NFMF American, The real deal

We were late getting to the rendevous with Keith and by the time we got to the trail head the leaders in the Western State practice run were already coming up the trail the opposite direction. That slowed us down even more as we had stop repeatedly to let people past on the narrow trail. Once again I was last to the putin, the Wyoming crew being blazingly fit. At about 12:30 we started on the water, not good timing with 13 miles of river ahead including 7 miles of hard class V that none of us had ever seen.


The first mile was just easy boogie water but then around a sharp right turn the bottom dropped out and we started scouting and portaging. Sierra foothills style scouting and portaging .....Oak ....jungle ...boulders....
Some of the stuff we walked probably would have gone with a little less water, some just looked pretty insane.

Even so there were some awsome clean drops in there, including a pretty big must run waterfall with a gnarly looking hole on the left. Eventually we got to what to the well known, must run, Lions Gate rapid. Here you seal launch onto a long screaming slide that fires you out over a 10 foot ledge into a big pool overlooked by an overhanging ampitheatre of rock. What a scream, the world needs a rivver that has 20 Lions gates in a row...despite every effort 4 out of 5 of us still managed to run the ledge completely backwards, luckily to no ill effects.


It was near to sunset by the time we finished and we learned later that a group had walked out, benighted, the day before at the hell trail we had walked also. Andy had scored us all dinner at a nice place in Forresthill without a wallet and wearing only polypro with no shoes whilst we finished shuttle, and soon everyone started to look a bit Zombie like. I gave Andy the keys to the WRX so he could head back whilst Keith, Jamie and I scoffed the burgers he'd bought us...of course we also had to pay the bill!