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| Adventure Guiding for Disney in the Galapagos |
I recently found myself with a couple weeks off in between guiding adventure travel trips and decided to squeeze in a little adventure travel trip of my own back out to one of my favorite summer destinations, California.
Because of unpredictable and finicky water levels in California, I flew out there with no expectations of what I would get to run during the trip, but instead went with an open mind and an adventurous attitude knowing I would find something fun to get into. And as always, California delivered and I ended up getting to spend my week on an epic multi-sport charging mission which included a class 5 kayaking overnighter, back country skiing from over 12,000 feet and mountain biking through steep sierra terrain.
The trip started out with kayaking Dinkey Creek, quite possibly my favorite creek in the entire world. I cannot tell you how excited I was when Dinkey Creek literally dropped into a runnable level overnight and came in much earlier than we thought it would. A bunch of my friends were headed straight there, but I decided to wait for Gareth to get off of work that afternoon and we made a plan to drive through the evening straight to the put in and start hiking early in hopes of catching up with my other friends. Unfortunately, that plan didn't pan out because the drive took longer than expected. We ended up spending most of the day trying to work out another shuttle option (since we were at the put-in without a car at the take out). It wasn't until about 3pm that we finally worked out an option for shuttle that necessitated Gareth and I putting on then, just the two of us and completing the run by the following afternoon. So with that, we started packing and started hiking...
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| Gareth loading his boat for the overnight on Dinkey | |
At first sight of the river Gareth and I both realized that it was a bit higher than either of us had done it before, and we began to contemplate our decision to put on just the two of us. In kayaking, it is always better to have at least three in a group, but having traveled and kayaked together so much, and knowing how capable the two of us are as a team on the river, we felt okay about our two pack man/woman team. Our final decision to put on was not made in haste, and involved over 30 minutes of discussing and debating and ultimately deciding that we would go but with an extra conservative approach.
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| Hiking down the granite towards the river |
We did not arrive to the put in of the river until around 6:30pm. Tired from the hike, but anxious to make some progress downstream, we decided to put on and knock out a few rapids before finding a camp spot. After 30 minutes of paddling, knowing that the river was going to gorge up quickly, we decided to make camp at the first good spot we found.
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| The best wine always comes from crumbled plastic water bottles |
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| Drying socks by the fire... | |
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After a wonderful night of sleep under a full moon next to a class five rapid, we wake up charged for the day. I have to say we were somewhat expecting/ hoping to find the water level having dropped, but no such luck. Without much other option, we put on and started making our way downstream.
One of our first rapids of the morning was the Willie Kern Slide. Known to be the largest mandatory rapid of the run, it involves a 15 foot ledge into a low angle slide, through a hole at the end of the slide then off of a 40 foot high angle drop. The higher level definitely made us a bit more concerned about the hole in the middle of the rapid, but after a detailed scout and a three minute zen break requested by Gareth, we put on and went. I went first, with Gareth right behind me. All went great until I hit the bottom of the 40 footer and had my paddle ripped from my hands. Fortunately, I hit my first hands roll and managed to hand paddle over to my paddle and regroup. I was a bit nervous for Gareth because around 20 seconds had passed and he had not come down yet, but alas he finally came flying off the drop styling his line. It turned out he had caught an eddy in the middle of the drop which is what caused the delay.
We breathed a breath of relief after successfully navigating Willie Kerns and continued downstream running more fun waterfalls and slides than you'd ever imagine possible on one six mile section of river.
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| Gareth below the rapid below the portage |
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| Scouting the "Good Morning Slide" named because it is the rapid below the traditional camp spot |
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| The first of the Twin Waterfalls |
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| Gareth at the second Twin Falls |
After getting off the river we spent another night at the takeout waiting for a shuttle ride then started driving onto our next mission, backcountry skiing Mt. Conness on the eastern side of Yosemite. This made for a beautiful drive as it took us through the western slopes of the sierras, through Yosemite National Park and out onto the eastern sierras.
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| A little bit stop overlooking the Yosemite Valley |
Later that evening we arrived at our camping spot and starting location for our mission up to Mt. Conness. We met Aaron Stable and his fiance Laura and made a plan for the next morning.
After a 4:30am wake up we were on our way hiking to the top of the 12,500 foot peak. We started off the morning with a two mile walk up a closed road until we arrived at the Saddleback Lake trailhead. At that point we entered into the snow and things started to get interesting. First we walked along the steep slopes of hard packed snow in our tennis shoes, with the risk of slipping and sliding into the frozen lake very much on my mind. Eventually it was time to throw the ski boots on and we continued up the mountain. At one point, Gareth and the other Laura decided to climb straight up and over the ridge, while Aaron and I took a more laid back route up and over a saddle. Aaron and I ended up squeezing in a nap and having a snack for about 45 min. waiting for the more "burly" hikers to catch up :)
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| A view around the lake |
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| Gareth and Laura at the top of the climb over the ridge |
After arriving over the ridge we began following it along hoping that we were going to be able to connect it to the summit. While Gareth had submitted and skied the mountain a couple weeks earlier, he had not done this specific route we'd chosen which is why were a bit unsure about how it would work out. We climbed along the ridge, which involved some tricky rock maneuvering, until we found ourselves at another saddle. We did a bit of scouting to figure out if we'd be able to continue to the summit along that route, but unfortunately found it was not going to be able to be done safely.
Our options were then either to find a route to ski down or hike back down the ridge we just came up. Not wanting to backtrack, we began really exploring our options for getting to the snow and starting our back country skiing experience.
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| Coming up on the realization that our chosen route was not going to work out |
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| Our fearless leader |
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| Bishop passed out |
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| Getting ready to ski down |
Gareth was able to scout out a route that required some very sketchy down climbing on rocks, but eventually brought us to a safely ski-able slope. Well I should clarify, it was safely ski-able for everyone else in the group, for me, having a very limited amount of experience on skis and wearing Gareth's too large for me boots and his fat powder skis I was terrified. I more or less fell and slid my way down the slope and eventually decided to walk part of the way down. It was pretty entertaining or pathetic or some mix of the two.
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| The top slope we skied (we climbed down the left side of the cliff ridge and skied into the bowl) |
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| Taking a break in between slopes |
After a couple more steep slopes and me barely making it down, we finally arrived back at the lake's edge and began our cross country ski out around the lake.
Over two hours later we finally made it back to the road and convinced a person from the lodge there to drive us down the closed road back to our vehicles to avoid the two mile walk out. Hungry and exhausted, we drank a cold beer then headed out to find some food and one of the better free car camping spots I've seen.
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| The rainbow at our camp spot |
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| Another view from camp |
The following morning we were off, headed back north to Truckee to spend the day. Still buzzing from the paddling and skiing adventures, we decided we wanted more and started making plans for a mountain bike ride.
I called up my friend James Harrison who moved to Truckee from back east a number of years ago and he hooked me up with a spare bike and off we went up the mountain. He took me down a local downhill trail with tons of man made jumps (which I happily avoided). I did get to watch him hit some sweet jumps though.
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| At the top of the ride overlooking Truckee |
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| James jumping |
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| James rolling down an obstacle |
The following morning Gareth and I woke up early as he had to be back in Coloma to start a weekend of work and I started to prepare for the end of my week long charge in Cali. It was time to head back to NC and back to work.
From kayaking one of the best creeks in the world, to skiing in July to cruising downhill on a bike, that was one epic week of multi-sporting in California.
