Trip Report: American (South Fork "Chili Bar" - High Flow) - May 1, 2005

Run: Chili Bar to Lotus "Henningsen Park"
Difficulty: III+ to IV
Flow: 3500 cfs

Map of the River

This was Chili Bar "revisited" after my run the other week, again with Brian.

Meatgrinder was a blast. Since I missed an eddy about half way down on river right, it was a long heart pounding ride to the bottom of the main section. I haven't rolled in Meatgrinder for quite a while, but got caught on the edge of a stomping hole this time but managed to pull off some nice skulling braces to get me back on track. Impressed even me - you never what you're capable off until you're scared shitless. :-)

I decided to take the chicken route down river left of Racehorse Bend then joined the wave train about mid-way through. This isn't an option at lower flows since the left gets too rocky.

First threat was deserted!! It so big it was probably unsurfable for most people, you could eddy out on river left and then given the high flows you can sneak around some big rocks away from the main channel to get back up to the wave. Brian gave it a shot a couple of times but we called it and moved on. The rest of Triple Threat was the usual fun squirly wave train and we ran African Queen all the way down river right for a change. There are some strainers you have to watch at that flow, but nothing to be too worried about.

That leaves Troublemaker!! We scouted it and ran the same line as last time - river left, eddying out right above gunsight then peeling out right along the crest of the wave from a hole near the middle of the rapid and just right of gunsight. Pulled it off without incident, very nice satisfying move. Tried a couple of surfs in the wave at the bottom but too beat to hang out for long. But dang, the seams & squirly water right downstream behind the surf wave caused a little bit of concern - not somewhere I would want to swim.

We cruised down to Lotus and took out nice & early. Another day on the American comes to a close. Great training day for me.