Greater Yellowstone Guerrilla Kayakers

Winter / Spring 2010

Winter having never fully shown up, I spent an excessive amount of time dreaming about kayaking this winter. Although a few really good days of skiing did occur this winter, in comparison to a typical Jackson Hole winter, this one stunk.

One of the few, really good days on Cody Peak this winter

Finally in late February the winter flows of the Snake rose enough to bring in a low-water surf spot that only sees action from the most water-hungry of paddlers. Typically the "winter wave" as it's called, is surfed by die-hard kayakers in the late fall and early spring. Fed-up with the marginal skiing, Matt Domeland, Elliot Bucholz, Sam Lowenthal and myself (Austin Rathmann) all began making multiple trips a week down to winter wave. We were rewarded with "marginal" kayaking at best, but as any die-hard kayaker knows, "marginal" kayaking, beats just about any other pastime on it's best day.

Austin R. surfin it up early season

Matt Domeland, practicing some freestyle

Elliot Bucholz, Mcnasty anyone?

After a few weeks of mediocre surfing and one miserable road trip to the Casper, WY, playpark for more mediocre surfing, our brains started to seek out other whitewater thrills. The idea soon developed to find a way to get in to run the Henry's Fork River, and Mesa Falls. Our first attempt resulted in an hour and a half hike in through the snow to Lower Mesa Falls. A Huck-Fest ensued and we all felt slightly satiated but were hungry for more. We returned home and the plan to find a friend with a snowmobile began. Sam had a friend with a snowmobile who was more than excited to tow three kayakers several miles up the Henry's Fork so that we could get a little more action, and of course the always classic huck at Lower Mesa one more time.

After driving to Ashton early in the morning, Elliot, Sam and myself tied three throw ropes to the snowmobile and tossed around a few jokes as to how this was going to work. Despite all the skepticism, the snowmobile towed the three of us perfectly and speeds on the straightaways, ultimately reached 45 miles/hour. With several feet of snow still blanketing the area and all roads under snow, I had some difficulty finding the put-in and ultimately had us put on about 2 miles below the good whitewater. Despite my failures as a guide, we had a fun paddle down to Upper Mesa falls and a fairly painless portage around the unrunnable upper falls.

We continued downstream to Lower Mesa and enjoyed our second huck-fest in as many weeks. Seeing as it wasn't even March 15, yet we were stoked to have had such a fruitful pre-season.

Austin R. on Lower Mesa's first drop

All tied in one line for the "tight" spots, snowmobile kayaking is SUPER FUN!

An odd site if I might say so myself

Hiking through the snow, Mesa trip 1

Austin R. Sailing off the Diving board, February 2010

The Weather in Jackson never came around to let boating season truly begin, so two weekend trips occured in April. Trip one, to the Black Canyon of the Bear in Southeast Idaho, Trip two, The North Fork of the Payette, Banks, Idaho. The Bear was releasing on a Sunday only, so we made the trip down and had an incredibly fun time running our first class IV/V of the year with about 100 other boaters from Utah Idaho and Wyoming.

A week later, Matt, Elliot and I all decided to escape the J-Hole weather again and drive to the North Fork of the Payette. Matt and Elliot were North Fork newbies and I was super stoked to take them down. We arrived at the Payette late one thursday afternoon and immediately put-on. Mat and Elliot were super fired up on the upper 5 and both had incredible lines through Nutcracker. We met up with my friend Micah Kneidl on the Middle 5 and good lines continued all the way through Bouncer down the Middle, but at Pec fate stepped in. Fatigued from the drive and 7 miles of non-stop whitewater Matt, flipped in Pec and got beat up by some rocks on the river-bottom. after several roll attempts Matt swam and felt first hand why people say you don't want to flip, much less swim on the North Fork.

We scooped matt from the river quickly(quickly in North Fork Standards) but his boat and paddle were moving downstream. Matt was feeling beat up but no worse-for-the-ware and Micah and I continued downstream after the boat/paddle. I quickly found/recovered matt's paddle and as I went downstream, saw Micah had retreived the kayak. both were in perfect shape miraculously, so we continued down to Jake's to take out and regroup with the crew.

All tired from driving/paddling we opted to take off for the day and tackle a top-to-bottom the next day.

After a relaxing night of Hot-Springs, Elliot and I put on the next morning for a full top to bottom. Matt's shoulder was feeling off so he opted to take photos/drive shuttle. The next 3 hours were a sweet sweet welcome back to one of my favorite rivers on the planet and an incredible introduction for Elliot. We paddled all 15 miles with Elliot walking Jake's and myself choosing to give 'er a go. At the bottom my soul was refreshed and Elliot looked like a kid who'd just been to his first amusement park. It was a perfect day, and we would return home the next morning all smiles and excitedly anticipating the whitewater waiting around the corner.