NFMF American Reconnaissance

This years Cali road trip was fast coming to an end and we were floundering a little after finishing a mellow Mill Creek overnighter. The previous week I'd been off my game, confounded and intimidated by unfamiliar high water conditions on the Kern, my motivation had been low and my nerves fried. I wasn't feeling good about my weak performance the last few trips, and I found some new motivation to turn it around and get us fired up again. I'd been researching beta on the NFMF American for a full year and now the word on the street was that the water level was coming into the right window. The bible said that it was possible to walk in at the half way point and get just the last 6 miles done so we fired up to go check this out and get a feel for it. At the takeout the river looked about 800cfs so we fired it up. We found the trail and it didn't look very inspiring, but in blazing hot weather we started down the side of an extremely steep canyon for a 2000 foot descent. The ground was covered with dry leaves and pretty soon we were all falling on our asses. Within 15 minutes I'd lost touch with the 3 others and just tracked there path through the leaves. Eventually I got to the river but I could find nobody. I tried blowing my whistle but still no luck. After walking upstream a ways I found Andy and Jake, then Jamie came paddling downstream. It wasn't a good start, 4 of us finding 3 different putin's! We boogied on downstream and it was pretty much read and run, hard class IV for the most part with a bit more spice occasionally, one in particular that we looked at hard before running.

Right at the takeout one more ledge confronted us, it looked sticky but I took a run at it. Jamie wasn't so lucky in his GT and was busy getting his ass handed him as Andy paddled straight into him, nailing him in the face with his bow. Somehow he wasn't badly hurt but it was a close thing. Feeling fired up by our day we commited for the following day and left a car at takeout so we could go straight for the upper putin the following day. We called Keith on the way back to Nevada City needing a second probe for the main event the following day.