BDP: May 2011

Friday, May 20, 2011

Kootenai Creek

Kootenai Creek: Stevensville, Montana

Kootenai is a run about 30 minutes up the bitterroot mountain range from missoula. Luckily this year the run-off has got the rivers up to good high levels, and its worth the drive out there for a few laps. the clark fork got to 40,000 cfs! now that schools over, we have some time for some squeezers pizza and kootenai laps! Good times

BDP son!

The hike takes 15 minutes up the creek from the parking lot, ees nice!

Kootenai falls! gotta run far right

Wes squarting

After some boogying and not many eddys there's a solid boof

Cleared the hole

cooling and waiting for ganzo n wes

ganzo! all smiles two runs

Little ceasers leads to big squezers after a long day paddling

the bdp van

walker killed another elk and ate it

Monday, May 16, 2011

The Mighty Portneuf

Coming out of a long ass back injury from the previous spring I was pretty excited to get back in the water and with such a killer snow pack I knew the south east Idaho gnar would be raging this spring. Given a few free days after finals we packed up the Frontier to go and tame the mighty Portneuf. The portneuf is the Pocatello's "local run" of sorts but it barely ever runs at anything but super low water. Pretty cool little river and it's usually pretty warm from the heavy concentration of cow piss.

We loaded up the frontier and off we were to fight our vicious hangovers and conquer the most mighty of rivers!

Here in Idaho we like to start off every day with a Four Loko and a good ol' piton!

The run begins with a nice four or five footer. I threw a free wheel cause I was training to win Best in the West. Which I did in the squirt boat catagory because i'm pretty much the best kayaker out there right now. There were a few little ledges after the five footer then onto the twenty! The "twenty footer" is actually probably a ten or twelve footer and would be really sweet if it wasn't for the aids log jam blocking the entrance rapid. Luckily you could pull your self through the reeds to the right without getting out of your boat.

Here Dan Johnson gets balls deep on his biggest waterfall to date!

Heather Johnson also knows how to get buck when she goes kayaking. Here she gets down with some post Four Loko waterfall action.

From there on your into the tuber section. The section has a bunch of hotsprings and some super sweet tubing at low water. While mostly class three the upper two drops provide some sweet steepness for the most balls deep of tubers.

After a couple laps on the mile long stretch we packed up and headed down to check out some steeper stuff downstream. Navigating through the muddy construction zone nearly sent Jake into a flash back from Nam but he pulled out of it and slayed the stoutest stouts the portneuf has to offer. Jake came up from Utah to join us for round two, the sober day. we're proud of our Utah brotheren here at BDP, he rallied hard and cleaned it all up.

These drops wrapped around an island so not only did you get the usual mank of the portneuf but you got it at half the water level. Surprisingly we were able to slide through these bad boys like a buttered up brazilian on a slip and slide.

Erik Johnson, Nate Garcia and I checked these lower drops out long long time ago and walked away from them presumably because of our young age and gaping gines or just because Erik and Nate-Dog are bitches. but after way too long of a wait I decided to just take out my tamp and give'er. best thing I've ever done did with my life!

We going Loco for dem Lokos!!

Parting shot! here's Susie-Lou she's my personal shuttle driver.

Friday, May 13, 2011

Andy Walker First Decent: Running Eagle Falls

On a boat:

Andy Walker sticks his line for the first decent of Running Eagle Falls, a big waterfall about 55 feet tall up in glacier national park in montana with a tricky lead in. Some good carnage from summit creek, big t, and some sneaky stuff in there too.