Summertime and the living's easy!

OK, so the living is far from easy! However, it is definitely summertime here in Nor-Cal! Once semi-moved in we headed south towards Yosemite with DWALL and crew to enjoy a little High Sierra summer fun. While there Amy and I ran the lower Merced River. We also hiked 16 miles round trip to check out Half Dome. It was brutal for sure,but definitely spectacular!

Yosemite granite!




The Merced River.

1 of Yosemite's many huge waterfalls!

We also spent some time hanging out in the Mariposa Grove! Places like this tend to put everything else in perspective, WOW!

Cheesy pic of the day!

Safety First!

What the !!??I cant believe they actually did this!

The Grizzly Giant!

The uber-classic Yosemite shot.

Next, Amy and I met Tracy and Kyle to do some boating on the lower Tuolumne River. Its an 18 mile-big water run and was at double the normal release flow, which made for some really large features and tons of fun!

This is Fallen Leaf Lake which is one of the lakes in the Upper Tahoe Basin just minutes from our home.

This is Glen Alpine Creek in our backyard area. It has many slides and falls, but this one might be park n huck status! We have been backpacking to many of these lakes and streams within a few miles of our house. Below is a picture of Susie Falls taken from Grass Lake. Amy and I actually camped right beside that waterfall and the picture does it no justice, it is huge!

Sick little gorged out cascade coming out of Grass Lake. Notice me on the wall.

This is a shot of Emerald Bay on Lake Tahoe. Our lake is the 3rd largest alpine lake in the world and is 1600 feet deep. The fishing is excellent and there are four kinds of trout in the lake as well as salmon.

Emerald Bay.

stunted Cedar by Susie lake.

This is the view from our plateau on the back of Susie lake.

Susie Lake

Huge OG Cedar!

Looking down on Grass Lake from Susie Lake.

Recently, I found out we have world class bouldering in Tahoe. There is actually an entire book devoted to Tahoe bouldering. I have been climbing on new boulders almost daily and the problems are endless, they are literally everywhere! It is less than 25 minutes to the famous Lovers Leap, so I am sure I will be climbing more frequently now that I live in South Lake.

Horsetail Falls near Lover's Leap.

West Fork of the Carson River area.

This is a picture of the SilverFork of the American River, a stout 5-5+ run that many boaters say is far too full on! It sure is beautiful!

Lover's Leap after a little rain.

So, yes our natural flows are diminishing, but we still have plenty of awesome dam released runs all summer. Amy and I have been running the Truckee River that comes out of Lake Tahoe frequently, and have also made a couple of trips to the South Fork of the American in the foothills as well. I recently met up with some fellas at the North Fork of the Feather River for the scheduled release on the Tobin/Lobin run.

It was super continous, creeky moves in a large riverbed with enormous boulders. I was nervous to say the least. Lots of ugly sieves and undercuts so picking the right slot was always a must. However, it boated quite well and was filled with tons of boofs and lots of long, continously challenging rapids.

Thanks to a solid crew and a serious boof addiction, the day went well and I lapped Tobin 3 times successfully and Amy ran the Lobin section successfully for her first time.

The theme of the day- BOOF!

Post Boof.

Piece of Risa.

Entry boof on Piece of Risa!

post entry boof.

The North Fork is nothing but a gorgeous, bleached white granite bouldergarden boof heaven!

Till next time Joe C signing out.....

East '08 update

This is a retro-posted update of a couple of trips out East in '08. A group of us (Dwall, Chuck, Tracy, Amy, Kyle, Will, Duffy and I) met up with Lazer at the Chattooga River in Georgia for some classic Southeastern boating. Amy, Will, and Dwall all did Section 3 together, while the rest of us put in at Bull Sluice and ran Section 4. Section 4 was gorgeous and the Five Falls were sweet! We had a great day and everyone ran laps on the Soc' em Dog boof until we were exhausted and could barely paddle out! Dwall was on his first trip out east, and after running Section 3 and firing up Bull Sluice, he wanted to do something else that was close and fun. We decided on the Ocoee River because the Upper Ocoee was running. We ran into some other AR boaters at the put in (Ryan Center's crew) and then proceeded down the river. Everyone was having a great time and Dwall was loving the Ocoee. He ran Alien Boof, even though he had never boofed before this trip, and did great. In fact, Dwall only screwed up in the olympic section. Not bad at all for his first trip out east. After the upper section, several of us continued down the lower section as well! Enjoy the pics!

Later in the year, I returned to the east to go boating on the Gauley River and the Upper Yough River. Bryan and I met up with Nate, Ernie, Cody, Scott, and others who were already in West (by god) Virginia. We started our trip off right by playboating on the Upper Gauley the first morning. It was my first time on the Upper G and I was loving it! Big waves and holes were everywhere, and more downriver play than I've ever experienced! After lunch, we decided to finish the day by joining a group of AR boaters down the middle section. We had a blast playing it up until it hurt, oh so good! The next day we met up with Tango (a buddy from CO who works on the river) and decided to do something a little different, so we creekboated the Upper G. It was a little pushy at first, but after getting used to it I loved creekboating the Gauley just as much as playboating it. The boof at Sweet's Falls was especially rewarding in a creekboat! We finished the afternoon by joining the other crew on a playboating session down the Lower Gauley. We had a blast surfing it up in five boat hole and diagonal ledges. Wow, I just realized we actually did the entire Gauley River on this trip! How cool is that?

Bryan and I pulled out of the Gauley with the rest of the crew and headed north to Friendsville, Maryland towards the Upper Yough. We found a sweet log shelter in the forest to crash in and enjoyed a fine gas station meal under the stars. The next morning, we rallied to the put in and were so enthusiastic about boating that we out ran the release for a minute or two. After a safety meeting, the water caught up to us and we boofed our way down the UpperYough loving every minute of it! The river was actually really creeky feeling and had tons of cool maze-like boulder drops. This was more my style than the Gauley and therefore, far more fun for me. At times I would land a boof only to begin charging for the next! What a sweet river run! Our crew all went for the hero eddy at National Falls and all got worked a little, except for Scott. I had the single best hole ride of the day and put on a memorable show to say the least! Bryan and I headed home feeling satisfied with our trip East.