Leif and Natalie

Well, spring break has been over for like two weeks now, but we're still sorting through all the photos from the various awesome adventures that we had. Near the end of break, we decided to rally all the way from California up to Hood River, for the sole purpose of running Eagle Creek. Eagle Creek has been on my list for a long time; ever since I saw it in Full Circle way back in the early 2000's, I've been getting more and more interested. The stars finally aligned on our last paddling day of the break (with the help of a 10 hour drive) and Natalie, Dave and I got to fire up some sweet drops. First off, here's a slideshow of our best shots: Some people say that Eagle Creek is one of those "once is enough" kinds of creeks. The drops aren't all that hard, and there are really only a handful of "real" rapids. But of course, the run us about more than just the whitewater. We had perfect weather for the 4 mile hike in, with intermittent

First, here's a slideshow from the trip. For a more detailed report, some trash talking, and a selected handful of images, read on. I'm still sorting through all the photos from spring break, and getting ready to make a post with a nice summary, but in the mean time, the Colorado season is really starting to pick up, by which I actually mean that the Wyoming and New Mexico season is picking up. New Mexico has no water this year, so it's not too hard to decide where to paddle on the weekends. Two weeks ago, we headed up to the Casper whitewater park, where I had a chance to try out my new Fluid Element surfboat. I wrote up a review for the fluid blog . We had a blast. This weekend, Nathan and I got word that Fremont canyon had some water in it, so we rallied up while Natalie played volleyball (ha ha). We were running on beta from local legend Caspermike of mountainbuzz. He knows all the secret goods in the Casper area, although ironically he now lives in Boze

Burnt Ranch Gorge is the usual go-to run for local paddlers in Arcata CA. It's about a 5 mile run, with some beautiful walls and some fun little rapids. The difficulty is that perfect in-between level where a playboat is perfectly manageable, but a creekboat is not boring. In the summer, the flows don't drop much below 600 cfs due to dam releases, and BRG is usually the only thing going. In the winter, the flows can get up to 2 to 3 thousand, which is a fun big water level. This spring break, Natalie, Dave and I were passing through Arcata during a big storm, and I took the opportunity to lead Dave down a quick high water lap at about 2500. The next day we surfed a tsumani , which was a unique experience. Then that night my friend Dan Menten called and said he was making a Burnt Ranch run the next morning. I was not that enthusiastic, since we had already run it once, and BRG was the daily run when I lived in Arcata. However, it's always fun to paddle with Dan, s