Routt County River Enforcement

Yule creek has been on the RCRE hit list for years and last weekend we got to fire it up. First off, Marble CO is off the hook for boating. The views are incredible and the geology is conducive to making sick waterfalls and slides. What else do you want folks?

Marble Colorado. Photo: Dan Piano

Dan and Burger getting ready to fire. Photo: Sarah Hamilton

We got to Yule around 2:00pm and began to assess the situation. The flow on the Avalanche creek gauge was around 1000. We had beta on wood in the upper drops so we decided to rope down and fire what has been haunting Brian and me for years; the bottom four.

Lowering the boats (look closely). Photo: Sarah Hamilton

Ball Check. Photo: Dan Piano

Burger & Dan scoping ball to wall check. Photo: Sarah Hamilton

Note! When you get down to creek level it looks a lot different than it does from up high. Wall check drops out steep in the beginning and the massage is HUGE!

Dan on Wall Check. Photo: SH

Burger about to connect with the wall! Photo: SH

Scouting Oriental Massage before the rain comes in. Photo: SH

Oriental and Happy Ending from the bottom. We are up in the top left scouting. Photo:SH

Burger recovering and lining up happy ending. Photo:SH

Dan on Oriental Massage(dot on top right)....it's freaking HUGE! Photo SH

Dropping in on oriental massage is one of the coolest feelings. I ended up launching off the first big flake reconnecting and then airing the rest into the pool. Sorry no vid, the camera was in my boat.

Dan lining up the ending. Photo: SH

Leaving Marble looking back at the rainbow filled Yule drainage. Photo: Dan Piano

New plastic finally got broken in. Photo: Dan Piano

Sarah tearing up the Glenwood wave to finish the day off! Photo: DP

Check out this short vid i put together.

Yule Creek from Dan Piano on Vimeo.

Yule and the G-spot all in one day.. Awesome!

My trip started on April 29th in front of my house looking at my truck covered in snow. I headed to Steamboat for one last day of work before the annual RCRE spring Cali trip. I only had to make it til 2 p.m. and then..... 10 days of freedom.... Cali baby!!! The crew had the truck packed by 3:00 and we were on the road.

Fisher's truck cruising through Lake Tahoe heading to the UMC. Photo Marty Smith

We headed for Tahoe and the Cosumnes. I drove through the night to wake up the next morning in the drivers seat passed out in a Super Wal-Mart parking lot. We got supplies, got lost a couple of times, and put on the Cosumnes for our first time ever at 4:30 p.m. Saturday. Its only 4 miles, how hard could it be?

First Stop Upper Middle Cosumnes, here is a link to Mcquoids blog that we used for beta. We had a higher flow of 425cfs.

Kevin Fisher styling one of the many clean drops.

Photo: Martin Smith

Marty cleaning it up. Photo: Adam Mayo

Eric making it look to easy. Photo: Adam Mayo

Duckyman firing off into a huge hole. Photo: Adam Mayo

Fisher running it switch. Photo: Adam Mayo

Marty loving Cali. Photo: Adam Mayo

Overall the UMC is well worth doing, but I'd recommend an earlier put on time. We eventually got to the take out at 8:30 p.m. There are access issues at the put-in. Be respectful and courteous to the homeowners at the put in. It is a very private and secluded neighborhood. There is talk of putting up a gate to keep kayakers out. Don't screw this up, play it super low key!

A massive storm system came in and changed the itinirary. We head for good weather and perfect flows. When the Kern drainage has water it is off the hook!

Brush Creek with water? Photos taken with 2.5 to 3 on the bridge gauge.

Kevin Fisher showing us how to boof! Photo: Dan Piano

Marty routing through. Photo: Dan Piano

Fisher dropping the main set of slides. Photo: Dan Piano

Mayo in the s-turn slide. Photo: Dan Piano

Eric on his third lap. Photo: Dan Piano

Marty about to run into me. Photo: Dan Piano

Dropping! Photo: Dan Piano

Dan in the lower mank section. Photo: Adam Mayo

Marty and Dan hiking back up. Photo: Adam Mayo

Dan going for the no paddle boof. Photo: Adam Mayo

Ducky on his fifth lap. Photo Adam Mayo

Ducky keeping it real. Photo: Dan Piano

Marty stepped up for the day and ran it seven times. I ended up pitoning and cracking the nose of my kayak. Brush is a low stress blast. Our flows peaked around 3 on the gauge serving up great times but more water in this creek would be sick.

The following morning we ended up running into Eric Giddens and Geno at our base camp in the parking lot. They were heading up to run Upper Brush Creek - the "UBC" sucka. It hasn't run in four years due to drought. Our crew from Colorado specializes in running wood mank. Come to Cali and run a manky wood infested creek? Sure. It turns out the UBC is legit. It starts out a little manky, but I think we put in too high on the creek. As you go on it just gets better and better. Check out Giddens's write up on his blog.

Here are some photos.

Hiking in past Alder Creek. If I went again I would follow this creek down. Eric Giddens

More hiking. Photo: Dan Piano

Crew preparing. Photo: Marty Smith

The put-in. Photo: Adam Mayo

Fisher feeling at home in the deep willow mank. Photo: Dan Piano

Ducky styling. Photo: Adam Mayo

Mayo unit. Photo: Dan Piano

Giddens dropping one of the early ones. Photo: Martin Smith

Marty BOOF! Photo: Eric Giddens

Dan BOOF! Photo: Eric Giddens

Fisher BOOF! Photo: Eric Giddens

Dan lining up the pot hole drop. Photo: Adam Mayo

Marty on the pot hole. Photo: Adam Mayo

Fisher. Photo: Adam Mayo

Giddens showing the line. Photo: Adam Mayo

Duckyman firing on all cylinders! Photo: Eric Giddens

Fisher coming through the bottom. Eric Giddens

Eric probing the clapper. Photo: Adam Mayo

Dan lining up for the mega clap. Photo: Adam Mayo

Fisher about to clap. Photo: Adam Mayo

Dan about to drop the big slide on the second part of

the clapper as Ducky watches from the pool.

Photo: Adam Mayo

Mayo charging! Photo: Dan Piano

Giddens making it look easy. Photo: Dan Piano

Geno, one of our guides. showing us how it's done. Photo: Eric Giddens

Duckyman hiking out. Awesome day!

I highly recommend this creek. Kernville folks need to clean this thing!

The weather was still lingering north and we were pretty cashed from the day prior so we decided to run the main Kern at 2000. It was a super fun day with some classic rapids. Here are some highlights.

Fisher dropping lower salmon falls. Photo: Adam Mayo

Read and run. Photo: Adam Mayo

Eric saying peace to the Kern. Photo: Adam Mayo

Kernville was good to us this year! The weather was clearing up north and we headed for the Kaweah.

All the flows in the Kaweah drainage were high so we decided to go run the North Fork of the Kaweah. We met up with Kevin Dombey for some North Fork action.