News... (and the lower Louey)

Well, this weekend is proving to be quite memorable. Today I will graduate from law school, which is something I really wasn't that sure would happen for a while. While it does feel great to have achieved that milestone, the fun is tempered by the bar review classes that start this week.

Second, today is the day that Laura is leaving to experience life outside the Midwest. She's been an awesome neighbor, a great friend, and even a good paddler! I failed to post about this, but Laura made a very successful descent of the upper St. Louis, proving how quickly a beginner can become a solid paddler. Laura - if you get to read this, thanks for making 998 such a fun place, and I wish you nothing but the best in CA.

Third, yesterday was my dad's 67th birthday. He's definitely the coolest old guy around. Happy Birthday, dad.

Last is the thing that probably makes the best blog material. I finally ran (part of) the Lower St. Louis. Dennis, Caleb, and I made the run from the tongue above the 210 bridge down through the Second Sister. The weather was freezing cold (cold enough that the water was steaming), but the paddling was awesome. Our plans to paddle with some Lower Louey veterans fell through when they were all shivering after having already spent several hours on it that morning. So, we got a couple of tips from Scotty (which we tried, but largely failed to, remember) and headed out on our own. The area above the 210 bridge was my favorite, with a variety of features that were all different and packed fairly close together. Our Creek boats (mine was rented) made pretty short work of them, however, and down we went. 210 was followed by a couple of splashy rapids that wouldn't require scouting, though we did look at the second one for fear it was Twisted Sister. We blew through those easily and were having a great time. We hit the first Sister and everybody had a slightly different line off the little rooster tail that forms. Caleb takes the cake, however, by landing in water that was so aerated that he just sunk right through it, completely submerging. He hit his line totally clean, then he just disappeared. Very cool to watch. Second Sister was, as Dennis put it, "God's own low head dam," making a very stick hole at the bottom. We chose a safe route, boofing over a small seam of a hole. Not sure, but I'm guessing that was the chicken route.

That was the end of our paddling, though I was seriously considering a line in Octopus. Warnings about hidden rocks and inability to get a view of the last hole helped me to decide to play it safe, but I would like to give it a try if I run it with someone who can give me some good info about it.

On the whole, it was a great day. Caleb and Dennis were total rock stars and not one of us got flipped throughout the run (exclusive of Caleb's submarine impersonation). It was a great time and finally getting on the Lower after looking at it for so long helps tick off one more memorable moment from this weekend.

Chameleon Weekend

This past weekend was long planned as a weekend for Kim and I to get away. Originally, we were going to head to the Black Hills and Badlands of SD. That fell through, so we decided to make a weekend in NE Minnesota, with one night camping on the North Shore. Thanks to the 30mph winds, chilly temps and scattered storms, that became one night at my cabin, followed by a day in Two Harbors and Duluth (I guess that make Three Harbors?). It was fun, though. We stopped by the Duluth IMAX and the Aquarium, both of which were well worth the admission. Sunday we were back in the cities and I convinced Kim to come fly the trainer kite at the park. She did really well in gusty 20mph winds and seemed to just be getting the hang of it when a gust yanked her off her feet and sent her flying super-man style into the dirt. She wound up a bit dirty, but otherwise OK. Hopefully my decision to take her out in hurricane winds won't scare her off for too long. The rest of the pics are just random things that we saw on the trip.

Famous!

Dan "Monkey Boy" Monskey is putting together some video on outdoor sports in MN, and WCCO TV decided they wanted in on the paddling segment. So Dan, Dennis, Graeme, Rich and I went down to the Verm to do some filming. Nora and Lanny were also there for the beginning, but left early due to other committments. Kim (paddling guy Kim, not my girlfriend Kim) met us late down at donut. While I'm sure that when the editing is finalized everyone but Dan will be little more than a blur in the background, we did our best to put on a show for the cameras. Dennis, Graeme, Rich, and I got in some great party surfing on Donut and we also ran the slide below the falls at the top. This time however, we were able to climb up the river right bank and get a good, full-length slide in right from the curtain of the falls. Really fun. Supposedly the video will be shown on "Out and About" on Channel four at 10:30pm on May 19th, if anyone is interested and has nothing better to do on a saturday night (or has TiVo). In the meantime, I stole a shot that Nora took to put on here. She has more on her blog, so check out the link to it on the right side of this page!

Kettle Run

A good rain storm sent the Kettle level up to about 2000cfs, so Dennis and I headed up for an afternoon session. We carpooled, which meant park-n-play at Blueberry and Teacher's Pet. We also met "Stretch" as we were getting geared up, but he was done for the day. The water was pretty big, but not quite the ideal play level I remembered. Good wave surfing on the Big Wave in Blueberry. Carving was easy and I even managed to get my boat off the water on one or two bounces. The wave was pretty flat, but it was still possible to hit and hold a back surf if you were careful. Dennis met his nemesis on a frustrating wave right below the big one. It looked like a great play feature, but it was a long and difficult ferry out to it and it seemed to fade away the second you got there. Noble efforts were made to make it work, though. After tiring ourselves out in Blueberry, I decided to check out Teacher's Pet. It looked nice and deep, but attempts at both loops and cartwheels ended with my bow meeting the bedrock in an unfriendly way. The surfer's left side seemed deep enough to work with, but I couldn't find any way to get lined up on it. Kind of frustrating. On the upside, Dennis proved himself to be quite a lensman with the big camera. He actually did well enough that someone who doesn't know me might believe I could actually paddle! Big thanks for taking the pics. Finally, we were treated to a beautiful evening for the drive home. Not a bad way to spend an afternoon.

Kettle Day

4 of us (Brian J, Caleb, Roger, and I) headed up to the Kettle to get some play before the water goes away. The level was on the low side, but there was still fun to be had in Blueberry, Dragon's tooth, and Hell's Gate. We also did the cliff drop and went over Wolf Creek Falls. Wolf Creek proved to be the most interesting part of the day. The water was low enough that a couple of us got hung up on the lip. This happened to Roger, who then teetered over and penciled into the pool below. He went in perfectly vertical, causing him to slice through the water and Piton off the rocks at the bottom. He jammed one ankle pretty hard and put a nice dent in the bow of his boat. Thankfully, neither boat nor ankle broke, so he should be back in the game soon. Note to anyone running it at low water: After Roger hit, Brian J and I checked the depth below the falls and found it was less than 4 feet. Still safe if you can avoid going straight in, but worth thinking about... Also, found that if you give a hard stroke off the lip of the falls, you can do a 180 in the air and land soft, but flat. Fun way to go, and it avoids the piton issue.

My water camera is on its last leg, so I'm saving it for Scuba from now on. Brian J took some videos and pictures. When I get the CD from him (hopefully in the next couple days) I'll post pics from this trip and last week's verm trip.

Verm Trip

We had a truly awesome group of paddlers on the Verm on Saturday. Brian J, Caleb, Graeme, and I decided to head there after the cold temps and 2 degree windchills made the Kettle less appealing. It turned out to be a good decision, because the Verm treated us well. It seems like the features on that river are never the same twice, and Saturday was no exception. Railroad was loads of fun, with 4 feet of horizontal shoulder on the river right side and a sloping shoulder coming on from the left. Great spinning and even some low-angle wheels. S-curve was bouncy and fun, and Donut was really fast with a long, low foam pile that could get you back to the front from 4 feet back. It was pretty cool. The most interesting part, however, was probably going up to the falls and running the slide beneath it. Fast, splashy water sliding over the rocks in a giant banked corner, followed by a good sized wave-hole at the bottom and a a couple boulders to dodge. Brian J had his camera along so there's pictures and video. I'll post links to the videos when I get them (probably this week).

Good Water

Went down to the Verm yesterday expecting it to be a puny 150cfs. Once we got there, though, it didn't take long to see that the level was much closer to 300, and the river was actually at a really good level. The water was pretty cold, but the playspots wre rockin. Nick and I got there early and made a 2-hour morning run. I kept gettting flipped in Railroad, then having to roll back up in the hole and surf my way out with an ice cream headache. For whatever reason, I seemed to be the only person all day that didn't just wash out when they flipped. Nick was rockin' in there with some low-angle cartwheels and good spins, but he had some other commitments and had to leave just before the rest of the crew showed up around 11:30. Having had enough brain freezes for one day, I decided to take some pics, rather than make another run. It turned out to be a great day for it with warm sun and good water.

Have Slush, will kite

Yesterday I was out on White Bear Lake with Nate, Steve, and Ben. The winds were light, but I was able to get some good riding done on my 15, including a few fun 5' (or so) boosts. Nate was teaching Steve on his 11m and it looked like Steve was picking it up quickly. Ben seemed to have some problems keeping his kite in the air, but he was sticking it out and working with it. The best part of the day, though, was that it was in the upper 40's and we were kiting in sweatshirts.

I didn't get any kiting pics, but I did get a couple shots of Nate and Steve hitting a picnic table at the beach.

Spring is definitely coming in, stay tuned for boating season!

Colorado Trip!

Kim and I just got back from 4 days in CO. We stayed in Frisco (in the middle of Summit County on Lake Dillon) and made it out to Arapahoe Basin, Copper Mountain, and Vail. We had pretty crazy weather out there - snow and really strong winds every day. The downside to that is that there aren't many good pictures. The upside is that we had a continuos supply of fresh snow to ski on, ultimately adding up to a powder day at Vail with 17" of fresh powder (according to the news report, anyway). It was just the right amount of snow to feel really cool without being difficult to control. Speaking of Vail, whoever designed their runs was out of their mind. It's the only resort I've ever seen where every run switches difficulty levels at least once. There are several greens that become blacks (or doubles), lots of blues that turn to blacks, etc. This was all good and fun, but if you were a beginner you could get yourself in a bad spot in a big hurry. Arapahoe was very cool. It has an emphasis on advanced terrain, it's not particularly crowded, and the lift ticket costs about 1/3 less than the other resorts. We had a great time there. Copper was still my favorite, though. Long (really long) tree-lined runs, lots of good gladed skiing, fast lifts, short lines, and a huge variety of terrain. I'd go back there any time.

If you want lodging/food advice, we stayed at a nice little hotel called the Alpine Inn. The decor was dated, but the place was immaculate, the service friendly, and the hot tub was awesome. It was also really cheap. Highly recommended. For food, we had great Mexican food at Carlos Miguel's (or something like that). The place had a really cool feel and the service was great. We also ate at the Boat Yard, which has huge portions, so-so service, and our Calzone had a gigantic paper clip baked into it! Not kidding. It was one of the 2.5" ones, too. See the picture. Unfortunately, we didn't discover the paper clip until we were eating the leftovers at home. If you go, you might want to avoid that place.

We also checked out the Kite Park on Lake Dillon, which was pretty much just a coned-off launch area and two small jumps on the South end of the lake. Wouldn't you know, the one morning we try to go kiting was the only morning with abolutely no wind. The picture was taken during the one "gust" we got, which was all of about 5mph.

Despite paper clips in the food and issues with both too much and too little wind, we had a great time. Kim got her first real powder day and I found out that I can still ski after not being out west for 5 years. Great trip.

Great Day on Calhoun

Yesterday Nora and I (later joined by Pete) went out to hit the wind at Calhoun. The conditions (aside from a couple of lulls) were perfect - 42 degrees, packed snow, and great wind speed (maybe 10-12?). I'm finally getting comfortable on the big kite and spent most of my time practicing boosts. Got a couple nice ones and lots of tiny ones, but more importantly I'm starting to get my confidence back after having a few mishaps earlier this season. Cruising around at pretty fast speeds, leaning against the kite hard enough to touch the snow with one hand, and feeling like I finally have some control over my boosts was awesome. I probably looked like an elephant on ice skates, but I felt like Ruben Lenten on skiis. It was great. Nora also did great and was zooming around like a pro, dispite being a little underpowered on her 10m. She's really getting good at working that kite! I can't wait to get out on Pepin and see her really rock! All in all, it was one of the most fun days I've had kiting yet. The only problem was that we were having such a good time that nobody wanted to stop to pick up a camera, so there's no pics from the lake. The final highlight of the day was that Nora made me an awesome weight bag with a "Z" patch on it just for me! Now I can leave the kite set up without it blowing around the lake, and make self-launching easier. Thanks again, Nora -- You Rock!