Vallecito

Vallecito is a run that has always made me nervous. With a mile of boxed in Class V in an inescapable gorge and stories of great boaters getting humbled, this is a run that deserves respect. Also deserving consideration is the water level. The photos in this post were taken at 2.05 feet (about 290 cfs), which everyone seems to agree is a padded but not terrifying level. I would not want to go in much higher primarily because of the boil/backcut cave at Entrance Falls. But many people do go in higher, so it is definitely possible.

Big thanks to Cruise, Danny, Shawn and Cody for thinking that taking five newbies in at once (for a total group size of nine) was a good idea. It would have been a much more stressful day without their beta.

Crowded put-in.



Cruise stomping the everliving crap out of Entrance Falls.



Famous John coming through entrance.



Big Eric entering Trash Can. Wonder how it got that name.



If you look closely, you can see the log jammed deep in Fuzzy Bunny- bummer.



The view downstream from Fuzzy Bunny.



Cody demonstrating the manky Boufant sneak- note the logs on the left blocking the normal line.



Cody styling Paddle Bitch.



Issues in Paddle Bitch.



As you have probably gathered, the wood situation in Vallecito is not so great right now. There are three problem spots with big logs that probably cannot be removed until the water drops. But they will be out eventually, and the run is still really good, even with these issues. All in all, this is an amazing run in an amazing canyon, but not to be taken lightly. I can't wait to get a few more runs and get the lines a bit more dialed.

Crested Butte 2011

We headed up to Crested Butte the first weekend of July to hit the four CB creeks: OBJ, Daisey, Slate and Upper East. Due to the record-breaking snowpack in this part of the state, the creeks were all still running strong at a time when they are often petering out. We did the quadruple crown (all 4 creeks in a day) Saturday and Sunday and then hit Daisey again on Monday before taking off, paddling with a different crew from across the state and beyond each day. Due to the large snowpack and hot days, water levels were solid medium in the morning and high at night. The general plan was to do OBJ in the morning when levels were reasonable, followed by Daisey-Slate in the afternoon and the Upper East in the evening.

Chris Menges has the lines on OBJ pretty well figured out.

The section above the "25 footer" seemed pretty frantic with good flows, but there were still a few eddies to break it down. C1er on the drops before the corner.



It seemed like everyone had trouble getting away from the curtain on the big one. I went deep and blew my skirt on my first run. There were even some reports of people hitting the bottom. Fortunately, this is one of the few OK places to be upside down on the run.



The bottom slides looked stout with big flows. Avalanche seemed to go well for most takers, but many folks took big hits on the very bottom drop- so I did not run it. Chase looking good (straight) on Avalanche.



After OBJ, we hit Daisey and Slate with rising flows in the Afternoon. The consensus was that this combo was a very quality run. Daisey is a bit manky, with in my opinion, the sharpest rocks of any of the CB creeks...but it has a 20 foot boof. For some reason, I came off Big Wood crooked all 3 times I ran it, which does not look as cool, but makes for no big hit to the bottom. A typical crooked line by the author- photo credit: Kevin Cripps.


The Slate is really fun with good water, with lots of fun twisty class IV with big diagonals and holes. I only got one picture, because the Slate isn't really a run you stop on. The crew exiting the wooded mini-gorge.



We finished up Saturday and Sunday with the Upper East which was pretty much out of its banks by evening. It was a whole different run from the slow scrapy version I remember, with big diagonal waves and holes. It actually handed out some beatings to boaters who has successfully completed the other three creeks. Not much time for photos on this one either. Just this one- feeling stupid?

As a barometer, we had flows of about 1000cfs on the Slate and about 2200 on the East, and I would consider this just about optimal.