Ramblin' On... : March 2012

3/25 & 3/26: Finally getting out on the Watagua with 300+ CFS. Good to be paddling with some old friends I had not seen in a long time.

Awesome weekend of paddling. Green River Narrows with high water Saturday then Watagua at a nice level both Sunday and Monday. The best thing about the Watagua runs on Sunday was that it was on the rise and the second run was about 2 inches higher than the first run. There is something about paddling a river on the rise that gets your motor revving higher. The pulse of the river affects the pulse of the paddler. None of the 3 runs I did Sunday and Monday could be considered high but exciting none the less since most of my Watagua runs in the last few months have been in the 200 to 275 cfs levels.

Low Dawg Mike hand paddlin' the boof

Garrett getting his boof on in the speed racer

Dennis Huntley on Monday. How can any paddler not be inspired by Dennis, 60 something and still going strong, paddling anything he wants to paddle.

It was good to paddle with Dan, it had been too long.

Dave Simpson making the boof look easy in the EZ!

Bobby Bouche' is back in bidness!

John back in action after shoulder surgery.

Dave Simpson catching one of the best eddys on the river. Vernon's Folley.

Will in his race boat

Bobby Bouche'

It was another crazy weather day. Rainy and overcast at the Watagua and bright and sunny at the Brown Mountain overlook. The view of Brown Mountain was ominous. Unfortunately the apple tree below had been knocked down or blown over. It was a good producer too.

Amos' Epics

March 24 at the Green River Narrows

Layla and I met Steven and Johnny at the take out at 10:00. On our drive to the river all of the creeks were bank full and brown. The Green level on the stick gage was 13", about 4 or 5" higher than it has been on my recent runs and about 7" higher than a summertime low level...It had been a long time since I had been out there with that high of a flow but it turned out good to go and a lot of fun. I didnt take many pic bacause I was more focused on making the lines but next time...

Layla spotted this big salamander at Sunshine

Amos' Epics

Sunday at the Watagua with Layla, Johnny Calhoun, Toth and Garrett showed up just in time to join us for the 2nd Run

The Watagua level was low but still alot of fun. My only regret is that I didnt take Garrett up on doing a 3rd run. The weather was incredible.Thanks to Layla for taking the shot below. And thanks to Garrett for the cold beverage before round 2, it hit the spot!

Amos' Epics

Bobby Bouche' is back in Action on the Watagua and the Green. Bobby was paddling it up in the Hefe Grande! Good to get back out with him on the splashy wet stuff.

Brooks right at the lip of the drop

Bobby B gave me a call Friday morning to see if I was going to paddle. I checked the gages and sure enough, Watagua county had been hit with some rain and the Watags had spiked to 500 cfs. Friday afternoon, I managed to make it up to the high country/Watagua for an afterwork run, race back to Glen Alpine, meet up with the Southern Culture on the Skids MoTown fan base (Hans, JJ, and Danny) to make it to a SCOTS show at the Grey Eagle in Asheville. It was a good show with good company. We ran into Dave, Edie, and Julie Stitt at the show. It was good to see them, it had been too long. The SCOTS were rockin' as a 3 piece this time, no 2nd guitar. I personally prefer their 3 piece line up, Rick is plenty good enuf to carry the GuitFiddle duties all by himself. I drank maybe one too many and had a little hangover on Saturday but the cool water helped me get over that fast enough. I met up with Bobby and Low Water Mike for the Watagua run on Friday then Saturday morning met up with Steven Hughes, Mike Toth, Dan Cook and Christine Bouch and we ran shuttle together. Chris Roberts, Bobby Bouche', and Brooks caught up with us at the putin and we paddled down with them.

Chris with an awesome line at Gorilla

Toth and Steven with some sweet seal launches

Bobby Bouche'

Getting the crunch on in the Stomper, Go Steven!

Below is the only shot I have from the Watagua on Friday:

Bobby Bouche dropping into TN

March 10th at the Green River Narrows, First day on the Green in the ReMix

Chris and I met at the takeout Saturday morning. Kim helped us out with shuttle for the narrows and I helped them out with their shuttle on the lower section after our run. The weather was off the hook. My first time on the Green in the ReMix. Cant wait to get it back out there, I had a lot of fun. We hung out at Gorilla for a while and got to see some people run it, good and not so good lines.