Ok so I did tell everyone that I would do my next blog post on South Silver but I got a request to do a post on the Elusive left line of Sunshine. So here it is. I’ve been running the left line for a few years now with many different variations of the line. I started in a long boat and then slowly moved into being more comfortable in a short boat running it. Now that the rapid has changed, at the lower levels its actually more comfortable to go left than right for me.The Elusive Left Line
Ok so I did tell everyone that I would do my next blog post on South Silver but I got a request to do a post on the Elusive left line of Sunshine. So here it is. I’ve been running the left line for a few years now with many different variations of the line. I started in a long boat and then slowly moved into being more comfortable in a short boat running it. Now that the rapid has changed, at the lower levels its actually more comfortable to go left than right for me.
So we decided a few days before the wedding to go on a mission to Loves Falls on the North Fork of the Yuba outside of Downeyville (which hosts one of the most bad ass downhill trails to ever be ridden). We figured it would be a quick, easy, fun day. Little did we know, Love’s was still pumping high and we weren’t about to go in there with a crew of 7 that we had. Even though we were all relatively good paddlers…
The first day that I had the protos of the Stomper 80 the Green was so crowded that I didn’t want to have our brand new protos out on the river will the entire world to see. So we had headed over to the Chattooga river where we knew we wouldn’t run into too many folks, especially since it was over 4ft. The next day was a Monday and we knew that it wouldn’t be crowded out there on the river so we decided to drop in on a good flow of 15″ on the stick. A couple of us had paddled the boat the day before but John and Jeff hadn’t so those guys were excited. They geared up quickly and were on their way down the trail almost before I could get my frozen dry suit on.
Not many photos of this one, since the crew we were with was pretty well known for their straight up mobbing downstream. This photo is of John and I hanging out at the camp where we spent the night on the Rubicon. That is the look of a big brother.