For the past week, my boyfriend and I drove to Reno, NV where my goal was to get as much training as possible. at first we were worried that there wasn't going to be enough water in the area - we were also planning on going into to the Sacramento area to paddle some creeks.
When we arrived in Reno on Saturday, it was cold and snowing but we got into the whitewater park for a few hours and got the feel for the different features. Things in the park were pretty shallow, but I was able to start working on my cartwheels. Once we were cold enough, we got out and headed over to Carson City where we stayed at the Donnelly's house. Sage Donnelly and her family are incredible people with an amazing lifestyle. While we stayed with them, I watched a huge snake eat a decent sized rat for the first time in real life and I can say now that I could never have a snake as a pet... ever!
On Sunday, we headed over past Tahoe into California to paddle near Colfax and Auburn. We ran the North Fork of the American (Chili Bar section) at high flows and camped a night at a trailhead. I really had fun on the Chili Bar section, lots of play and lots of big waves. It felt good to be surrounded with big water. The section itself wasn't too technical, definitely about class 3 at the level we ran it but I recommend it for a fun playboating run. Sage and her family went back to Carson the next night and Seth and I headed over to Auburn to get some beta about a park-and-huck that we had heard about. We ended up hanging out at the local kayak shop for a couple hours (losing daylight of course) and finally got the info we needed and then left to find the waterfall.
After turning around on the same road and probably driving past the parking lot at least ten times, we found it. We had to park under a bridge and from there we hiked about a quarter mile until we saw the falls. It was about a 50-ft slide into a 30-footer into a 20-footer. The locals we chatted with at the kayak shop said they usually only ran the 20-footer at about 800 cfs. We were looking at the falls at about 3200cfs - big difference from the pictures we saw later when it was at 800cfs.... We camped that night at an abandoned campground with showers and bathrooms and made macaroni and cheese with my dad's jetboil and grilled the garlic bread we bought at the Colfax grocery store.
The next morning, Seth and I drove back to the falls to scout it some more. Seth got in his gear and paddled to the other side to scout it from the lip. It took him about 20 minutes to decide it wasn't good to good. There was too much water pushing to the river left side and the landing from that side was pretty rocky. We packed up and headed back to Reno for training because everything in California was flooded (it still is I think).
It took us about 2 hours to get back to Reno and the weather was starting to warm up - which meant the Spring run-off was about to start. The Truckee went up that night and kept rising until the day we left. It did wonders for my training too, now that I've been in hole 5 at every level I feel like I've gotten the hang of most of my tricks. I got a lot of advice while I was working on my cartwheels and godzillas and I'm feeling pretty good about both.
I can't wait to get back in my boat, and hopefully next time it'll be in Green River.
