More Big South than you can shake a stick at.

Big Southapalooza lives on


I didn't even have to go to flight school for this one

Once the gate opened it was on. I boated the Big South on Tues, Thurs, Sat, Sun, and Wed and will hopefully get on it this Sat again.

Cooler than a polar bear's toenails

Tues and Thurs were nice because there weren't any crowds up there and it was Scott, two others and myself each time. The weekend was congested traffic and we ran in a group of seven each time.

Peter on Starter Fluid. Rev yer engines

Wed was nice again. Just Paul, Frenchy and myself and we finished the whole run in about 3 hours.

Tommy on the Cool World run-out ledge

About to have a clean take off on this flight. Narrow landing strip huh?

This run is so awesome because it is long and just has so many fun little or big rapids. My favorite place on the run is about 2/3 of the way through Prime Time Gorge. You come through a left slot and just land in this gorged in pool. It feels like a rain forest in there and it is calm and peaceful.

Another day working it like she did

Here are some pics from different runs. I didn't take too many and no video just cause I was enjoying the river, and never really got out of my boat. I will link in Ross' video though from the day we went together if he lets me.Grinding the perfect line on Pin Cushin like I am JP Walker (thats a snowboarder for all you tele snobs)

A little sequence of me staying out of trouble. Unfortunately Scott's camera stopped here and didn't get the finish.

Scarier than Double Trouble

A little something to keep shuttle bunnies from getting bored

We met these crazy Germans at the takeout at 10:30. They had just finish a quick Peterson lap and politely asked if they could "hang out." Since I am completely secure with my sexuality I gave them the thumbs up and next thing you know there are two Germans in the parking lot in speedos. Watch out ladies

#23 Joe Wright

Before the Big South gate opened, I had to get my Joe Wright and Spencers in so I headed up with my ol' roomie Paul. You all know him better as P to the K, Paul the Kayaker or 1/2 of the high fiving tandem. We also went up with his new roomie Crystal, who is a sick boater. Sorry gents, she is currently dating Nick Turner, so unless you have built a few whitewater parks, written a guidebook and started a sweet helmet company, I am guessing your resume ain't good enough. We met up at Teds with Nathan, Frenchy, and Marty.

We got to the put in and I ran Cornholio and put down the sickest line ever, as in I wanted to puke after running it. I have never portaged the drop and it was by far and away my worst line, and really the only bad line I can remember having on that drop. You all can see it in the video.

We then bombed on down into Carnito canyon where I am happy to say I had amazing lines and like playing Operation never came close to touching any walls. That rapid is awesome if you head down right of center working right and hit a boof into a swirling eddy boil, then turn 90 degrees to you left and charge over a great boof flake. It reminds me of a smaller version of the cyclotron boof flake, also featured in the vid. Then hook a left around a rock in the middle and stay off the walls. Fun times. Everyone did great and good times were had by all.

After that it is just tight class IV creeking and hoping you have water so ya don't break yer boat.

Joe Wright from Kevin J on Vimeo.

#22 Upper Boulder Creek

One of the better longer rapids

On the way back from getting Brian's boat from the Source I decided to add this one to the list. Even though it is a pretty straight forward run, it is always a little more tense when you are running a new run and basically solo.

Upper Boulder Canyon is more Colorado short mank, actually mankier than any run I can think of. Flows were even good, right around 400cfs which I believe is a good flow for that run.

The rapid starts at the drop upstream from where I am

In the run-out

I don't really know what to tell you besides this. Don't make it a destination, but if you run the gnar above and below and tag it on to other Boulder runs it is good.

Just a lil' guy

#21 The Source

Hellums Falls: We put in right below this

Once again, maybe it is because the source was a new run for me, but I thought it was super dooper double looper fun. Brian and I put on about with about 330cfs and I thought this was a pretty good flow. It lives up to the guidebook description of a knife fight in a phonebooth type of kayaking. It was just the two of us and we had never done the run so it was high speed read and run, a.k.a. good stuff that dreams are made of.

Some beautiful state flowers

Everything went fast, almost too fast to remember. I have no idea what deforestation rapid looks like and vaguely remember slot machine. It was just boof keep your boat straight, boof keep your boat straight.

It actually was hard to keep an eye in Brian because if I looked behind me for more than a nano second I would hit a rock and get off line, so be heads up on this one.

At this point I need to point out a cardinal rule of boating: The river gods are ALWAYS listening and if you disrespect them in any way they make you repent.

Before we put on we were talking about maybe running Upper Boulder Creek and Eldo after words. I didn't know how much time we would have, but Brian reassured me that "This run will only take 10 minutes." Famous last words

As I came around a corner I saw Brian upside down, and at the next corner I came around to see Brian standing on the right shore. I continued down after the boat and to find an eddy (few and far) and caught the most amazing eddy above Dead Hiker Falls on the left.

Another fallen soldier at dead hiker falls

After deciding that it wouldn't be wise to cross here I finished the run and hiked back up to Brian. Unfortunately we didn't have a pin kit with us and we could not get the boat out that day. Brian had also lost his paddle probably never to be seen again.


By the time we got the truck back and drove to Boulder it was getting dark so we had to postpone UBC and Eldo, cause the run didn't take 10 minutes.



We came back on Thursday and z-dragged that boat right on out of there. Flows were about half (170cfs) of what they were when we ran it so that helped. It was then time to hit UBC, unfortunately Brian couldn't participate in this one for obvious reasons.

Poor little magnum

First time I have had to use a Z-drag, pretty fun. The eddy I caught is the eddy on the left of the boat, except it wasn't there that day, it was micro next to the rocks on the shore in the pic.

Flows were high enough to move river bed. This rock was in Brian's Boat when we got it out

For a minute we thought the boat was good then we discovered the right chine had been seperated for about 20 inches

Idaho Springs to Boulder (sort of)

After sitting around in Idaho Springs and only snagging Woods I decided that it was time to head to the Boulder area. I began biking down HY 6 to Golden and I was then going to head over to Boulder on HY93 and meet Brian for some Boulder goods.

This did not happen. I never saw any no biking signs leading into HY6 along the canyon until I was quite a ways into it. I also happened to bike past a cop who made me turn around. Here is were the law did not have my best interests in mind. Instead of letting me bike downhill going almost as fast as traffic, and I was only twenty minutes from exiting the canyon, I was forced to ride back out of the canyon which took 45 minutes and then I was told I needed to go up HY119 to Blackhawk. This was a far more dangerous road, with just as much traffic, if not more and no shoulder. Did I mention that everyone driving up was probably either drunk or a blue hair, thus contributing to to the increased danger.

This route also put me on the road for an extra two hours. Not that safe if you ask me. The best part was that the cop was notified that some bikers were drinking and driving and failed to do anything. I passed them as he was letting them go, and when they drove by me they must have thought I had snitched on them so they yelled some words that hurt my virgin ears at me and then raised their beers. Good work Officer Farva.

I had Brian pick me up in Blackhawk because by the time I would have gotten to Boulder this way it would have been night and I was not to keen on riding on Hy119 anymore.

We decided to go and run the Source of Boulder Creek.

This post was basically just a Dennis Miller type rant, sorry.

#20 Woods Creek

I sat around Idaho springs waiting and waiting to run Woods Creek and West Fork of Clear Creek. Finally Ryan was nice enough to wake up early with me and go run Woods before his mid-day raft trip.

We got up to the run and it looked pretty fun to me with a 200' sluice leading into a ten foot pool and then a 5' ledge boof into another 5' ledge boof. This then led into a pretty technical long rapid which started by being far left under a collapsed bridge. The sketchiness increased with some huge nails hanging down over head and sticking up on the left shore.

Once you passed under the bridge you were immediately bouncing through a set of holes and heading river right. Mank was to be found all around. Towards the end all of the water is crashing off a rock wall on the right and making a curling trough. A couple feet down stream is a 8-10' boof. The problem is that a rock is sticking out on the left and you could easily piton into it if driving too hard to the left, and there is a rock in the dead center that looks like it could break your boat if you landed on it, or at least pig nose if you pitoned. So you have to drive left and thread these to obstacles and it is all good.

The big rapid. You can see the rock on river left and the tree branch next to the pine tree on the bottom is covering the view of the other rock.

All in all a very fun run, just short and worthy of a few laps or definitely combine w/ WF of CC which unfortunately we had time to scout (looked good through Z gorge) but not enough time to run.

P.S. This was my 20th run which was kinda my adjusted goal after I realized I wouldn't make 50 this year. New goal is 25, and 30 might even be possible. (50 is possible, and I think easily so, but I will explain why later)