California so far…

Arriving in California this season I was expecting warm weather and lots of paddling however things haven’t quite worked out that way. The unusually large snow pack and late season have meant cold weather and high water. There has been some good paddling though. After paddling a few runs around Coloma we decided to head south to paddle the Tule. Unfortunately nothing really went to plan on this trip, the 5 hour drive turned into 9 hours after the ‘short cut’ was closed due to snow, we then had car problems and had our vehicle broken into while we were on the river. However there was a little bit of good paddling and an awesome campsite one night.   

Curt Lamberth on the Tule River

Our campsite in the Sequoia National Park

After that I decided to try something else and went on a road trip North. We had a good trip with good people and no drama which was nice. I also got to paddle some new rivers doing a section on the Salmon, Clear Creek and the Scott.

Me on Clear Creek – Photo Laura Farrell

After that we headed back to Chico where Sean and Scott were kind enough to let us stay. Which was awesome because this is when the weather got really bad and pretty much rained for a whole week.

We headed out to paddle the South Branch of the Feather. It was really cold at the put in but despite frozen fingers we still put on. As we paddled down it started to snow and the river was rising on an already high flow. We made the call to walk out early just above a rapid called 99 Problems as we were concerned about portaging in the slippery conditions and having to do a a ferry above the 100 foot waterfall with all the extra water. We also thought it maybe an easier walk out from there but in the end I don’t really think it was.

Tomass Marnics running one of the first waterfalls

   

David Ernst boofing – Photo Laura Farrell

After sitting inside for a day we decided to brave the weather again and headed out on an overnight trip on Devils Canyon.

Packing gear into the back of my kayak – Photo Laura Farrell

We decided to do the trip in two days instead of the usual three as the weather forecast made it clear that we wouldn’t really want to just hang out off the river. So after finishing the bottle of tequila we had got for the trip the night before, we packed our boats and headed downstream.

  The team at the put in

Sure enough it rained steadily pretty much all day however we made good progress downstream with a lot of fun rapids and incredible scenery.

We arrived at where we thought would be a good place to camp at 2pm and spent the rest of the day huddled under a tarp watching the rain fall and the river rise. The rain stopped briefly in the evening and we were able to explore around our campsite.

Watching the rain fall – Photo Laura Farrell

When we woke up in the morning the river had risen but seemed like it was still an alright flow to paddle. It turned out to be another awesome days paddling with some great rapids, incredible gorges and of course rain!

Laura Farrell dropping into one of the bigger rapids

Below the portage

Despite the weather it was a great trip and I will definitely go back one day and paddle it again in the sunshine. 

It has finally stopped raining and snowing in California which is great. The warm weather has a downside as well though; the huge snow pack in California this year is now melting making most rivers here too big to paddle. However that wont last forever and maybe soon the California paddling season will really get going.