well worth the effort. Dinkey may only be six miles long but it is packed with some amazing rapids.

Adam Bixby dropping into Willie Kerns.

Photo – Laura Farrell

One of the only two portages on Dinkey followed by more sweet rapids. Photo – Laura Farrell

The Fourth of July  weekend (United States independence day) proved to be a busy weekend on Dinkey Creek. In a place that you can only get to by paddling class five, on a river that only flows for about a week every year, there were 35 people camping on the same night. Everyone ended up camping pretty close and the late arrivals into camp were given plenty of encouragement as they dropped into the last rapid. There were even some fireworks that night!

Ben Blake Boofin’ Photo – Laura Farrell

 

Me on yet another fun rapid – Photo Laura Farrell

After Dinkey I headed south down to the town of Three Rivers. Three Rivers is unbearably hot but is home to the Kaweah Drainage. The Kaweah Drainage has  a number of great creeking runs and is an awesome place to hang out, relax and of course kayak. While I was down there I paddled the Hospital Rock section on the main Kaweah and the Upper and Lower Section of the East Fork of the Kaweah. 

Gareth Tate entering Triple Drop on the Lower East Fork of Kaweah

Photo – Laura Farrell

Nick Urquhart about to go deep. Photo – Laura Farrell

Cali Update

I can’t say that my trip to California has gone exactly how I had planned, but at the end of the day I have still been having a good time. When I got to California at the end of May it was still raining and cold. It turned out that team Kiwi was heading to Vail for the Teva Mountain Games. So on a spur of a moment decision after being in California for a two days I was in a car driving 19 hours to Vail. I travelled with Leela and Toni, in Terry the Toyota Tercel.

Terry the Toyota Tercel – Photo Toni George

On the first day about 6 hours into the drive Terry started shuddering violently. Luckily we were savvy enough to identify the fact that the shuddering was caused by those ‘pluggy things’ ie spark plugs. After a quick stop at an auto parts store we had the shuddering fixed. However at this point a man in the parking lot was nice enough to point out the fact that our tire was in the process of disintegrating. So we stopped by a tire store and got ripped off, but soon had a new tire that wasn’t about to explode on us.

Detour?

We made it to Vail two days later without anymore incidents but didn’t end up having time to do a run on Homestake Creek to get ready for the race as we had hoped. I was a little nervous about racing as I hadn’t been in my kayak for two and half months and Homestake Creek isn’t exactly a great warm up run. So we ended up getting two runs in the day before the race and after having a swim I can’t say I was feeling very confident.

Race Day

However on race day things went well and even though I didn’t have fast lines I had clean enough lines to make it though to the finals. So I was pretty happy ending up with seventh place in the women's race. It was also an awesome day to be a Kiwi in Vail with Sam Sutton winning the mens, Nikki Kelly coming in 3rd, and Leela Samuels getting 6th!

Team Kiwi Celebrating

It was great to have the race over and just be able to relax and enjoy the rest of the Teva Mountain Games which was a fun event. I think it would be safe to say that with 20 Kiwis renting a house in Vail we probably also managed to win the party.

Party Time – Photo Toni George

 

The Team

Terry the Toyota Tercel was not that pleased with the idea of driving all the way back to California so he started to play up again. First we had problems with the brakes, which we were lucky enough to have Toni’s friends help us out and fix. Then in the middle of the night the alternator died in the middle of nowhere. So in the morning we inched our way all the way to Salt Lake City to find a new alternator that would fit Terry. Again we impressed ourselves with our mechanical ability and replaced the alternator ourselves outside the auto parts store. Needless to say three girls in short skirts changing an alternator in a parking lot in America drew a lot of side ways looks. Finally that night we made it home to Coloma in the early hours of the morning.

Surgery – Photo Leela Samuels

So at this point things were looking good. I was back in Cali with two months off and the season was looking to be a good one. However after two runs on Slab creek my right wrist developed some serious tendonitis. Unfortunately it took three weeks for my wrist to get to a point where I can paddle on it again. However after letting myself get depressed about it for awhile I decided it was time to find out what other people who don’t kayak do when their not working. I had some good adventures driving shuttles for South Merced, Middle Feather and Royal Gorge. I have also had some good hiking missions into the South Merced (where I managed to get covered in poison oak and nearly bit by a snake) and into Royal Gorge to take some food in for the ‘A team’ on their second night on the river.

The snake I nearly stood on

Cooking Dinner in Royal Gorge

Hiking

I also took on the role of party coordinator for awhile which brought about few awesome nights. I’m not 100% sure that this is what people who don’t kayak do but at least it kept me entertained.
So it is now the start of July and I have one month left before I have to go to work. Things are looking good though, there is still a lot of water around and I am beginning to feel good in my boat again. So hopefully my next blog will actually be about kayaking in California!

Two and Half Months in the Kimberly

You may not have noticed but recently I disappeared off the face of the earth for two and a half months. Well not quite but close to it. I just spent two and a half months working in Western Australia's Kimberly region.

The Kimberly is a pretty remote area so the only contact with the outside world was with a satellite phone that we used only to arrange evacuations. The only other people we saw were brief encounters with helicopter pilots that evacuated students or brought us more food.

 

The first 40 days we spent canoeing the Drysdale River. The Drysdale River is a challenging river in very different ways from what I am use to paddling. First of all we are paddling tandem canoes loaded with 40 days worth of gear which is really heavy in the boats, and makes them sit very low in the water. We put on the river at the end of the wet season when the river is dropping off from when it peaks. In the dry season the river all but dries up making it a great place for trees to grow. So that means that when we put on the river is flowing through trees. This year the river was very low after an unusually dry wet season so we also had a lot of rocks to contend with. If that isn't enough the river is also full of crocodiles, snakes and spiders, isn't Australia a wonderful place? So basically we set off with complete beginners, in boats that barely float and travel down a river full of strainers and deadly creatures for 40 days!

Even the Grasshoppers are scary

I was lucky (?) enough to end up working with an all male group of 10 students and another instructor who was of course male. However that is a challenge that I am pretty use to paddling.

 

There is abundant animal life in the area from the fish that bite you when you go swimming, to the frogs that are everywhere just after it rains, and you can't forget the birds with flocks of parrots squawking from 5.30 am onwards. There is also a lot of incredible human history in the area with a lot of Aboriginal sacred sites a rock art.

The canoeing section went well with the group being frustrating at times but always entertaining. We had to do a couple of evacuations one for appendicitis and one for a rotten wisdom tooth but they all went smoothly. 40 days is a long time to spend lining and portaging with only a couple of runnable rapids however it is such an amazing place that it is still a great expedition.

  

After 40 days we ditched the canoes and packed our gear into backpacks and started walking back upstream. It was awesome to see the Kimberly from a different perspective other than the river. The flat landscape made navigating challenging at times as there is no trails out there and there were some days that we spent just walking on a bearing through cane grass with no land features at all. The heat also makes hiking challenging and there is always the danger of running out of water. To get around this we got into the habit of waking up at 4 am and starting hiking at first light. That way we got into camp, which was usually at a beautiful waterhole, by midday and we got to spent the rest of the day relaxing and exploring. Also teaching some classes of course!

 

After 26 days of hiking we arrived back at Drysdale Station where we started 2 months before. The Kimberly region is such an amazing place and I am sure I will be back again one day.But for now I have two months off kayaking in California!!!!!!!!!!!

Photos - Rob Hughes Games