Talluah and Green in the same day!

Well I made the drive up from FL again for another great weekend of boating. I had not paddled for a while, and was definitively rusty. On sat, I paddled the Talluah for the first time! Wow what a fun river, although accessing it is no fun at all. Over 500 steps down into the deepest gorge east of the Mississippi with a 50 pound creekboat on your shoulder is no fun. But its worth it! Every rapid on that river is fun! And with a 7-5pm release on the green that day, me and Dave were the first on the Talluah, and the last on the Narrows! Incredible. Then we hit up the Talluah again the next day for some higher water action. Ran Oceana both days. What a fun rapid. The video below is of my first run ever of Oceana on sat. I have head cam footage as well as footage from the river left bank that Dave was nice enough to take. Also got some footage of Dave showing me the line in style. I'm back in FL for less then 2 weeks and then ill head up to NY for May and most of June. Hope to do some paddling up there if the rivers are still flowing.


Here is my first ever run of Oceana. When I ran it on Sunday, I did not flip at the bottom. Unfortunately I did not get any footage of that run.




Here is the Head cam footage. I did not edit out all the prep time before I dropped in. Just fast forward.



Here is Dave showing me how its done.

peace
Toby

Spring has sprung in the Southeast

With the weather warming and the dams releasing, the last few days have been good to me as far as boating goes. Last weekend was the first Tallulah release of the year, and my first time running the gorge. We put on Saturday around 10:30 and had a great run. The run is pretty short form the putin to the lake, but there are some really fun rapids along the way. Oceana was big and fast, and the hole at Bridal Veil is big and scary looking. We paddled across the lake, ran shuttle and got a second run in at a pretty good pace. Sunday we woke up to sore legs and 700 cfs. We put on a little later, and went a good bit slower so we only got one lap in but the extra water made it extra fun. Here's a few pics.

Dropping into the middle line on Oceana

Out at the bottom

Mason staring down the Thing

A few days later I made it back up to the Green for the first time this year. The weather was great and the level was a nice 8 1/2". For the first mile or so we boogied down at a good pace until we got to Gorilla. I've really been itching to run Gorilla so when we got there I hopped out, took a look at the Notch and decided to give it a go. I got in my boat, dropped over the right side of Pencil Sharpener, and ferried across into the eddy. I took a moment to get my head right, then peeled out and charged at the Notch. I came through and didn't think I would make the eddy so a took a few strokes and there I was, boofing off the pad. Upon landing in the flume and hitting speed trap I flipped. I rolled up and realized my boat was underwater, my skirt had imploded! Longer story short, I swam Scream Machine and it took a while to get back in my boat which also ran Powerslide without me. Anyways, here are the photos.

You can tell the skirt has imploded here, half the boat is underwater as I'm about to roll.

Thats it for now, more paddling to come this weekend so look for another post in about a week.

Peace,

David