Leif and Natalie

The Gnarrows Race is a grassroots event on the Poudre River. If anyone asks, it's not really an event at all, just a bunch of paddlers that happen to be paddling together on the same stretch of river. No money changes hands, and there's not much publicity about the race. For years now, I have lived in Fort Collins, and heard all the trash talking that happens online about the race, but never had the chance to compete, although Natalie competed in 2009. This year, the race happened a little later than usual, and we were just barely able to make it back from the Slave in time. Looking back at Natalie's post from 2009 , there are a lot of similarities between the two years. In 2009, Natalie's mom happened to be visiting, and took a bunch of photos of the race. This year, it was my mom. In 2009, Natalie broke her Werner bentshaft just before the race, and had to borrow a paddle. This year, exactly the same thing happened. In 2009, we have a photo of Kyle trying...

This is our last Slave post for this year, unless we put together a overall summary post. For more of our adventures, check out Week 1 , the wood movie , Week 2 , paddlefest , and Week 3 . There is also a map of the rapids online with rapid descriptions. Water levels can be checked here . There are also a whole heap of posts from 2009 and 2010: Driving , arriving , flooding , still flooding , Sweet Spot , Rollercoaster , and Outrageous . It saddens my heart to write this, but, as it does every year, our trip to the Slave has finally ended. I spent the last few days moping around the house, and trying to have as much fun as possible out on the water. On the last day, we took requests via facebook, and let the fans decide where we would go. Of course, the fans are not nice people, and they picked Outrageous (the crappiest flat wave on the whole river) and Rockem Sockem (which is a great wave with a little less water, but made a huge trashy hole on that day). I hate to soun...

As Natalie put it yesterday, we've entered phase three of the trip. Paddlefest is over and we're getting into full stride. The water is back down to "high" levels, instead of "crazy" and all the rapids seem tame now. Rocks are starting to show all over the place. There are eddies everywhere. We no longer have to hunt around for new playspots. The river is familiar again. For our previous posts, check out Week 1 , the wood movie , Week 2 , and paddlefest . There is also a map of the rapids online with rapid descriptions. Water levels can be checked here . There are also a whole heap of posts from 2009 and 2010: Driving , arriving , flooding , still flooding , Sweet Spot , Rollercoaster , and Outrageous . Ok, enough historical links. Here are the daily updates! Friday August 12: Rollercoaster 4,000 cms (141,000 cfs) After a couple intense long days at Rollercoaster, we were all getting a little tired. Natalie took the day off and went with ...