Nat's Medium Solo photo shoot: Burnt Ranch Gorge

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This fall I sliced open a good 6 inch slit into the sidewall of my Prijon Creeker while running a low water run on the double drop on the gnar section of the Big Thompson. This is the first time I have broken a boat, and truth to be told, I am proud of it. However, if I broke as many boats as Leif breaks, I would start getting really frustrated and would try to find a magic elixer which would shorten me by six inches and take 30 pounds off my weight. But I digress, I broke my rock solid Prijon. I’m not even sure that it was my boat anyway, the ownership of the thing was never really clear since I never paid a cent for it. Maybe I should be saying, I sliced open Ann’s boat (but she never paid for it either..). The point is, the boat is out of commission. Being open to new possibilities on water craft, I decided to try out the medium solo that Celiers of Fluid Kayaks sent to Leif to use as a demo boat. The medium solo is larger (and much heavier) than the Creeker. I was excited to try it since I have often noticed that when I am paddling the Creeker I tend to sub-out more often than my fellow paddlers.

I took the medium solo out for the first time on a high water run of lower willow creek (sorry, no photos, but check out Leif's helmet cam video). My first impression was, wow! This is great, I’m not subbing out and I can stay on line much more easily. The solo tracks very well and is fast. I found that holes didn’t grab me as much and I was able to keep up my momentum much more easily. Since we didn’t get photos of willow creek, since Leif broke his boat on the South Fork of the Salmon, and since we weren’t going to get photos from much hoped for run on Hardscrabble creek, we decided to do a photo shoot on Burnt Ranch Gorge which is just one of those classic runs which is a blast in a play boat or a creek boat. Leif took his Fluid Nemesis and gentlemanly took photos of sexy me and the solo (notice: I dressed up for the occasion. I wore my black helmet instead of my blue one with the dorky velcro for the dorky helmet visor. Look at the Cheeseman gorge photos to view this dorkiness.)

Photo Shoot Pics:
Pearly Gates



The Shower Head at #1

Staying on-line at #3 at a funky water level


Hennessy Falls



Not subbing out at Origami





Styling the not often run right side of Greys Falls
Leif got me to run it and then backed out saying it was too sketch for him, wimp.

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