The BOX

The BOX

As Cutch and Stafford put it simply, there is only one Box.  It resides in northern Wyoming, almost into Montana.  Here exists an amazing dichotomy between one of the most peaceful places I've ever been and yet it is also one of the most intimidating.  There's simply no quantifying the experience.  It's a journey into the wild west as it was in the years of old.  

Ben coming to terms with Big Sky Country

Inside the Box, you'll find western big water, mixed with big gradient, nauseating sieves, and committed drops.  It's exactly what the kayaking would be like through the Black Canyon if the Black Canyon had good kayaking.  The Box is better in every way - cleaner and bigger drops, more committed, a longer gorge, smoother walls, more beaches, easier portages, and instead of poison ivy there's raspberries.  Plus instead of gapers and cameras on the rim, there's grizz.  

Ben was pumped on his smooth line through Double Suck and lovin' the scenery.

Looking down into the Box from our hike-out.

We hiked out of the box to enjoy the creature comforts that come with a car.  The hike-out for Alex and I was an amazing journey into the lives of mountain goats as we followed their trail straight up 1500 feet of vert.  The other boys committed to a sketchy 5.8 chossy free-climb and all agreed to never do it again.  In retrospect, there's amazing beaches throughout the entire run and I'd prefer to bust a self support trip although a loaded boat would make the portaging extremely sketchy.  It's such an amazing place, your best bet is to spend as much time deep down as possible - 3-4 days would be fantastic even though it could be routed with a good guide in a 12 hour day.

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Here's our guide, Barry, smoothing the morning drop.

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A rough day in the Box at low flood-stage

So a word on the gauge....Leif's bachelor party dropped into the Box at about 1,500cfs on the gauge, which is 50 miles downstream of the takeout.  Between the Box and the gauge lies multiple farmer's diversions.  The group described low flood stage huge water.  Six days later we dropped at 950cfs.  During the warm-up Honeymooner section, our guide Barry repeatedly mentioned that it was still a little high for his tastes.  I definitely would have described it as the habanero side of medium, not medium or medium low like we were expecting.  However, everything went on our trip except the top of Deliberation, which was intense.  Basically, it appears that the farmers had just begun taking a lot of water out below the Box, but above the gauge and thus causing the gauge to drop a lot faster than the run.  Barry believed that the Honeymooner foot gauge was at 24-25" for Leif's group versus 21" for us.  Take what you will...

This shot is Alex waiting for the 8' boof off the must run Deliberation Corner drop.  You can see the must make, one boat eddy where Barry and Orion are waiting.  If you were to miss the eddy, you'd survive if your read and run solid V-V+ skills were polished.

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To think that I could only fit one of the two rainbows in this picture...

Be sure to check out www.gravitysessions.com for a full trip report from Ben.

Also, a bit of cheese here, but I'm dedicating this post to my Werner Powerhouse.  The damn thing is tough as hell and I beat it senseless this season.  It's the one piece of gear that I trust to not fail and that definitely can't be said about other paddles.  Four of the five people on the trip had Powerhouses.  

One Creek to Rule Them All

thursday, july 24, 2008

One Creek to Rule Them All

So the story goes something like this:



I woke at 3am and strolled to work in the darkness only to discover upon arriving that I wasn't due in until 8am. Doh. As I meandered home on the deserted streets, I sent a text message to a few friends - "Anyone up for SSV (South Saint Vrain) this afternoon?" 


Forrest Noble immediately replied, "I'd love to, but I'm in Cali." 


It was early and I definitely wasn't expecting any replies until morning, especially not a slap in the face about not being in Cali myself. "Wait," I thought. "I've got the next six days off, why am I not in Cali?" Being awake at 3am is rough, but the flip side is that I routinely get weeks off at a time. 


The gears were cranking in my foggy brain as I dialed Forrest. He and Raggedy Andy were in the Reno airport - Upper Cherry Creek was running. I wasn't going to make his trip, but before I was home I had complied a mental list of eligible Mank Crew members. 


I called Alex Kilyk in the morning. He doesn't keep up with the scene and had somehow never heard of Upper Cherry. He was skeptical of my plan to drive 23 hours for a single run. Thankfully, Moe the Kiwi was standing right next to him when I rang. On Moe's advice, they were in. The plan was to rock Christian's ride out. However, the day we were leaving all of his packed gear bags were stolen after the windows on his car were bashed out. Christian was out, but once the Mank Crew gets rolling, there's no stopping the trippin' train - all aboard! The drive was epic, but thankfully I was exhausted from work and slept almost half of it. We rolled in "right on time" to meet Nick and plan for an early hike.

Moe and Jordan try to figure it out after dark with an hour drive still to go. "Right on time"

Our beta before leaving Colorado was limited. We had no idea where the put-in was, what the hike was like or any river beta. I tried to watch "The White Album" one last time, but decided to double check my gear instead - we were gonna have to wing it.

Alex begins the 4.5 hour hike with a smile

At the beginning of the hike-in we found a gent named Roman who's buddies were doing an extended trip. He was hoping to go with our three day version and had been down twice before. In the hour of deepest desperation, the river gods will provide. He also happened to mention that he had an HD camera and would film the trip. We asked him how long the hike would take. His answer.....4.5 hours or so. Not that bad! 

The ridge line of temptation.

Seven hours or so into the hike we found the place Nick Wigston had warned me about. He said we'd be tempted to leave the trail and scramble down to the river early, but we'd miss the first gorge. 3 hours after we were supposed to have completed the hike, the temptation was intense, but we trudged on. Did I mention that Roman passed us in the first half hour and we hadn't seen him since?

Alex and Moe peer through the smoke to the put-in of UCC from the top of Styx pass

After eight hours or so of hiking and battling through dark clouds of mosquitos, we reached Styx pass. The forest fires in Cali were intense. The California Department of Health had recommended that sensible humans not exercise outside due to the extremely poor air quality. These recommendations we of course ignored, but the smoke did create hazy conditions for all the pictures on the trip.

At 8 hours into the trip, Nick wasn't smiling anymore even with the most stunning scenery

So I got lost right at the end and rolled into camp about a half-hour after dark. The rest of the Mank Crew beat me by about 15 minutes for a total time of 9.5 hours. The Roman god from Cali had been there for 5 hours with camp set up, dinner done, relaxing swim complete and nap taken. He forgot to mention at the start of the hike that he runs Iron Man triathlons. However, the other Cali group started with us, but took an extra day to complete the hike. There should be a sign at the start which says, "Hike 4.5 hours up to the river...results may vary...widely."

The extremely rare Giant Whitefish lives in the put-in pool below the shadow of Styx pass

At the start to the hike, some Cali boys flat out laughed as the CO boys loaded up our Kokatat drysuits into the boats. Little did we know that even high altitude Sierra runs enjoy 65 degree warm water. 

Moe showing off his dirty mo-stache and dead pig

If you ever go on a multi-day kayaking trip requiring a 12 mile hike in, I recommend bringing a package of bacon and a Kiwi. The Kiwi will carry the frying pan for you....

Welcome to Cali with the morning Coffee Pot drop

We woke up in the morning... We took two paddle strokes across a crystal clear pool... We slid 5o feet down granite and off a 15 foot vert with a cave on the left... Welcome to Cali!

Roman found water on the moon!

As we boated on the first day, I couldn't believe what was happening around us. The sheer immensity of the granite can't be captured on film. My homie Petey always likes to make fun of the moon explorations. He says that basically we flew all the way out there, got out of the spaceship and then in the name of science, the progression of human kind and all things holy, we played golf and drove high speed laps on a dune buggy. If they ever discover water on the moon, I'm going to add kayaking to that list, but for now Upper Cherry Creek is what boating on the moon would be like if the moon had good boating.

A picture truly is worth a thousand words, but in this case neither suffice 

Dropping in here is like stepping onto the edge of a knife

Finally the point came. After hours of epic boating, Roman pulled over at a random eddy. The gauntlet was thrown down. We were at the point of no return from the Cherry Bomb gorge. Roman had been before, but was feeling rusty - he's out. We have no guide. The scout is over a mile and relatively worthless from about a thousand feet up. We have a long day in the morning, so leaving the boats for the night and returning having scouted is not an option. We all immediately try to remember the Seven Rivers Expedition walkie-talk. Right, left, left, right, center, left, right, left, right, right.....ummmm, wait how many drops were there again? We have no idea. However, Moe, Alex, Nick and I are feeling really good and have gelled as a team. We went down with Roman and partially scouted the initial gorge that commits you to the Cherry Bomb gorge. The above picture is as good a look as you get. We know that the 40-foot Cherry Bomb drop is scoutable from the lip, but once you scout it, you're committed to going off it and the rest of the gorge is un-scoutable, un-portagable. Nick says he'll go, Moe is in. Screw it, I'll go. Alex waited until walking back to the boats and then saddled up.

This is one of my favorite pics of the trip. Alex took it from his boat as Moe committed to the most intense adventure of my life.

Have you ever felt like the world was about to drop out from under you? Look at the end of the Refection Pool.

After the above gorge we arrived in the Reflection Pool where you can contemplate what you've done because you are now completely committed to running Cherry Bomb gorge.

Moe slip-sliding away off Cherry Bomb and the view downstream into the gorge.

Alex and Nick went first. They both stuck the line, but we got the best pics of Moe. Alex is at the bottom taking a pic of me and Moe from his boat.

AirMoe

I'm at the top of the pic taking a shot of Moe and Alex from the safety of the rock.

California Dreamin'

This was one of the coolest sunny afternoons I've ever experienced - we're in Cali for sure. This shot looks back up at the Cherry Bomb gorge. I've been to committed to my boat for sure - Vallecito, 1st Gorge Lime, Inner Crystal Gorge, etc - but nothing I've done comes close to comparing to the CB gorge. The Colorado gorges allow brief exits on rocks that have fallen into the river and they are boxed in by 100 foot tall walls. The Bomb gorge is walled in 1000 feet by slick granite and provides absolutely no way to stand up. Exiting your boat would undoubtedly involving swimming over successive sticky ledge drops to the bottom. 

What's perfect about this 20+?

This drop is named Perfect 20'. Kinda funny because it's actually a sketchy 30' with bad pockets on both sides of the LZ. Roman's line looks pimp and made for a great picture, but.... well check out the video.


Sketchy 30' was one of the first drops in the morning of day 3. And was immediately followed by... 

Money Shot

Here's Nick lettin loose on one of the coolest looking drops of all time - Double Pothole. The pool below Double Pot leads off an 80 degree 15 footer and then straight into the Waterfall gorge.

Who says the CO crew can't boof? We just don't often get the perfect launch site.

Here's Alex halfway down the Waterfall gorge. He's on drop 3 of 6, I think - it's a little hard to remember. Just to put things into perspective, it goes like this: Gorge above the Reflecting Pool, Cherry Bomb, Jedi Training slides, Teacups, Flinstone camp, Cali Groove Tube, Sketchy 30', Double Pothole, Waterfall gorge, Kiwi in a Pocket, Brown Bear falls. Together that makes about 20 waterfalls within less than two miles, including a double 15', 20+, 30x2, and 40ish falls. Vallecito is no longer the best mile of boating I've ever done.

Moe - cool, calm, collected and online in typical Kiwi fashion

So we're tired. We have literally boofed our brains out on day three. Then there's the Final Gorge. It starts with this sketchy drop where all the water pushed into the cave on the left. Then it again commits you to running a marginal, but oh so good drop... 

Huckin Duckie letting the hair hang down

Here's the final major drop of the Final Gorge. Cherry Lake is within site, but you have to tread carefully to the end. The river right side of the landing is a terrible sieve and salvation lies only in the boat width exit on river left. Slick to the last drop.




Now the moment you've all been waiting for. My prose is out, but you're still wondering what ever came of Roman's HD camera. For your viewing pleasure......Make sure to crank the bass and hit the full screen button on the video! Click on this link to watch it in High Definition - way better.Upper Cherry Creek in HD.


Upper Cherry Creek 2008 from Powder Monkeys, Inc. on Vimeo.





Upper Cherry Creek is undoubtedly, without the slightest hesitation, my favorite creek and probably the best three days of life. Leave your wife, quit your job and go.

A huge thanks to Roman Nelson, Alex Kilyk, Nick Abrams, and Andy, known as Moe the Kiwi, for the video and photos.








Oh, in case you wanted to know, it's left, left, right, center, right, left, left.

Well, tragically, there's this returning theme through my blog and it could be summarized by my favorite print columist, Jim Anchower.  He'd of course type, "Hola amigos.  I know it's been a long time since I rapped at ya, but the waters are not always smooth on Lake Anchower."  Straight off the Grand Canyon, I rolled back into life and patrolling.  Now things have been going pretty good for me lately, but I've definitely been needing SCUBA gear to keep my head afloat.  The life of the Mank Crew remains chronically cranking at frentic pace.  I did say things are good and since I last rapped at ya, I picked up this lovely little lady - 

Lucky man you might say and I'd be inclined to agree with you.  However, as proof of the shit show, I present you with a picture that I've fondly entitled, "Fucking lost."
And its fellow picture, "oh, shit."
The story behind these shots goes something like this: Peter and I get invited/begged onto this trip to the Eiseman hut.  It's about 8-10 miles in the backcountry south of Vail.  A couple of us get out in front without any idea of where to go, but we're assuming a good trail.  We hike for hours in the wrong direction.  I'm in front and holding a free topo map from the internet.  We know we're going the wrong way, but assume that we could just drop of the back of the mountain to the hut.  I made it up to treeline - way higher in elevation than the hut.  The clouds had rolled in and it was late in the afternoon.  As I looked at the map, where I was sure we were standing under the map key which read, "Use at your own risk, we make no claims for the accuracy of this map," I remembered that in life, you get what you pay for.  So I took the first shot of the area where I thought the hut was (completely wrong) and skied with the group back to the car.  We spent the night with friends in Vail and made it the next day.
Straight pimpin' at Eisman Hut.
Yes, he is the bachelor.  Later in the winter, we rolled to Tahoe for Joel's Bachelor party.  It was the best of all worlds - parties, gamblin, drinkin, carousing, and skiing.  We found some hella good side-country and Reid fired feasts of legendary proportions.  What's the most important thing on a boys weekend with lots of booze?
GUNS of course!
Yes, we were threatened with eviction from the casinos about a dozen times.
Aw, my true memories of the evenings spent in Tahoe.

Through all the patrolling and trips, I still didn't really get my skiing fix this winter until March.  Even on this trip, the snow was sunny and warm, but I made the best out of it with a solo tour for an epic ski.  This had been truly one of my dreams since I'd first laid eyes on it.  The pic below is from the top of San Joaquin Peak looking back at my tracks leaving Telluride Ski Resort.  The far side of the ridge in question is the top of Palmyra Peak.
The shot below is of San Joaquin Peak taken from the top of Palmyra Peak in Telluride.  I skied down a scar named the San Joaquin Couloir that strikes in the shadows straight through the huge cliff band. 
Here's the scar as viewed from in-bounds Telluride:This shot looks straight down the couloir.  It's 45-50 degrees steep, never wider than about 30' and cuts down to about 8' at the crux.  A fall would result in a skier tomahawking 1800' feet to the bottom.
Here's a shot straight down to the valley floor from half-way down.  This is the tightest spot.
Hell yea.  Through the crux.  Of note, you can see my pole in the ground - steep.
Here's from the bottom looking up.
And a grand finale shot from the top of the peak looking down Bear Creek into Telluride.  I wanted to give a shout out to my Aunt Gina for hooking up the sweet crib. 

Well, that was most of the highlights of winter '08 (minus the Grand, of course).  Here comes spring - Costa Rica, Fowler/Hillard college reunion tour, and KAYAKING SEASON!!!!

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.