California is SO in right now

All Cali photos are by Jono Ramsay, except the fat guys on Royal. I took those.

Lizzy's Royal Trip

Here's my Royal Gorge team

While loading our gear in the boats in the morning, I decided to bail. It was too cold and I'm a wuss- so it was an easy decision for me. I don't have pride.

At the Soda Springs exit Chris, Chris, Evan and Jonno decided to bail. So I turned to Cory and Justin and told them they were going to put on. End of story. But in order to make a sound decision Cory had to take a growler and Justin had to stand outside barefoot to test the temp. Cory bought some lighter fluid and they decided to go for it.

We drove back up to Soda Springs trying to call the other car, but no one had their phones on. We left messages... you can imagine what we said.

Dropping down to the put in we turned on some music, the temp got a little warmer. I slammed on the breaks, pulled the car over and got out. "Screw it, I'm putting on too."

Some times you just got to nut up.

Mmmmm, delicious. Work it!

Rufless

Evan looks like a Christmas Tree ornament. Cute :>

Here's me doing something rad.

All I knew was that Rattle Snake was around the corner and was not sure how far. After this boof the walls close in narrower and narrower and make a sharp left hand turn into the unknown. Turns out its just a big pool. I was still scared.

Low water Rattle Snake. Burly.

What's not depicted in this photo was Evan's shreaking minutes before. He nearly stepped on a Rattle Snake... ironic? symbolic? Really funny!

Not sure what's going on in this photo.

Cory's givin' her deep!

High Water Kimshew

Ummm, I don't have any pics but I promise I ran it! The first day we a nice big group of 8 peeps. We started with a "healthy" flow but Nocetti, the best leader in the world, felt confident that we could still enjoy our day. We portaged LJ's because it looked terrifying and the last poor over hole that is usually backed up by a rock was actually spewing onto the rock. Yikes.
The next rapids were fun and padded out, the log that is usually sneeked under on the left made an excellent boof right off the center. Sweet! I guess.
A few hole surfs later we made it to Kimshew falls. Half the group ran it, half very regrettably portaged and swore to NEVER portage it again. By the way, the second drop of that gorge is one of the coolest drops ever. The next "S" turn drop hit me by surprise, b-slapped my ass and I took a few hits to the head and knuckles. Still an amazing set of drops though!
We made it to Tripler and I looked up at the previous drop that is typically a defined boof onto a bouncy slide. "Is this, like, a medium-ish flow?"
"No. High" replied Nocetti.
One by one we portaged Triple, which was more like one pounding rapid. That's when the water color started changing and the first log floated past. Only until I ran Kimshew at lower water did I understand the "Triple" part.
Frenchie's gorge was rather intimidating. Ligare and Zawaki ran the first two drops to scout the rest of the Gorge. Then I ran down to help route through and Ligare followed shouting beta. The exit drop almost flipped me a little and struggled to catch the last eddy... only to look up and see Ligare hammering his strokes at the top of Frenchie's, slowly fading in backwards.
"Come on buddy, paddle, paddle, you got it!"
Nope.
He turned and charged.
I jumped out of my boat and charged up around the cliff band, envisioning Ligare floating upside down.
The first thing I saw was an empty boat... perfectly placed on the rocks on the shore and Ligare was climbing up the rocks nonchalantly with his modest smile.
"How did it feel?"
He just shrugged his shoulders "Fine."
Ligare is a good kayaker.
The 8 person Frenchie portage took a while and the brown river continued to rise. Aside from a few more mandatory portages, I was surprised at how well the river bed held the water. We rode out the wave trains to the final boof. The "rock" that is supposed to have water pooring over half of it, was its own meaty little poor over. The 8 person, 8 hour epic was tiring but still super fun. Kimshew is a must see, 2 thumbs way up!

South Branch, First day after finals!

The day after my finals at UNR I packed up my kayaking gear, party clothes, sleeping bag, a large set of balls (or ovaries?) and headed to Coloma to meet up with my Cali family. Schoooooool's out for the summa! We headed, first, to South Branch and here is what we found...

Here's Grant and I procrastinating the arduous hike out a top the collective 1000 foot cascade.

Wow, that's a lot of people on such a small creek! Only JP ran the Nishiski.

Southy's "Fitty"

"My people... I. Have. Returned."Patt performing the "Jedi Plug"

Kiwi Josh launched with full seperation. Sick.

The best rapid on South Branch. You can see the guys sitting in the eddy above... they have no idea what's coming... totally blind horizon line- Weee!

The 20 footer right above Nishiki falls is super intimidating. You definitely want your boof, but the challenge is to avoid the gut-jarring rib-cracking auto boof. Don't fear the plug, its your friend!
EG Monkey Elbows, cleanin the auto

My buddy Korg, routin the "split falls".

Justin Patt, Nishiki!