Howdy folks!  So I know it's been since April that I updated the blog, but this computer jazz is hard work along with my rigorous kayaking schedule.  Well, here's a brief glimpse at my summer.  It's going to be a little rough with unedited pics and shaky verbiage, but just roll with me.  I had a bit of a rough spring in my personal life, but things started to clear up when I went to Durango for the 2nd of my four trips down there yet this summer.  Two of my three bestest friends in the whole world made the trip with me.  Eric flew out from North Carolina to return for his first Colorado goods in some time.  We didn't disappoint.  

Joel busted out some prehistoric campfire chalk drawings.  My favorite is the one on the bottom right.  It depicts the mountains, moon and Upper Animas around Siverton... Funny because this campsite was right on South Mineral Creek.

We rolled into the Durango Zone and fired off a few high water descents of 1st Gorge Lime Creek and South Mineral.

Joel falling off the big'um with style.

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Me and Pinky avoiding the skewer on Shish-kabob 

Ok, so I must apologize to the Forest Service, mountain gods and all other forest lovers.  I did a bad thing with my 4x4 family truckster.  To access S. Minie we drove across a snow field.  After I ran down in my boat past the snow field, Eric (again from North Carolina, land of no snow) thought he'd be helpful by bringing down the truck.  As he approached the snow field, I thought I'd come up and drive.  He did look pretty confident, so I didn't run as fast as I could have.  As he gunned it into the snow field on the wrong line, Joel and I both screamed "NO!"  The combined scream echoed through the high alpine mountain valley longer than it took for the truck to be completely stuck.  And then there were employed kayakers digging snow with paddles - for three hours.  It was all good though because it allowed Lime Creek to rage past the "high side of good" and right into the "low side of flood".  As Frontrange Fred said, "2008 is not a year to scrape."  Damn was he right.  We ran everything high this year and it was awesome.  I'm keeping the Mank Crew, but maybe I'll start referring to myself in the third person as High Flow Joe from the Mank Crew.....

Never ever let a good ole Southern Boy drive a 4x4.

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A couple of my bestest friends - Bakken Bowl and Donkey

So we roll down to Lime Creek.  Things are going well.  Water is pouring into the already raging creek from all directions.  We make it through the nerve wracking, unportagable, unscoutable S-turn gorge.  We go up and take a look at Dragon's Back falls.  This falls has a good lead-in to a 14' falls with a mean hole at the bottom.  Right down the middle is a safe Dragon's Back of rock.  This sloping dome is about a boat width wide and falling away to doom on all sides except right off the middle.  Eric takes a look for exactly 2.8 seconds before volunteering to go first....  My guts tell me immediately what's going to happen here, so I go get into my boat to follow Eric for safety.  Sure enough, I watch Eric casually roll into the drop and then Joel, who was standing at the lip, starts waving me off frantically.  Eric flushes quickly to safety sans boat and after about five minutes of creek boat blast wheels, Joel waves me through after Eric's boat kicks from the hole.  

Enter the Dragon....Eric about to learn hubris the hard way.

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It wouldn't be a fulfilling kayak season without a shot of Fuzzy Bunny on Vallecito.  Good to see Gordon Dalton out there...

So after kayaking slows down a little bit, I always try to get in one pro-bono rafting trip to show the uninitiated the beauty of the river.  Generally I take family members, but this year I was excited to take members of the VA's MICU and Cath Lab.    

Here's the group shot.  I managed to get Tim to swim several times leaving me as the only male on the boat, but Lori kept retrieving him.

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In true raft guide form, we practiced hucking into the Arkansas.  This pic looks sic, but you don't get to see me over-rotate and land on my left eyeball.  

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People always get all fired up to go kayaking in May and June.  They refer to this as the prime season.  I always refer to it as the warm up.  As the waters recede, the true hardcore creeking gems come into play.  July and early August is the time to let your hair down and get scared in Colorado.  Here's the Crystal Gorge at the high side of good flow in early August.

Frank Pickell styled the Entrance Exam.  What you don't see is that the entire river sieves out under a rock or log if you miss the eddy on river left.

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I know this pic is ridiculously small, but it's the landing of Zoot Chute in the Inner Gorge.  You can just barely make out the river wide log...Bummer

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After the Crystal, Vallecito and epic Big South season, we went further and deeper.  Ben, Alex Clayton and I met Montucky boys Barry and Orion for a little Box action - Clark's Fork of the Yellowstone Box that is.  This bad boy on the Wyoming/Montana boarder is the third deepest in the States.  It contains big must run drops above sieves and mandatory one boat eddies.  Safety is generally in the moral form.  That being said, it is the most peaceful place that I have ever been.....for the minutes that you're not white-knuckling your paddle.  There's not a better place to clear your head that I've found.  It mixes the intensity of V+ gorge paddling with the solitude of Wyoming wilderness.  I found myself enjoying the portages and hike out almost as much as the epic paddling.  That being said, buyer beware......

This shot is taken of a close friend's boat.  The boat had been exploring the underworlds of the Box for a week before we happened upon it.  $1500 camera - gone, $300 breakdown paddle - gone, camping gear - gone.  Twisted carabiner - check, mangled shell - check, tattered drybag - check.  Be careful out there.

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I'm pretty psyched about this over the shoulder shot of Alex.  He's boofing Deliberation Corner in fine form.  Note the boats on the horizion - they mark the one boat eddy required for scouting the last part of the V+ Deliberation Corner.  The pictured drop is a must run '8 falls with a burly hole and minimal safety.  Boof or Die (small exaggeration)!

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This is where our campsite was located and we were greeted by this scene upon taking off the river.  The most peaceful place I've ever been.

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One more gratuitous rainbow shot...ok maybe not so gratuitous.

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Upon returning to CO, C.Mo and I rallied for the Gnarrows race.  This is a head-to-head boat race between four guys down V/V+ rapids.  It was the best race of the season - flat out.  The Upper Narrows at 1.9 feet at race pace, chasing another boater is about as much fun as I've had in a kayak.  Kyle McCutchen of the 303 posse (represent!) took home the coveted Gnarrows belt buckle in the coolest finals I've ever seen.  It was his first day running the Narrows and he simply refused to let the Poudre posse beat him on their home turf.  I saw it in his eyes before the Semi-Finals.  There was a spooky glare coming from his face with a mischievous smile as I congratulated him on his Heat 1 Victory.  Right then, I knew it was over.  Anyway, the rest is history:  Kyle passed two Poudre posse members in the Lower Narrows for the slick win, Leif's second place 40oz got broken by a meth addict bouncer at the Mishawka Inn, Rookie broke Tina's window, and both past Poudre posse Gnarrows winners swam in the race, but yet it seems that Chris and I may have acquired the real spoils....

At the takeout, I was passing out beers to my fellow boaters when I happened across these two trying to pry open a wine bottle.  However, as any true connoisseur knows, PBR is the drink of the river.  Both ladies jumped at the opportunity for a frosty cold one instead of the vino.  We got to know each other during a Filter plant tubing session.  Jen organizes huge drunken parties in Denver (you may have heard of one - Taste of Colorado?) and Carrie is a professional race car driver hot off the tracks in Germany.

P.S.  All you FTC boys are the shit - I love you man.

P.P.S.  Here's to the best kayaking season that I have been involved with.  I got eight huge personal first Ds and a ton of favorites with huge flow:  Upper Cherry Creek, Clark's Fork Box, Hells Gate on the Tonto, Tuolome Cherry Creek Run, Pandora's, Homestake, Eldo and South Mineral.  I'm now having serious problems figuring out my "Must Run Every Year List".  It's like 30 sections of river.  Thanks to you guys for making the experience as fellow paddlers or as family members and land loving friends.  

Ladies, Gentlemen - Here's to a fantastic winter!  While comparing skiing styles once upon a time, my homie Alex told me that he prefers to remain airborne as much as possible.  At the time, I was a scared little tadpole, but now I know exactly what he was talking about.  Here's to people who push you:

Alex givin'er out in the Rock Pile on a fabulous April afternoon.

My life has been blessed with a large set of great friends and some of them also fall into the mentor category.  It's great to have mentors because they've been through shit before, which gives me a feeling of relief that I'm not alone.  Here's to mentors:

Matt Booth and I out-of-bounds trying to find the mysterious Lost Lake and its epic pow shots.

My older friends have graduated college, some friends have graduated law school, my little brother has graduated college, I've graduated college twice, and this spring the last of my friends will be graduating from college (mostly for the second time).  Hence, this was the last spring break trip I might ever be able to make.  The plan was set - Jim, Gen, and Petey would rally the extra-curricular activities through enemy territory into the edge of the desert near Barstow.  Bat Country, you know.  Joel and I rented a very fast car and met them in Zion, where a party of epic proportions began.  Good God, man.  Some folks out there are just simply described best as pimps:

In 48 hours we ran that Las Vegas town ragged.  We brought a safety kit of monumental proportions and just barely made it out alive.

Here's some of the lovely ladies (and gents) that composed the rest of the team.

Other folks are simply described best as marauding cannibals:

Mmm....scary

One of my favorite things in the world is a good campfire.  They involve all the best things - woods, warmth, friends, beer, whiskey, spirited discussion and camping.  This one was in Zion by a creek on a beach.  Not a bad way to waste away a spring break.  

We didn't get to spend nearly enough time in Zion.  We did get to hike this super exposed ridge up to Angel's Landing.  Unfortunately, temperatures prevented out canyoneering exploration of Zion, but the place was impressive enough that I'll be back.  

This winter I got to go to a little place warm, where the beer flows like wine, and the beautiful women flock like the salmon of Capistrano.  A little place called Arizona, where the shit went off all winter.  They received low elevation snows and torrential rains mixed with sunny days, which unleashed winter-time desert creeking for those so inclined.  Maria, Christian, and I rocked 12 straight hours out of Denver to fire the goods.  Hells Gate gorges on Tonto Creek.  

This here is the second drop in the Hells Gate gorge proper.  It's must run, very difficult partial scout, IV/V.  Christian gettin busy.

Here's Maria below another class V.  It had a nasty pot hole/eddy mess followed by a ledge hole.  The kayaking and scenery was top notch, but I didn't get enough photos because my busted ass boat was continually leaking and sucking out all of my energy.

The team at the second campsite.  The rock really is that red and followed by huge saguaro cacti.  

Christian giving into the final big hole.

Cheers!  What a fantastic winter!  Keep your eyes peeled for creeking updates coming to a blog near you soon.

da Duckie

Bonus shot (one for the ladies).

Yo posse.  I was just thinking I wanted to make sure everyone out there was aware of the "greatest and most humble rap you'll ever hear."  Very immature, but hilarious.  3.14 Apple Pi.  Check back soon for pics from Hells Gate on the Tonto - sick trip.

GREEN NARROWS

What up Mank Crew! This is an update from the East side of town. Hope to have many more posts in the future, but for now i put together a slide show of a recent trip to the Green Narrows. It was an awesome weekend, three days of paddling two on the Green and one on the all new and improved Cheoah. For those not familiar with the river, the slide show pretty much is a top to bottom view of the rapids on the river. The show starts at Frankenstein and ends at No Name rapid, which is also known as Colonol Dicks. Have to thank my friend Charles and my wife Lindsay for taking all these photos.

As this is my first post to the site just want to say thanks to the mastermind behind the whole thing. He's a bad mamma-jamma who knows how to throw down at the show down. Taught me everything i know about creekin and to this day I can only hope to paddle in his wake. Much love to the rest of the Mank Crew, cant wait to see you all this summer. peace.

Frankenstein

Zwicks

Go Left

Go Left

Flying Squirrel above the Notch

The Monkey

Sunshine

Sunshine

Holla, holla homies.  So I'm sitting here enjoying my new computer.  Full on surfin Al Gore's world wide web (similar to the internet, I think).  You should definitely check homie Mark Cafiero's site at www.sixpeeps.com for surfin pleasure.  He's a wedding photag who just got engaged, so congratulations to him!  

Also, I must express my love/hate relationship with roomie Pachanga's music.  I either love the shit he's listening to and put it on replay for a month or hate it enough that I can't stay in the house if it continues on our stereo.  So he mentioned this site to me - www.pandoras.com. Amazing.  'nuff said.

But the real point is that I have some sweet patrolling photos from last season and wanted to share.  The goods:

I can't seem to remember what we named this furry friend.  Unfortunately he didn't look too hot and the fact that he was wondering around at tree line on the Outback mid-winter didn't bode well for him...  Then again there was this one pocket gopher... 

One of my favorite pics.  Even at 7:30am ski patrolling is an amazing experience - best job in the world.

Like I said - pimps of the powder we are.

So the snow cats groom runs like Mozart and Alamo (pictured here) late in the afternoon. Sometimes it then dumps overnight so in the morning you can rip those slopes knowing you're skiing on groomer underneath the powder.  If you look closely you can see that Matt Macy is turning my top-to-bottom powder straight line into dollar signs with perfect turns.

This shot is at the bottom of JG - the place that shall not be named.  Oh hello Phil and Janzen.

Looseness on top of the frozen ocean.  Nice shades Mitchell.

"I am not a crook!"  Richard Nixon said that, but I'll do about anything for perfect pow.

Goddamn f-ing gapers gapin' out.

So the Mank Crew rocked the Beaver yesterday.  She's been getting hammered, but didn't have any new snow for two days or so.  We did some hiking and rope ducking and found many, many stashes that wouldn't have existed in Summit Co.  The rich folks round here either suck at riding, follow the rules or both.  Anyway, we took the opportunity to rip three day old powder.  Here's a shot of B hucking.  It's hard to tell because I'm shooting upward on a 50 degree slope, but he probably picked up 10 feet of air or so and landed out of sight behind the tree.  The powder was several feet deep and we created some monster bomb holes!  

After years of saying I would go to Shoshone and paddle on New Years Day, I woke up January 1, 2008 on the floor, completely hung in friend's parent's house, 200 miles from Glenwood Springs.  Yet this year I had a secret weapon.  This little lady was there and not willing to take "ughhh, blargh, ugh" for an answer (even though I offered it several times).  So for your chilled viewing pleasure - a shot of us at the putin with long shadows just before darkness at 30 degrees or so.

So during the weeks before, Matt Soloman, Hobie and company from Vail talked a bunch of shit about running Barrel Springs.  We all know what happened there - they got cold and didn't even take a look.  I know this because while scouting Maria mentioned that ours were the only foot prints in the 1' deep snow.  Plus there were ice undercuts everywhere, pretty much necessitating a scout.  I must say it was intense putting in knowing that the ice shelves on either bank were undercut and 2' tall.  There was definitely no escape from the river should anything happen in the below freezing temps.  The water was crazy too.  As soon as it would pool, it would freeze into slushy consistency, but then in the rapids the kinetic energy would re-melt it.  This pic of me is at the takeout and you can see that the sun has set and my pfd is a frozen sheet of ice.  We couldn't get them off and had to drive to a gas station in Glenwood in full gear to melt and change.  Thank God for the adjacent springs and Vicco's Charcoburger.  
Just for comparison sake, I figured I'd post a shot of us the next day powder skiing the Taint.