Epic. Thats the one word i can use to describe the events that went down on monday. Just totally and completely epic. Everything from planning the whole trip to actually getting there was difficult which made this river seem all the more magical. I guess it all started out with the recent rains that we have gotten. Mac had said something about raven running on monday or tuesday, so me and alex got kind of excited. I could only boat 1 of the 2 days, and hearing about even more rain on cherokee sunday night, with the possibilty of a 13" level on monday was scary, but we were determined. Monday it was, alex was getting home from his own epic snowboarding trip that night and offered to pick me up in athens and drive me up there to meet mac and ryan. We didnt even get in touch with alex until 10 or 11 on sunday, but it all worked out and he picked me up at 8, and we made it to clayton around 10 to rendevouz with mac. after a long ride in the car, we eventually met ryan in cherokee and headed off to the river. I was terrified to say the least. We got to emanuels to set shuttle and headed up the sketchy as shit high clearance 4 wheel drive road to the put in. Thank god that ryan can drive his outback like its a monster truck; if not we would have had a long ass hike to do. When we started hiking, the air temp. was somewhere in the low 20's or high teens, and definitely not getting any warmer in the gorge. So as we made our descent into the home of the gnar, i realized the shit we were getting into. Being able to scout and see these drops from the rim of the gorge was mindblowing, and it gave us a good feel on the size of these drops. So after an hour of hiking, it was 1 o'clock and we were ready to get in the water. We all followed mac down the five drops that make up lord of the rings, and then got out to look at anaconda. We saw the line, and mac fired it up, making it look ridiculously easy. Thats not the case. I ended up running it upside down, missing the crucial boof off the first drop. Then Ryan Dekay drops into the shit, and runs it just as clean as mac mcgee(he did get stabbed with an icicle though, and alex's hair had frozen into ice dreds) Out of all of us, alex had the best line. he walked around it. We then got to run headless, right right, razorback,hale mary, and jedi training, only having to portage a couple of log jammed drops in between. Sadly, the top drop of mortal combat had wood in it, which Mr.Robert Bone found out for us a few weeks ago on alex's first time down. So we portaged. This is where shit started to get real, alex was acting kinda stupid, as in hypothermia stupid. He had been paddling in 12 degree weather with a blown out neck gasket.........just being a badass and dealing with it. He was going kinda slow, but it didnt seem to big of a deal, he had only gotten 8 hours of sleep in the past 3 days so we though he was just tired. He then went down mortal combat backwards and got stuck in a nasty boxed in hole far on river left. Mac saw what happened and came to the rescue within seconds, sliding over rocks covered in 2 inches of ice to get to mclovin before the undercut did. He grabbed his hand and eventually kicked him out of the hole. thank god for mac mcgee. Alex, who had frozen hands and a frozen brain missed 4 hand rolls and swam. (yes, he owes us all a booty beer for that one) ryan grabbed his paddle and took care of alex while mac went bombing downstream to get his boat before big boy did. again, mac prevailed. alex's boat was in one piece and had no new cracks in it. but it was time to hike out. me and ryan ran down wet willy to meet mac and in all the excitment i managed to run the far right flume upside down. my knuckles were toast, but i had alex's fullface, and without it; my jaw would still be stuck on a rock somewhere in the middle of that drop. So we survived the big boy portage, and ryan gave alex enough gear to "survive in the woods for a week" for his ridiculous hike out. Alex was out, and it was just me mac and ryan. The gorge was getting dark, cold, and nastier by the second. scouting wasnt much of an option, so we hauled ass through mike tysons, harjes, and caveman(where mac had to save my ass from that cave) blind. We booked it through the mangler portage and didnt stop until we got to the takeout. (actually, i had to get out and get my paddle, it somehow managed to get stuck in a strainer?) but we still had to worry about alex, was he alive? lost? did he make it to ryans car? would search and rescue be neccesary? the sub arctic temps continued as we got macs subaru back to the put in. mclovin was there....alive......with his paddle...thank god. no gnarmad, but he was alive. It was getting dark, and with alex's vague description of where his boat ended up, mac and ryan hiked back into the gorge to get his boat. they finally showed up with his boat, and let us know that alex gave them shitty directions. but we were all together with all our stuff which i thought was amazing. mac headed on down the mountain to reclaim our gear from emanuels yard, while me, alex, and ryan loaded alex's boat and took some much needed down time. but wait, theres more. It turns out that the Raven fork didn't let us leave with everything. ryans phone had mysteriously dissapeared and was never found or seen again. Luckily, we got in touch with ryans dad just in time to avoid a search and rescue team combing the gorge for our bodies, and made it all home safely. This was by far the most epic kayaking experience i have ever been a part of. Im glad i was there, and on top of that, Ryan was the old man of the group since hes 19. Young guns running the gnar. hell yeah.
Im going to go sleep for a few days,
sam
