Fluid Kayaks Team

Greetings, loyal fans. I know that you have all been tearing your hair out waiting for another blog post from me, so here it is. As I'm sure you're aware, Natalie and I have been travelling around Colorado competing in the Eddyflower Vertical Challenge, paddling lots of creeks, trying to keep up with all the 5 person teams. For the latest information on the vertical challenge, check here. Look for team: "Leif and Natalie". You'll recognize us by our awesome logo; two people flipping off the camera. The event is a fundraiser for First Descents, an outdoor camp for young adults with cancer. I encourage everyone to donate in the name of our team.

In the meantime, I thought that I'd do the world the favor of showing off some of the beautiful photos that Natalie and I took on South Mineral creek, near Durango. There's a 20 foot waterfall, followed by some fun slides and boofs, in a picturesque alpine setting. The run is short, halfway between a park 'n huck and a real run. I ended up doing two laps, while Natalie called it a day after just one. Hiking a boat around at about ten thousand feet was quite a chore. However, I think it was worth it. Enjoy the photos:

On the way back to the highway, I decided that I just couldn't pass up the slightly less popular Ice Lakes Creek which runs into South Mineral below the conventional run. The drop on Ice Lakes Creek is a triple slide. Each segment of the slide is about 10 feet tall, and none of the three slides points in the same direction as the one leading into it. However, the drop itself was quite easy compared to the putin.

(It took 10 minutes of sheer terror to move my boat from point a to point b.)

Since the drop that I ran is just the end of an incredibly long and scary sequence of slides and falls, there is no flat area above the drop. The scouting trail was pretty sketchy, and hiking a boat in there was even worse. If it's not slippery bedrock, it's slippery steep mud. And of course, if you were to fall in, you would be instantly swimming the triple drop. It was slow, tense work to find a spot flat enough to get into my boat.

(All told, the whole run took about 10 seconds.)

Once I finally got into the boat, I breathed a huge sigh of relief. After all, the takeout was only about 10 seconds away. My line was nothing to be especially proud of, but Natalie managed to snap a photo that made it look great. I ended up pitoning in the first punchbowl (it wasn't long enough to fit my boat), then even flipped over in the second punchbowl (Not wanting to make the same mistake twice, I came in sideways. There wasn't much time to think about what would happen if I landed sideways.) However, I rolled pretty quickly, and all it took was a couple good forward strokes to pull myself onto the final slide, which went quite smoothly.

(Natalie's shot of the second slide. Looks like everything is going fine, doesn't it?)

(Home free!)

As always, all the photos in this post were taken by Natalie Kramer, and all the photos of Natalie were taken by me, Leif Anderson. If you'd like to make a donation to First Descents as part of the Eddyflower Vertical challenge, visit their donation page, and feel free to select either Natalie or I as the paddler that you wish to sponsor.