Archive for the ‘Jefe’ Category
The Green Race Part 2: Race Day Saturday!
November 9th, 2009 | 
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| From Green Race Saturday |
Once again the Green Race comes and once again I am blown away by how cool it is. Just think, a thousand people walked in more than an hour to watch a 130 or so paddlers giver a go for almost no prizes, no money, no chics, and very very little fame. Its all about a perfect weekend giving it everything you got, hanging with friends, and enjoying the whole thing. The weekend began with folks rolling in for the race. My house was full. Old friends, new friends, some spoke english some didn’t, but everyone enjoyed a perfect November weekend in the mountains of North Carolina.
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| From Green Race Saturday |
This event is actually becoming a full on real life tradition. Someday soon there is going to be someone that races on the Green that is younger than the race itself and in extreme racing thats a very big statement. In the photo above you see Polk Dieters (Green Race Vet) with his son Scout checking out his lines for the future.
This year we had all the action and still hardly any injuries (knock on wood). We had the classic nightmares of paddlers of the Green… Numero uno, Swimming over the drop. We also had nightmare numero dos going over upside down. Throw in a couple backwards runs and a few swims, and pitons and you have an action packed day of whitewater racing. The most severe injuries were imparted by the rocks on shore to the asses of folks trying to navigate the throngs watching the festivities, and the punishing blows to the egos of a few of us racers. Nothing a little ice, ibu, and alcohol won’t take care of, as far as I know.
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| From Green Race Saturday |
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| From Green Race Saturday |
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| From Green Race Saturday |
For me race day is a blurr of organizing friends and racers, making sure my spray skirt is in the van and remembering that I am actually racing. We all line up for the photo and then all of the sudden its all about you and the river. Everybody else is focused on their runs and you are left with your thoughts while you gear up and walk down to the river. The thoughts for each of us range from hopes to realities and hopes to fears. The walk to the river is quiet and a little lonely. The paddle down to the start line is focused. We are all feeling ourselves out, warming up, and trying to quiet the nerves. The funny thing is that once I got near the start line my butterflies started to go away. There were 50 paddlers fluttering around the starting rocks so the banter was quick and excited. Its a good feeling. We are all ready to go.
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| From Green Race Saturday |
Little did we know that it would be the “Speed Trap” that would be dishing out the punishment.
It may not have been as scary or dreaded but spinning around caught in the corner of the Trap was a nightmare for all of us racers and this year it was in high form. It created a couple swims, crushed a few race dreams, and sapped the will out of a few that had to deal with its grip I know I watched several paddlers go from slight disappointment, to focus, to desperation as their attempts to exit the “trap” failed. Ross Herr even celebrated after getting past this obstacle.
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| From Green Race Saturday |
Once you have finished your race run there is an amazing rush that goes through you. It takes a minute or two to get past the exhaustion of the race but soon the adrenaline pushes past and everyone is smiling and patting you on the back as you walk up through the crowd to Gorilla. Folks are offering you beers and all your buds are just as jacked as you are. Its a awesome feeling.
The paddle out from the race is something that is hard to explain. If you are doing the hike its like that except we are all pretty psyched to be paddling together. The loneness of paddling the race on your own is gone and everyone is just having a good time. A new tradition has been born in the last few years and thats the Southern Cross at Sunshine rapid. Pick a buddy and cross paths. One goes left and one goes right.
From there on out its all smiles, jokes, and happiness. And then theres a party.
The photos may just speak for themselves.
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| From Green Race Saturday |
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| From Green Race Saturday |
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| From Green Race Saturday |
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| From Green Race Saturday |
Congrats to all the racers. What a showing. No we have to say that on Green Race day there was somebody spanking the monkey every minute for nearly 3 hours. Wow you all rock! Andrew you are an animal. Adriene you have set a new standard for women paddlers on this river. Same goes for you Sprinkle and thanks to all the folks that paddle the LL boats. I think we are on to something. 3 out of the top 4 is damn good. Next time maybe we get that top spot in men’s as well.
Thanks to Johnny Floor and the Wrong Crowd and DJ Clay? for the awesome music.
Huge huge huge thanks to Woody, Sarah, Tim, John, Jason, Chelsea, Cribbs, Perry, and many many others for making this event happen.
And thanks Boyce the Stinger is fast.
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| From Green Race Saturday |
Here is the whole slide show of my favorite shots.
Shane
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Big East Fork of the West Fork of the Big Pigeon…No its not a joke.
This trip started on Monday with a classic Asheville drive session looking for something low enough to run. The funny thing is that when we left the house we knew it was going to be like that. It felt like it rained 97 inches over the weekend and it almost did in some parts of the south. Sometimes this can turn into a frustrating proposition but we had an awesome crew that was just interested in getting on the water and not worried about finding the absolute perfect thing. We focused on one watershed for the most part, the Big Pigeon area near Canton, North Carolina. We started with a quick run down the Little East Fork of the Big West Fork of the Big Pigeon. I know, I know, sounds like a joke, but its real. It’s a hike up section that starts with a bang and ends with a fast paced continuous class 3-4 race back to the cars. With a closer inspection during the hike we saw lots of wood and very very high water for the top part. That’s where the humility kicked in. “Wow that looks high!”, we thought amongst ourselves. The word comes down from the upper reaches…”its really high!” “Hey do you guys want to put in here below the big stuff?” “Sounds good to me”.
We went on to do a short stretch of the Middle Prong of the Big West Fork of the Big Pigeon and paddled on into the Big West Fork that same day. More of the same put on below the big rapids and bounce and smile down fluffy class 3 and 4…without any eddies.
You don’t necessarily ever come away from a day like that feeling like a hero but a little wood removal and some hiking with boats makes you feel like you have done something.
Tuesday on the other hand was set up ideally. We knew that rivers would be dropping into perfect levels all over western North Carolina so we drove up higher into the Big Pigeon watershed to look at the Big East Fork. After a short conference with some other paddlers we decided it was a great level and off we went. I love the fact that we start this paddle off of the Blue Ridge Parkway and probably start actually paddling above 4,000 feet which in the southeast is pretty high altitude. The put in parking lot has great views of the Blue Ridge and a nice granite dome called Looking Glass. From there we hike in along a lush trail crossing a small stream and the fork at the put in Skinny Dip Falls.
The first part of the run is small and a little manky. There is a trail down to the first confluence which cuts out the shallow stuff makes the river much kinder but walking into the falls the put in are nice enough to endure the 1/4 mile of mankdom. On my first time down this part of the run was high enough that this section was moving right along. It made for an exciting but manageable day on the high side of good.
Once we gained the water of a couple side creeks the volume was enough to float most of the time and at the first significant rapids we were psyched with the water levels.
This run is a lot like other stuff in the Smokies, its very continuous, with small eddies, and fun technical rapids thrown in all the time. Throughout the run we probably scouted 5 times with lots of buddy beta scouting to keep the group moving along. The complete run from car to car was 4 1/2 – 5 hours.
This is one of the cooler drops on the run. At the top of this rapid you came around a couple big rocks, big enough that you couldn’t see anything and then dropped through a series of small drops and then down this technical section. Adriene had jumped out to scout and we ran on her beta so it was a fun way to roll into this rapid.
Gabriel is entering the biggest drop on the run in this shot. The rapid is called Triple Drop and comes in just after Greasy Cove Prong comes in on river left. This rapid is really sweet because of the different moves that are entailed. The first drop above is a tight bouncing drop. With a decision to follow immediately afterwards. Go left and deal with some power or nice boof on the right that is a little touchy to get to.
I can’t imagine a better day to be on this river. It takes so much water to get this thing running you pretty much have to be there when its raining but this day we had blue skies and crystal clear water because it had been running for several days.
Here is the slide show of all the shots I took that day. Later Shane