Well it is that time of year again. The leaves have changed colors, the fall rains are coming in and out, Halloween is over and there is a migration of kayaker to North Carolina for the ever impressive Green River Race.
This year has already been an epic year for those of us who came early to train, and the race hasn’t even started yet. North Carolina has been blessed with 2 weeks of on again off again rain, which has opened up tons of potential rivers to paddle, as well as the fact that the Green River has been running at epicly high flows.
I showed up for 5 days of training and I was able to get a lap in at 100% flow on Sunday evening. 100% is around 8-10 inches on the gauge and is a great level. Monday morning we woke up and checked the website which also predicted another 100% flow morning. Though I had a feeling that the rain that lasted all night might change this a bit. Alec and I went to the Put-In (while Dane drove our shuttle), we noticed that we could hike into the Big Hungry tributary, which was an awesome class 2-4 little tributary into the Green, and it is a way more fun option instead of hiking in the whole way.
Once we made it down Big Hungry creek and into the Green River we realized that the flow was certainly not 100%, Alec who had been here for the previous couple of days guessed it was around 200% which is around 18 inches, though when we rolled up to the gauge Alec started laughing. The level was 27 inches and raising. WOW! I had never run the river anywhere close to this level, that and we both had our
Karma Unlimited to get some race practice in. I had the idea that this run might take us a little longer then we told Dane back in the parking lot.
Alec showed me down the highwater lines, which actually went really well, the creek felt very similar just a lot bigger, more holes and more powerful. By the time we made it to Go Left rapid, which had very little resemblance of the normal look of the rapid, we met up with a group of 3 paddlers from Quebec that weren’t very familiar to the run and 1 of their group members was a second year paddler and possibly a bit out of his comfort zone.
Alec continued to lead myself and our new french friends down the rest of the run. My mind was blown with just how much of a beast the river had turned into. The lines from above Groove Tube through the bottom of Sunshine was just one continuous line that was amazing. Everything was going great all the way down to Hammer Factor, which is almost at the takeout. This is normally the last big rapid of the run, and a rapid that I usually mess around on, with either doing ‘Legs out to the Takeout’ or trying to pull it or something. Though at the high levels Alec had explained that it has gotten a little more rowdy, with a big hole at the end of the ally way pocket. He explained that one of us would likely swim. I thought those were great words of encouragement and went for it. I did the line that Alec had explained, ‘go all the way left and boof hard over the hole’, only to find out later that this isn’t really the best line. I boofed and thought everything was fine until I back looped my longboat back into the hole, and then went straight into a flurry of cartwheel ends. This is actually quite hard to do in a longboat and I realized that I was no longer going to regain control and or surf out of this pocket, so I did as most would and pulled my skirt. The swim was actually pretty easy, though I as bummed when we couldn’t find my paddle and I thought it was lost for good.
Luckily for me my luck changed for the better as we made it to the parking lot to meet up with Pat Keller, Dane, Kalob Grady and Joel Kowalski to go back up for a second lap, now at 29 inches. Our second lap I decided to take my
Zen, which was a better call, and everything went great. I had an awesome line all the way down including getting some revenge on Hammer Factor. Though the best part was miraculously finding my paddle in a giant eddy of foam right below Hammer Factor. YES!
It was one of the coolest days of paddling the Green River I have experienced, and the week had just begun.
Here is the video of my swim on my Facebook page
