February 28, 2010.
Spent a couple of hours at Reeve's Community Center in Mount Airy, primarily
helping a few kids learn how to roll, but prior to that I gave myself a good
twenty minute workout. I also completed two hand
rolls, the last of which was caught on camera
by Josh.
Wilson Creek Gorge
February 20, 2010
Level = -5
Great way to break a two month paddling hiatus. Temps in the high fifties, sunny skies, clear water, two dry hair laps through the gorge. I left Mount Airy at 10 and met Patrick at the take-out at 12. The laps are starting to get a little quicker. We had two in and the boat back on the car by 3. After the first run, Pete gave us a ride to the top and paddled with us on the second lap. I enjoyed getting to see Pete's play-boating moves on our way down the river. Nothing really eventful to report. I plugged one drop that resulted in a pretty solid piton and I had three brief broaches. But all in all, my runs were cleaner than normal. Still plenty of bracing going on. Really liked the boof line at Boatbuster today, as well as the trap door boof at Tripledrop. And the auto-boof at the Wall. Patrick had nice backwards spinning rides at the rail slide. I caught the river right eddy immediately following the boof in the run-up to 10ft during both runs, that was a first. Ricky really wanted me to catch that eddy on my first trip to WC back in 08 and I forgot about it until today. I stopped in Lenoir for a quick bite at Wendy's, then cruised back into Mount Airy, arriving home a little before 6.
January 28, 2010. Martinsville YMCA with SRVCC buds. First time in a pool in almost a year. Hand rolled twice, really happy about that. Missed it about a dozen times, but it was a good exercise in swimming over to my paddle, then rolling up. If you had told me back when I started this page 3 years ago that I would one day be able to hand roll a kayak, I would have called you CRAZY! I worked on a few other drills while I was there, like rolling ten continuous times. I like doing that because by the end, your nose clips are off, you are not situated right in the boat and it feels much more like a real 'combat' roll. I also flipped, then counted to 20 before attempting a roll. That seems to put a little more urgency in your desire to roll up, which, again, feels more like a real situation. And I worked out with the hand paddles a little. Mostly it was fun getting to hang out with my buds and join them for a beer afterwards.
Kibler Valley, Virginia
December 12, 2009 - 9,000KWs
I made plans to meet Stephen G and James C in Kibler at 1:00. It was 38 in Mount Airy, so probably somewhere just above freezing in the valley. Stephen got hung up and was running late, but I was already out of cell phone range when he left a message letting us know. So when he wasn't at the meeting spot, James and I headed on up to the top, figuring that Stephen would find us there. We thought the level looked a little lower than it was two weeks ago, so I went in to ask what the release was. They assured me it was every bit of 9,000KW. We put on right behind another group of four and just as we were getting ready to paddle down river, we saw Stephen pull in. James and I surfed at the station, water was a little chilly, then when Stephen hit the water we started paddling downstream. Stephen turned out to be pretty good at catching small eddies and we had a nice three person flow going on. Each hopping from small eddy to small eddy, everyone picking different ones. By the time we got to Public Enemy I was thinking that this was going to be one heck of a smooth running trip. That was the jinx because as I pulled in next to Stephen in the eddy below it, I turned to see James broached across the left chute. The front of his Nitro had just ever so slightly caught the rock, I think, and the current pushed his stern into the rock bank. So he was sitting with his bow against the rock and his stern on river-left, with a whole lot of current pushing into his boat which was turned facing upstream. He was stuck.
Had it been July I would have went for the camera, but when
icicles are hanging off every rock, any swim would be tough, so I grabbed the
throw rope instead, thinking the whole time that I was going to regret not
having a picture of this. And I do. You don't get too many chances to see
James in a predicament. James could hear his boat starting to make popping
sounds and quickly worked it loose before something broke. I had climbed out of
my kayak and was on the right bank with my throw rope when the Nitro took off
down stream, right side up, without a lot of water in it. I figured that it
would be a lot easier to catch it there than who knows where downstream, so with
the throw bag's carabiner in one hand I took a big jump into the river, clipping
the boat as I landed. Now if I had been able to reach the bottom, I would have
only been in the water for a few seconds. Of course that didn't happen and I
had to make the slow swim pulling a canoe back to shore with Stephen helping to
nose it along.
Here's the funny part. As I climb out of the river, wet, frozen, dragging
James' boat onto the bank, I see that dog walking through the woods on the
river-left hillside making his way to the bridge. I yelled "That *#&#$* *#&$&
*#&%& is going to stay DRY!!!" Pretty good laugh over that. Things
warmed up once we started paddling again and the rest of the run went great. I
enjoyed seeing all the four and five foot icicles hanging off the rocks. And,
believe it or not, after all the whining I've done about my creeker, I'm really
starting to dig the Rocker. It's fun to hit rocks and look for slides, plus
that sucker will whip into an eddy. So I had fun and appreciate Stephen and
James heading out in the cold with me. After sitting in wet gear for the whole
run, changing clothes in that heated bathroom at the hydrostation was awesome.
I think that was 7th Kibler run for me this year, all at 9,000KWs. Definitely a
good year for the local stuff.
My name is Delane Heath and you can contact me here.