Upper Middle Consumnes

It's another one of those creeks with a super imaginative name that meets another river with a similar name that has a bunch of other creeks that are in the same area with names that are similar... but we are in America where all sorts of strange things occur. A good example of this is our we excursion on this particular creek. we had done it earlier in the week with a smaller crew, but because we liked it so much we went back in, with twice as many people and more carnage than you could shake a stick at!

The first time we ventured in we had a little trouble finding the put in and had our first run in with poison oak... turns out this time we win because no one came out in a terrible rash!

Us looking lost on the way down to the river after bumping our way down a shitty little side creek

"Sanga the Banga" on one of the many choice drops.. we refer to this one "the double drop"

Photo - Barny the bullfrog young

Me with my game face dropping into skate park

Photo - Barny the bullfrog

Me on the second time in there on another one of the sweet drops

one of the last bigger slides that claimed to victims yesterday

- bullfrog

This run is one of our favorites so far, definitely up there with South branch! This run has lots of good drops, slides, boulder gardens with only 2 or 3 portages. Yesterdays rain made those pretty hazardous along the nice and slippery granite.. Yesterday we were reminded how shit can go down as the carnage unfolded for some. By the end of the run we had 5 swims, 1 broken boat, 1 broken paddle, and to top it off snow on our cars when we went back for the shuttle. But for me it was one of the best days yet if we can get the booty skulls out of the way and forget about the fact that its supposed to be summer! Better luck next time

The flow came in again which means we now have done this sick run 3 times, but still had an epic. This time on V-slide Josh ran guts with a less that enjoyable outcome. He went super deep and got dumped on a rock with his head and shoulder taking the hit, so we had to nurse the poor fella down the last section of the run. The other crew who put on around the same time also had a member who did his shoulder on a different drop.

me on no lookee

me on cesspit (we make our own names up)

Sanga on no lookee

Us waiting at the take out for some dry clothes after another epic day on UMC

The Yuba Train

Runs are starting to come in left, right, and center around here as we get in the groove of chasing the water. Today's run of choice was Pertons to Bridgeport on the South Yuba. From where we have been living there is 49 to bridgeport that we have adopted as our local run. As the flow has increased it opened up the section above it which is an extra 4 miles that starts off as a little class 4 then 5 and the pace doesn't let up until you get down to the put in for our usual at the highway 49 bridge. This is where the freight train of 10 rolling with the class 5 bomb ended and we hooked up with an extra 3 kiwis... it's funny the places you run into people!

From here we had the pleasure of taking Barny and Jordan on their first run in California! We took this section a little slower much to my liking and had some fun with a bit of a team kiwi goin on.

All in all a mean day, moving to fast to get any pictures, and now I feel like a broken little man..

Canyon Creek

Well it's been a little quiet here over the past few days because we have been trying to fix mum, our car. She had a terrible shudder that we managed to diagnose and fix! So now we are fully operational again and can go where ever there is water when ever we want!

We had word of this little creek that was running that usually only flows for about 1 day per year because it is damed, but this year they were doing some tests which meant that it had a few days in her! Whilst fart arsing around trying to find the tools and a place to fix our car we missed one trip that was going up here but because we are so good, we managed to replace the CV's the next day and hit that!

Turns out it wasn't as classic as we were expecting but it was still a super choice run with planty of nice moves and some pretty tight lines...

Here is a couple photos but for the most part we were to excited about what was around the corner and annoyed at the rain to take many at all.

Me on one of the bigger ones.. super fun and fast ramp!

Jared near the end of it

There has been more boating but not more photos... yesterday we also got on Pauly Creek which I did last year and remembered as being super cool but this time the flow was a little lower and the most fun about it was watching the carnage of some dudes that were on the river that day to. We also noticed on the drive that on the North Yuba there was a good looking gorge so we extended the run a bit and it turned out that that was the highlight of the trip with some burly class 4+ ish?? water with some choice moves and big holes!!!

looking forward to the next mish!

back in the north

After about 30 hours of travel we finally made it to Northern California! It just so happens that that was my birthday for that whole time and also cinco de mayo which is a mexican holiday so... Tequila time! The next day our body clocks were all over the show and no one really woke until about 2pm, but that's fine because not far down the road from where we were staying was a sweet run on the South Yuba called 49 to bridgeport. All we knew about it was that it was about an hour or so long... turns out it was just under 2 hours of nearly constant 4+ rapids with both a creeky and big water feel. Similar to the Whitcome back home.

So after this delicious intro to Cali for the boys we spent a day doing boring stuff to get our old van "mum" going and then it was off to the South Branch of the Middle Fork of the Feather!!

Because our car still needed some work we car pooled and all piled into Justins truck. When we turned up to the put in our gage (a rock) was just covered with water so the flow should be just above perfect, and it was!

Tayler on the first clean 20 footer

Sanga lovin it as he fires off Tony Hawk!

Tayler flying of pressure 20.. it gets the name because it runs straight into a 40 footer just down stream...

Jared sacking up and running his biggest drop to date right before the take out

The boys at the end having a snack before the heinous hike out back up to the road.

Here for three days and already hitting the shit! I've got a feeling this is going to be a wicked season!