United in Nature: elk river (twisting falls section)

back home and the paddling has been pretty slim. not because of lack of water but from lack of funds. so i am back to the grind trying to pay off my debts and get back on my feet. i say that, i have paddled 4 times in the last 9 days so i guess i havn't taken too much of a break.

last monday we got a huge rain storm that brought the elk river up to a good high flow. i missed out on the high water day but caught a good med/low flow the following day. the crew that actually paddled was russ langley, josh parker and myself. it was a balmy 37 degrees with a nice wintry mix to add to the low temp. someone needs to tell the city of boone that it is spring time now.

the put-in below this drop (big falls)

the elk river is a class IV run with a couple of V thrown in for fun. it starts with a little flat water warm up into the first log bridge rapid. nice little double drop that starts the run off. down river from there it picks up with a series of slides, boulder gardens, double drops, triple drops, and lots of fun boogie rapids. after the first two rapids i realized that this river had more gradient than i thought and was super stoked. the team of 3 did great scouting every now and then but mainly just read and run and communicating effectively as to not make this run turn into an unnecessarily long trip.

trent and josh on the portage ledge looking down at twisting falls

trent lowering boats down

at the bottom of the portage (its blind pour-over)

once we got to the portage we took a little breather and then back to the grind of hooking into the rocks, sliding our boats across a 3 foot wide ledge 20 or so feet from the rapid below, which is twisting falls–a gnarly rapid that looks similiar to gorilla on the green with the entire left wall being undercut and all water pushing into it. very very sketchy for sure. the portage was probably the hardest part as you have to move one boat at a time, one person at a time up, around and then down to the rocks below. one other thing is that you can't see whats around the corner when you put back in and the first rapid looks like a big ol' frowny pour-over hole. we charged over one-by-one and caught the eddy on the left right before the 15 footer.

after the 15 foot waterfall is the 35ish footer waterfall called compression falls. i was pretty excited to run this waterfall. i was a little nervous but honestly was pretty calm and ready to fire it up. josh went first, followed by russ and then myself. i rode the lip, spotted my landing and then tucked super hard. i knew the hit was going to be hard and i did not want to get blown out of my tuck. i hit, stayed tucked and popped up with no problem...perfect line to end the day.