Trip Report: American (South Fork - High Flow) - May 15/16, 2005

Run: Chili Bar to Salmon Falls
Difficulty: III+ to IV
Flow: 4000 to 5000 cfs (estimated)

Map of the River

After last week's run we headed back up to do the entire South Fork for the first time this year - I have to say it kicked my ass. I haven't kayaked 20 miles in a while. But we still went back for more the next day to do the Chili Bar to Troublemaker section.

There was one primary objective for this run - nail Satan's at high flow since we had to dodge it last week to pick up some swimmers (no names mentioned or fingers pointed). Stay tuned for the Satan's report...

Tatiana the Brave joined us again along with loser Jason R who stood us up last week & missed the party. Jason's the pretty one below.


Tatiana the Brave 


The Return of Jason R 

No river run would be complete without the ubiquitous Brian T who made a surprise guest appearance along with another poor soul who made the mistake of reading this Blog and actually believing we were competent kayakers - welcome "Oh Too Trusting Mike!"


Ubiquitous Brian T 


Trusting Mike 

With everyone re-united and re-acquainted we gather our gear and put-in at Chili Bar. Our peace is however short lived - that recirculating eddy by the Chili Bar Wave on river left can be an absolute bitch and it unfortunately ate up one of our troops before we could get settled who went for a short swim followed soon thereafter by the Brave Tatiana who took a dunk while trying to retrieve a paddle. Her swim wasn't so pretty and the last thing I remember is her legs in the air disappearing over a rock ledge backwards with a little squeal while I was trying to capture her runaway boat.

All joking aside, no one was the worse for wear and once we picked up all the pieces two of our intrepid team decided to shuttle down to Troublemaker rather than braving Meatgrinder since it was one of their first runs of the year. A sign of a good paddler is knowing your safe limits & respecting them, it was a good call. Not to worry, they'll join the storyline again soon.

Brian, Mike & I kickoff down to Meatgrinder and head in for the kill - it's rocking! It's almost just a big wavetrain even the holes were mostly washed out, a killer long intense ride and even eddy-happy Brian struggled to find any respite through the main section (I swear I'm changing his name to Fast Eddy). The rest of the run is pretty consistent with earlier runs this season (see other posts) and both Mike & I skirt Racehorse Bend on river left since the water is high.


CBR Guage 5/15-16 

I've been meaning to finish the rest of the trip report for weeks, so I'm going to publish this and come back to it later.