20 - 5/2/09 - Green River Cleanup

The first weekend in May is the annual Green River Cleanup, and WRRR is one of the organizers. The goal is to get people to pick up trash along the river corridor, and WRRR mostly concentrates on cleaning up the river banks. We had a nice flow of just a little over 1400 this year, and I decided to take my IK (if it was above 1500, I would have taken my cataraft, but I'm not as comfortable in crowds in my cat). I was part of the group registering people and handing out trash bags at the Headworks raft access. Starting at this point makes the entire run about 18 miles.

We got a late start due to some shuttle confusion, and after a little over a mile, we realized that one member of our group was missing. I waited around and found her with the next group. She takes the "cleanup" part of the event seriously, and that has become harder over the years because the river bank has been pretty thoroughly scoured. We went down a couple more rapids and she noticed some trash and pulled over. I pulled over to the right and found a significant pile of old kitchen debris - broken dishes, bottles, jars, a tray table, and even a waffle iron.

We finally caught up with the main group when we got to the park, and we settled in for the more serious whitewater. I was cold at that point, and considering trying to catch a ride in a raft, but I'm too lazy to do that (yes, that's a joke), so I continued to kayak. The gorge is a bit more challenging when you are having to boat with lots of other people because they are always getting in the way. Above Mercury, a group of rookie guides from Alpine Adventures (yes, you get named because you screwed up) took the wrong channel and then had problems in the Nozzle. So, we got to hang out at the top of Mercury waiting for them to get through so we could go down.

I had a good run through the main upper gorge, and then I flipped. I ran the far left side of a rapid that has a steep drop into curling wave with a side current, and I didn't brace quickly enough. I did, however, get back in my boat while floating down the river, and then had to endure the "You made it through all of the hard stuff and then flipped on that?" comments. We continued down, had lunch, and then floated down to the lower gorge. Below Paradise, I flipped again when I went into a big hole that I usually use to slow my speed, and it decided to stop me instead. I flipped, swam past the final hole, and then watched as the boat entered the hole upside down, exited right side up, and then floated down to me. It took two tries to get back in. The first time, I flipped the boat over so I had to reflip it and get back in while entering another rapid. A friend had to retrieve my footbrace, which I had knocked out in the hole (possibly the reason I flipped). I was pretty happy with both of my self-rescues. I stayed calm even when I failed, and the result was that I only needed to rest for a half a minute before continuing. There was a time when I needed a lot more to recover because of the panic of swimming.

The rest of the run was uneventful, except that the weather kept changing from cloudy to sunny back to cloudy and drizzly, and finally to full on rain. We got to the takeout fairly late, and I didn't get to participate in the BBQ because I had to run shuttle and bring back the trash we found at the put-in. Afterwards, I visited the group camp for a little while and then headed home. It was another fun day on the Green.