My Top Yough Incident.

[bearboater]

So, I went up to ASCI to paddle the course on sunday, but all the rafter's thought it was too cold to boat, so they never turned the water on. After the work was done, Brian Homberg and I decided to run the Top Yough. With all the recent rain, and weather, the river was shooting up. So we get out there, and he runs the swallow falls in his plastic kayak, while I resign to walk around it in my race boat... The we are playing in the waves below Swallow Falls, and just above Swallowtail. When the most unexpected thing I have ever had happen to me on a river happens. A dragon comes and eats Homberg. Not really, but my skirt popped... and unfortunately, I flipped, and was quickly filling up with no chance of getting back to an eddy, got caught in another hole where there is usually a wave above swallowtail, and flipped again, filling more with water. I went over the Swallowtail backwards freshly up from a roll, still catching my breathe, and mostly full of water in my shiny pink race boat. Bad News. Flat out. I have never in my paddling career not wanted to be where I was more so than this. I landed on my cross in the river wide-ish pour over hole, and again filled completely up with water, and sank, rose again, mostly upside down, with my paddle to the pour over side, I tried to roll a few times on the left, and decided that my idea of sinking out the bottom of the drop wasn't going to happen, so I bailed. It took me a couple seconds to get out, and beyond that three attempts to get to the surface. I luckily surfaced next to shore where the hole flushes downstream, unluckily- close to the undercut rock where my boat was partially submerged, I pushed off of my boat to not go under there as well, and in doing so, dislodged my boat from it's being stuck, and was able to get it to shore a few feet downstream. Homberg was able to retrieve my paddle before it went into the undercut rock, and yeah... that was my Top Yough Experience last weekend. The rest of the run was great, albeit a little shaky, and terrified that my skirt would pop, but great... That stretch is truly a gem of a paddle... Definitely one of the most unfortunate circumstances my paddling career has seen.
Oh, and the level went from about 1000 to about 1300 in the hour and fifteen we were on it...
Hope all is well.
-isaac

[Alden]

"When you go creeking in your playboat, that's STUPID. But when you go creeking in your new pink slalom boat, that's CLASSIC."

Alden

"When you leave no stone unturned, that's PERSISTENT. But when you leave no turn unstoned, that's . . . "

[bearboater]

yo alden, the day after, which would be monday, erik and I checked out difficult run, dude, that's gnarly... that main move in the gorge there looks sweet. with the freaking boof to hope...
skaal
-isaac

[Alden]

Just ran Difficult the other day. I'm actually writing this from the hospital, where I'm recovering from giardia. "When you do a run that's difficult, that's IMPRESSIVE. But when you do Difficult Run, that's DISGUSTING." No, but really, it's a nice creek, even if it contains sceptic run-off. We did a few laps the other day. The gorge drop is notorious.

Seth Chapelle told me that there's river near his house called "Death Run!" Which he and his brother have apparently survived.

Alden

[bearboater]

difficult run is definitely a cut above my pay grade at the moment...
-isaac

[Nate]

Been spending too much time around those beavers Alden?

Isaac, tough luck. I hope your boat's okay and you're not too rattled. Sounds like the river was rising fast. In March I paddled the Tohickon a few times and one day the river rose a foot-and-a-half before we took out. By the time we arrived back at the put-in the creek had jumped another three feet. 'Ya gotta watch it.

Nate

[PAC]

isaac
Paddling the TY in a race boat is a change to say the least. Having a skirt pop and sliding in sideways into ST would give a whole new meaning to bad juju!
I'm impressed you sound calm about that swim even now. That is not a fun place to be out of a boat! Glad your fine and smiling about things now! Paul C.

[JFD]

Isaac,
what a great test for your shoulder! If it can handle that beatdown, I think you're ready for anything. Every time I boof that hole, I think how terrible it would be to be under that curtain. It's amazing you were able to make it out with all your brain cells intact.

Alden,
That's just gross. I know you didn't get it from WV, we've treated all our streams here with acid mine drainage in order to kill such parasites. You've got to get better in the next couple days so you can come up here and represent the c-1's in the North Fork Blackwater race this weekend (I'm working all weekend and won't be able to make it). Hope you're feeling better.

It's been a good week here, had a high water surf-fest on the cheat canyon today, and a bang-up low water trip down Red Run yesterday. There's a few pictures of Red Run down at the bottom of this page:
http://homepage.mac.com/jackditty/PhotoAlbum17.html
jay

[Alden]

Jay,

(I was just joking about the giardia thing.) I hope to be out there this weekend for the Blackwater.

Alden

[edg]

Man, that brings back memories. So before I switched to c-1, I thought I was all hot stuff in a kayak. I was running the "Thunder Run" on the Kern at @6,000 CFS with the usual crew of suspects. Nobody else is running much. Normal run off peak would be about 2000 CFS. At 6000, there is a monster hole in the "Sock-em-Dog" rapid where you really, really don't want to be "Insane B" drops in first with his usual "run it down the middle- brace on the left or the right if you need to style". Dripping with condecension, I calmy explain to "Professor K" that I will use my newly discovered slalom skill to dissect the rapid, rendering it harmless. Did I mention that I am paddling a hot pink Savage Scorpion, complete with baby blue trim? As I hit the guard hole above the monster hole, I am violently typewritered left, in a stern squirt, which I can't get out of. I attempt to roll while still on my tail (a screw-up?) and fall into the meat of the monster hole in that position where (I swear!) I am sucked out of the boat. When I sputter to the surface, I see a friendly path of white. I am in the run out. Except I am mistaken- I am looking at the face of a huge pourover that forms the hole, and am being tractor beamed in for a second helping. After much making of shapes- "X", "T", log, I finally cannon ball out the bottom. We recover the boat, and I trudge off to find the paddle. What seems like hours later, "Insane B" finds me beside the river. The paddle is at most 2 feet from shore, in a channel maybe 6 inches deep. I am staring at the paddle, petrified, unable to set a toe in the water to grab it. "Insane B" dope slaps me, grabs the paddle, and hustles me back into his Bronco, and attempts to revive me with selections from his extensive collection of off label malt liquors- You too will recover....edg

[Trevor]

guys...i remember one time on the feeder canal...i was paddling, and my fastex buckle came off....and then...well thats about it....

ill leave that hairboatin to you boys. the last slalom boat creeking i did was in a 92 fanatic on town creek in Alabama, nothing super difficult, but that long boat was just a bit too long.

i guess ill just stick to the easy whitewater, my near death experience of falling 40 feet off a cliff when i was 18 cured me of that. back, ankle and elbow surgery and 10 days in intensive care is no picnic....do everything you can to avoid it...trust me!

but seriously, glad you came out in one piece isaac, that sounded nasty..

what kind of skirt were you using?

later.

[Jan_dettmer]

No large steaming pile of dog doo! Good your shoulder held.

Cheers, Jan