Sunday-
After being skunked in June, we finally went kayaking! We started off the day with a small
boondoggle. I encouraged Missy to test
drive the scootie to make sure it was fully operational. She said she’d drive it around the
campground loops. As I was loading our
kayaks into the truck, I espied her across the campground pushing the scootie
back home. Sigh. So the scooter is broken. Luckily, the shuttle we were planning was
only 4-5 miles. Missy agreed to use the
bike to set shuttle.
It was a gorgeous day, weather-wise. Sunny blue skies and temps in the upper
70s. Missy dropped me and the gear off
at the putin around 11. I estimated
that with constructions delays added in, it would probably take her an
hour. Shortly after noon, she came
biking along. She said the bike ride
itself wasn’t bad. The worst part was
being in the delays. Oh well. At least we knew about it going in. We each ate a snack and then geared
up. I was starting to get a bit
nervous. Luckily, Missy agreed to go
first. We agreed to take it slow at
first, and eddy-hop our way down. (As I
was waiting for Missy, one guy did show up and put on. He was solo, so that made me think the run
couldn’t be too hard core if he was going it alone).
At the put-in, a friendly fly fisherman told us that he’d
boated the Taylor lots of times. He
warned us about it being shallow and thus we should try not to tip over. Great advice!
He said it would be a fun run, with only one rapid of consequence. We knew from our research about the rapid,
but nothing gave a good description.
The guy told us that it was a strong current pushing into a
boulder. He said flipping was a real
concern. However, he said we would be
able to scout and walk if necessary.
This was good news to us, since we didn’t know before if the rapid was
on private land or not.
We put on and headed immediately into some action. The river was fast flowing and Colorado
clear. It was mostly continuous class
2/3 giggle water with some boulder dodging.
Luckily at this low level there were plenty of eddies. Missy got flipped early on, but hit her roll
immediately. She had to make a quick
decision on which way to move around a mid-river boulder. Unfortunately the way she picked ended up
being shallow on the other side. She had
to scootch off a rock and had no choice but to drop speedfree into a seam. That’s what flipped her. That’s what’s nice about not being in the
lead…you get to see what doesn’t work. I
picked the other side and made it down nicely. We worked our way downstream, enjoying the
thrill of the unknown. As it turned
out, there was nothing too huge to worry about, but of course we didn’t know it
at the time. I was so proud of Missy and
how she handled what was usually Jeremiah’s job!
The approach to Todd’s Slot was pretty apparent. It was a series of pinball placed giant
boulders for your amusement. At this
low flow, there was only one way through the maze. However, there was a tricky part. Midway through, the water constricted into a
jet onto the right side of a boulder. That
right side had no flow out of it. The
route to the left was guarded by a big boiling mess. I saw 2 options: go with the flow into the eddy on the right
and then try to bust through the boils.
This would probably flip you.
The other option was to try to keep up speed and cut across the current
and head left. But this would also
cause loss of speed and a flip. The
issue with flipping is that you’d maybe have one shot only (in the boils)
before you’d be swept into a rock seam on river left. We couldn’t tell if this would be too
dangerous. After scouting for a bit, we
decided that with just 2 of us, we’d better not risk it. Too bad we didn’t have a probe! We went to the far right and rock scraped
our way back into the current.
The rest of the run was just plain fun. I was trying to think of a river to compare
it to. The best I could come up with is
it’s like a mini-Eagle. Only with
lower flow and eddies. I told Missy
that I wanted to take back what I said about being fine with not kayaking and
replacing it with hiking or biking.
This run reminds you why kayaking is so much fun! I hope we don’t go another month between fixes. (We probably will do the Taylor 2-3 more
times while in the area. It’d be nice
to be able to extend the run, but with the scooter broken, we may not want to
do a longer bike shuttle). This is one
of the only rivers in CO that’s in the green right now, so I’m not sure why
more people weren’t on the river with us.
Maybe the construction kept them away.
Monday- Lazy day
Tuesday- We had planned on hitting up the Taylor again
today. But we had a miscommunication
about when we’d leave. By waiting a
little too long, we risked being on the river for the approaching afternoon boomers. So we made firmer, more sensible plans to
go the next morning. I went for a bike
ride up to the Taylor Dam. Missy told
me before it was a nice exercise route.
Nothing too mountainy steep. It
was neat at the top to see all the fly fisherpeople (and one dog). At the bottom of the dam itself, there were
a couple hundred huge fish swimming around.
Too bad the fisherpeople couldn’t get to that spot.
Today’s thunderstorms had a bit more rain than usual. And they lasted longer. We stayed inside and played a game of
Scrabble. Hopefully the rain will raise
the river a little for our run tomorrow.
It's about time!
ReplyDeleteWaaaaaahhooooo! Glad to hear you got on the river!!
ReplyDelete