Elk River...

Seeing that class was canceled on this chilly December day with good water Edgar, Kevin, Clay, Matt and I were looking for something to boat, we heard that the Twisting Falls section of the elk was holding and we decided to give it a try. We arrived to find the flow on the low side but still runnable (to low for the big falls). We encountered some fun rapids in the gorge, mostly slides with a few small vertical drops with the exception of highlight drops of the run compression falls and the drop just above it, we also learned that the twisting falls portage sucks pretty bad...all in all it was a good day (I am currently boatless other than my longboat so I forced to take the ole' piroutte S but it made the run interesting) here are a few shots from the day...

Edgar on the first rapid

Clay on one of the many mediumish sized slides of the day

Me longboatn' on a random slide (photo by: Clay Lucas)

Yet another slide

Slide to boof

The lovely and invigorating Twisting Fall portage

After several miles of solid class 4 and crappy portage we arrived at the highlight of the run compression falls...

Huck and Tuck (photo by: Edgar)

Kevin Firing it up (photo by: Edgar)

Clay with a nice tuck into the curtain (photo by: Edgar)

Matt giving it with a soon to be perfect plug (photo by: Edgar)

Kevin and I taking it in (photo by: Edgar

Clay finishing the run off with a sweet boof

Overall great day on the river everyone had good lines, cool run but kinda a long shuttle. Thanks for the great photos of the Falls Edgar...

Peace and good lines,

Mac

Team Pyranha

Laurel Forked...

After a late afternoon Boone Fork run Wednesday Clay Lucas and I were hoping Laurel Fork of the Doe would hold for a run thursday because neither of us had ever run Laurel and we hadn't heard much about it. We awoke to find the Doe and Watauga still above 1000 cfs, we went to our morning classes and rolled out from Boone around 12:30. We pulled up to Laurel Fork to what looked like (and ended up being) the perfect level, so we set shuttle and put on. Laurel Fork is pretty much one of the coolest rivers ever and it's now one of my favorite runs...A combination of: Overflow, Chattooga, some colorado stuff, and the West Prong with totally incredible scenery. Here are some pictures from the trip...I'm not sure if grabbed a first 'D' on Laurel Fork Fall or not, but I saw I line and ended up giving it a go...

Me running "Getting Warmer"

(Photo: Clay Lucas)

Clay Running "Getting Warmer"

Entrance to "Darwin's Hole"

"Darwin's Hole"

Clay at "Darwin's Hole

Looking back up at "Quadruple Drop"

"Hit The Deck"

The top 3/4 of Laurel Fork Falls

Taking peeksie...

Givin' er

-Huck-

Clay on the paddle out

Over all the Laurel Fork is pretty much one of the coolest rivers ever, and I highly recommend a trip out there if you have the time and the water. good hucking everyone...

Peace and good lines,

Mac

Team Pyranha

Green Racen'

Man was this ever a great Green Race year! Records were blown out of the water, over 170 people competed, tons of new racers gave it a go, and the weather and flow were perfect. To start out, being in Boone, NC this fall without a car hasn't given me alot time to train so I was little nervous when I pulled up to the put-in on friday for my first run in five months, as it happen pre-race run did not turn out so well so I was even more nervous when I rolled up saturday for the race, hoping I had the bad runs behind me I shouldered my boat and hiked down to the put-in.

Rollin' through Go Left...

(Photo: Ben Hinman)

Digging through Scream Machine

(Photo: Jennifer Woods)

Powering through nieces' pieces

(Photo: Mel Boeyer)

Post race Lefty

(Photo: Sam Silvey www.SamSilvey.com)

In the end I came out with decent time of 5:18 ( which I think is not to shabby considering I ran the Green twice in 5 months). Big thanks to every one who helped put on the Green Race an organize it, Thanks to Chris Bell for juristically simplifying the registration, and also to the timers (we couldn't function without you). Finally, thank you Sam Silvey for taking rock awesome pictures of everybody, all of you should check out his website www.SamSilvey.com for some killer shots. Hope to see everybody next year, until then....

peace and good lines,

Mac McGee

Team Pyranha

Boone Boofn'

Scott, Clay, Frank, and I were all loaded up Friday night and had plans to roll out for Russell Fork Saturday morning, little did we know those plan would soon change. We awoke to a beautiful Saturday morning about 6:30 to find that it had rained 3 inches in Boone, we scrapped the Russell Fork trip and chose to go creeking in the high country instead. After some decision making and some map reading we decided to head for Steels Creek. After about 2 1/2 hours of driving around we found the takeout and what we thought was the putin. As it turns out where we put in was not the actual putin, rather it 2 miles above the correct putin. This lead to about 3 hours of hellish portaging (with two defined rapids one unrunable 100 footer and A fun slide) through everything from 600 fpm boulder gardens with just enough water flowing over the rocks to make them devilishly slick, to roto-dendrin so thick you can't see a bright yellow kayak 15 feet in front of you, and finally walking down class 2 rapids dragging a kayak on a safety tether. The creek started to gain a little volume and our hopes of finding runnable rapids increased. We finally came upon a fire road that crossed the creek and had the revalation that this was the intended putin. Finally having enough water to paddle with actually got IN our boats and began making down stream progress we were overjoyed at finding a beautiful (runnable) drop about 1/4 mile downstream we had finally hit the goods. There were huge slides mixed in with drops and portages this is truly an incredible river. There were some incredible, fun, and sometimes huge rapids in the gorge. To finish the day off we found that we had parked the car way to far down the takeout road and we had an invigorated 2 mile walk down a gravel road after 7 hours on the river. Totally exahausted, cold, sore, but grinning, we had it made back to the car. We concluded that the river was awesome and incredibly beautiful but putting in a little lower next time might be a better idea.

Picture I took off the parkway at about 7:30 a.m. on the way to the River.

The 100 footer (what a good warmup portage)

Scott, Clay and Frank doing what 70% of the first two miles consisted of

What 80% of the whole trip consisted of

Scott as the ONLY runnable rapid ("First Hope") on the upper that little pothole on the left was about 10 feet deep

Scott the teacups on Steels Creek.

Frank on the slides below the teacups

Me peeling out to run a boogie slide

Scouting the highlight drop of the run "The Beverly Hillbilly"

Me firing off "The Beverly Hillbilly"

Frank slipped and fell and would have fallen into this drop had it not been for a roto branch and Clay's hand.

Frank didn't run Kamakazi gorge, but his boat, paddle, and helmet did. Luckily we were able to find all of his gear.

Clay running "Lost Helmet"

Running "Lost Helmet".

Everybody still took a raincheck on "Raincheck"

Many thanks to Scott, Clay, and Frank for helping keep the trip safe and for staying positive during all that hiking!

Peace and good lines,

Mac