How many friendships have been broken by class V? - Page 2

Curtis_Elwood · 07-26-2005

Bigboater, here is a link to my post in the Alerts section just after the accident. It's pretty self explanatory.

http://www.mountainbuzz.com/viewtopic.php?t=5827

A little more detail, though. Boat-H3 235. Level 650 cfs. After reviewing the footage, I confirmed that she approached the drop perpendicular to the horizon line, but on the right side of the lip, which you know is about two boat widths wide. Her last stroke was on the left, she leaned back and went straight down. Just as the front of her cockpit rim penetrated the water, she pitoned and fell over on her left side. Her right foot had gone under the bulkhead b/c the Pyrahna "team paddler" that sold her the boat cut the bulkhead foam too small leaving a large gap between it and the hull. Her left ankle shattered upon impact. Luckily, she was able to roll up and not get stuffed into the sieve in the run out. I had to unscrew her bulkhead to get her out. I don't want to think what would have happened if she missed her roll. -A point here- I have used the Hand of God on numerous occasions. Practice it. It works.

I am far from the person who should give a tutorial on how to run this drop, but here's what I did. I took a few strokes to get up to speed and aimed for the left side of the lip. I was a half second late on my boof stroke, but still managed to get in a big sweep and using my torso rotation, land nearly parallel to the lip, facing left. I knew my landing angle wasn't ideal, but I got my weight forward and the nose rose fast. The top of my helmet stayed above water. I'd say I went about 3.5 feet deep in my H3 245. Ideally, I would have grabbed the lip a half second earlier, splatted my boof and would have been pointed left. This is the take no chances line IMHO. The two guys who went after me and before her went deeper than I, but were angled left. Next time you're in there, take a look at the spray coming up from the right side of the lip. That's where the rock is. If you get a good launch and angle left, you can probably still go deep safely, but the best plan is probably to try and splat this one.

Curtis_Elwood · 07-26-2005

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milo · 07-29-2005

....wouldn't get too worked up curtis.....i feel it was the impending sense of DOOM that your crew was experiencing....over estimation of their skills(maybe?)....underestimation of the consequenses associated with the run(for sure!)....things just spiraled into "oc" land....bottom line- the paddler got the f'ck out of there safely(still can't believe where they landed the heli!).....the others suffered their way on thru.....after 5 days in the HOLE, emotions were bound to get "oc" as well....you did what you could(as sketchy as it was)....i couldn't find anybody to rap back in and paddle the boats and gear out....sorry......thanks for the rebate!....i have to come clean...when we recovered your video cam.....we had "movie night"....hope you don't mind....glad your boy made the eddy above the TRIPLE DROP.....you sounded very excited on your video!...brent, the ranger man said they heli'd out the rest of your shit....get it back yet?......JUNIOR RANGER 420

Curtis_Elwood · 07-29-2005

Glad you got the chance to have a movie night in there. I knew there were varying degrees of skill on this trip. And yes, I was a bit excited about making sure the paddler in question got into the eddy above Triple Drop. He made it fine, but I thought I'd give him some "encouragement" in doing so. Not many people will see the rest of the video that you did. I will say that only two of our group didn't have some sort of close call on day one. That's a dangerous place down there. It's pretty much blown over on the home front. I'm still a bit ticked about how I was treated by you know who, but I've moved on.

Our gear is back in Buena Vista with a friend and will be making it's way home to us tomorrow or Sunday. It will be a happy reunion. Sure makes you appreciate what it's like being a newbie again having to borrow gear of use your old stuff to get out there on the river. It's nice, though. Reminds me that it's about being out on the river and not how many thousands of dollars you sunk into your kit.

Like I said, any time you're through STL, stop in. I'm closing on a house next month, so my space will open up a bit. Peace.

MONKEY#1 · 07-29-2005

JUNIOR RANGER 420 ... i got a bunch of bananas with your name on em...

...monkeyass out

kymeat · 07-31-2005

I've lost many friendships to Class V. It's usually associated with my pussy ass friends talking shit and not backin it up on the river. There's usually several cases of sandy vag before I pull the plug on my Class V friendships. If you talk the shit but don't run the shit, you ain't worth shit.

-meat

milo · 08-01-2005

....hey kymeat.....are you that hotshot c1'er that was hittin on all our girls up here in the butte?....or are you the other guy, sandy vagman?.... get some hurricane water after leavin' here?....that one gal that loaned us her rig is still asking if "little booboo" is around!!!!....going multisporting next week....if this doen't make sense to you "kymeat", then you ain't worth shit!!!!.......JUNIOR RANGER 420

kymeat · 08-01-2005

I'm your worst nightmare....good H20 when I got home, toxaway-floodstage, near epic, got back to the car at dark, thank god for the brownie at the takeout or I may not have made it....water's gone now for a while, till the enxt hurricane. I'll say hi to the sandy vagman for you, are you all still thinkin about coming this way this fall? You should...I have a river with your name all over it....
kneeler

wes martin · 08-01-2005

Curtis, Was it the class 5 that ruffled the friendship. Looking back at things do you feel like your group had what it takes for a trip down the black. What prior exped experience do ya have? It was yur trip. Was it set up for failure from the git go. You should give a trip report so we can all learn from yur all's experience.

Milo, Thanks for walking my boat off the Animas. I'd love to horn in with again if your still running with the three hot chicks. Those ladies are tougher then wolf pussy. I like it.
Wes Martin

Schizzle · 08-02-2005

Milo,

Are you in the gear-portaging business now? Can I just call you up and have you carry my gear for me? No, you can't drive the golf cart.

If so, I would like to start bringing my play boat down harder runs and then just swap out to my long boat for the hard drops. Like the old William McNealy cartoon about the kayaking caddy/boat quiver. "Um, I think I'll take my #3 playboat for this rapid. . .[later] ooh, tough drop, sloping green, tight line, why don't you hand me my #7 Embudo for this one."

Why don't you make some of your monkeys into boat slaves and we can travel in style with our entire boat quiver? Sculpting young minds is your line of work!