Wow, what a day! In two weeks we went from cold and snow to sunny and 64 degrees! The ice finally cracked off the Verm, and Caleb, Dennis, Graeme, and I headed down to check out the first run of the year. The river gauge was still frozen, so we didn't know the cfs, but the gauge height was about 5.5 feet. Whatever the cfs, it was running high. Triple had some huge pyramid waves, railroad was steep, narrow, and kicking straight into the river left wall, and the rock in railroad pool stuck out of the water by 5" or so.
The upper portion of S-bend had two surfable waves, and the lower (normal) wave/hole looked like lots of fun. The only problem was it kicked directly up onto the rock shelves on River Left, so if you flipped while surfing you'd get quite a thumpin'.
None of us had ever seen Donut the way it was yesterday, which is impressive since between the 4 us we'd run it many hundreds of times at levels ranging from 35 cfs to over 800. It was a tall, narrow mound that was mostly green, but then there was a little side curler perched on top of it. It was like two features were stacked one on top of the other. Very strange, but fun to blast over.
Fisherman's had a couple large waves leading up to it, but the river-wide hole portion of it wasn't very sticky and was even greened out in parts. We ran hard left and walked right through it.
So, the run was high-speed, big waves, and lots of splashing. The ice shelves were mostly gone, but we still encountered logs and icebergs coming down. If you go, be careful. I had my helmet cam on, so look for that video in the next day or two for a 1st-person view of things. Also, thanks to Dennis who took the pics for us. Great job! Stay tuned...
1 comment:
Looks like you guys had a blast! I wish I could have been there. But I was there today and it was even higher :)
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