35 river days before the end of May ties my record - this despite having to cut the spring trip short. If I can boat next week, I'll have a new record.
When we got to the put-in, I was a little worried. The water was brown and muddy, which usually happens when the river is running high. I was concerned that they had raised the flow, but I made a phone call and confirmed that it was steady. A combination of rain and snowmelt had brought a lot of silt into the lake, and the dam operators were working to get the silt out.
We had a group of 2 rafts, 3 catarafts, and a couple of IKs. I was in my 11' cataraft for the first half of the trip. I had a very good run and I practiced a lot of technical maneuvers. A short distance into the gorge, we came upon a group of kayakers, one of whom was having a tough day. He caught a ride in one of the rafts, and I carried his boat on the back of mine. This made a couple of places more interesting, but I did fine. I had a great run at The Nozzle.
After we ran the big rapids, I swapped boats with another catarafter. Her boat is tiny - 9.5'x18" as compared to my 11'x20" boat, which is still a very small cataraft. The tiny boat is a lot of fun and easy to control except when I bang the oars on my knees. The toughest thing to get used to is the Oar Rights. These are devices that keep the oars in a specific orientation, which is great when you want them to always be in the "power" position. The problem is that I've gotten used to being able to freely rotate my oars, so I couldn't take advantage of some of my techniques. I almost came out of the boat once, but I was able to stick to the boat.
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