Thanksgiving Break

Thanksgiving Break is nearly over and here is a brief consumption of my adventures:

I stayed in Arcata for the whole break. This was very nice cause I got some time to rest and do things i wanted to do for a while. But of course I didn't stayed here 24/7. On saturday I teamed up with Jon Chin and Paul Gamache to run Burnt Ranch Gorge at approximately 800cfs and we had snow on both passes we have to cross when going to the river. Finally I pulled out this video from Burnt Ranch Gorge.

Burnt Ranch Gorge from 1596 Media on Vimeo.

On sunday Dan Menten and myself drove up to the Smith River drainage where we met wit Kyle & Craig Hull and Keegan Grady to run Oregon Hole Gorge on the Middle Smith and the South Fork Gorge.

Kyle Hull and Dan Menten in the Oregon Hole Gorge

On Monday I took a break from kayaking and went to the Jedediah Smith State Park to look for some huge trees. It was raining all day long and we got totally went while crawling through the woods. The next day I went north to the Smith drainage again to paddle Patricks Creek and the Siskiyou Gorge on the Middle Smith. This time with Keegan, Kyle, Wes Schreck and Jon Hyland.

snow peak on the way north

Redwoods in Jedediah Smith State Park

After three days in a row at the Smith river I finally got the chance to put on Willow Creek, the local creek less 45min away. Together with my buddies Dan, Wes and Christian I spent a great time in the River o a nice sunny day.

Dan Menten boofing a small drop

Christian enjoying the river

Willow Creek

On Thursday I left the town with Eddy a friend from university to go hunting. We drove some crazy dirt roads, got stuck in the snow, climbed a communication tower with a great view and had a lot of fun. We didn't shoot anything but we spotlighted four deers! And we saw a bunch of tracks.

bear tracks in the snow

the pacific and Mount Shasta in one photo - amazing view!

Upper South Fork Smith River - Kelsey run

On Sunday 7th of November I went kayaking in the Smith drainage. The Smith river drainage is the only free flowing (means un dammed) river system in entire California. And it is for sure one of the most beautiful rivers in northern California.
I meet with a bunch of people at 8am at the parking lot of Wildberries in Arcata. From here we carpooled with three cars up to the take-out. Here we left one car to head up the road to its end. There followed a dirt road until this one ends too. From this point on we had to carry our kayaks for another 2 miles up the river on a small trail to the confluence with a small creek. We put in the small creek and hucked down a waterfall into the Smith river. This section of the Smith river is class 4 (5). We went down  rapid for rapid. In an epic scenery - it's fall; indian summer!

Miguel during the hike in 

the crew at the put-in
(left to right: Brondon, Christian, Dan, Frazer, Miguel, Paul, Wes, myself)

Frazer killing the drop

random rapid on the upper south fork smith

The hardest rapid is called Island Rapid. Here the river splits into two arms. Both are runnable, but the left arm has more water and is the more difficult one. Dan and I decided to give it a go. We both didn't made the lines the way we planned them. After rejoining with the rest of the group we found ourself on top of river wide horizon line. We scouted this one and found several lines to go down.

me dropping down

Just before the easy class 2 paddle out is the longest rapid of this section. It was a series of holes and drops. If you stay on the left side next to the wall it is good to go - if not, ask Brondon. He got beaten up several times. 

me in top of the longest rapid on the upper south fork smith

The trip was awesome. We had perfect indian summer weather with a little bit of rain and a lot of sunshine at a great level for the river.  Thanks to the crew and specially to Dan Menten for the photos.