What better way to end the season than a chill run on Upper Cherry with a massive crew of mates! We had been waiting down in Three Rivers getting some good runs on the Kaweahs while the flow for Upper Cherry was coming down, then we get to Groveland and get some beta that it was still too high to be going in and that there were 40 other people in there... all we had to say to that is, "Nup your fucked" and because we were sort of on a time limit we headed to the trail head any way, packed up our boats with the plan of leaving first thing in the morning.
The plan was to rally at some ridiculous hour but we ended up leaving a little later at the more respectable hour of 5.30am, 10 miles of hiking, and then 1.5 hours of sleeping at the put in while everyone trickled in. We also arrived to find the flow on the low side of good, but that's ok because it is perfect for Cherry Bomb!
Once we had all tried to recover from our epic hike in we slid our way all the way down to Cherry bomb. The scenery is just mind blowing up there, it's actually like the moon! I would know because I have seen photos and nothing grows there either. And because the level was a bit on the low side the slides were low stress and you had heaps of time to take in the awesomeness of the place.
Once we made it into Upper Cherry Bomb gorge we were all pretty tired but figured that is would still be easier to just run it than to walk our ass' to camp so we all rallied in with Evan and B leading the charge. Turns out that this truly is one of the sickest sections of white water anywhere and has the best campsite that I have ever stayed.
We stayed at Flintstones for two nights so that we could do more laps than we could count and run Cherry Bomb a few times and also get some choice photos.
Then before we ran out of water, on the third day we paddled on down stream and out. It was choice to see B, Brad, and Evan fire up kiwi in a pocket with no Kiwi's or American's for that matter going near any pockets! From there out it was relaxing times, a couple of rapids to keep you on your toes, but from the confluence the level was dramatically lower and again which equaled super low stress and heaps of fun all the way to Cherry Lake!
The money shot of Cherry Bomb. Pic - Rach Tombleson
Jedi race! Pic - Rach Tombleson
Sanga the gangsta. Pic - Rach Tombleson
Tea cups at Flintstones. Pic - Rach Tombleson
Double pothole. Pic - Toni george
No comments:
Post a Comment