Lets hear about your swim(s), in 2008 (so far)

[doublet]

&d - can you elaborate on the cave escape route? I've heard it mentioned a couple of times, but nobody has ever explained the details...

[&d]

First of all (duh) the cave escape route is no substitute for proper safety.

Having said that, its pretty narrow, if you weigh more than 160 or so it might not go. I had to take my lifejacket off to squeeze through, and I weigh 140 at 5'6". If you ever find yourself in that cave (hopefully in your boat at a nice low flow) look up where the water is falling down from, that's your escape route. It isn't very obvious, fortunately I was with someone who knew about it.

[blutzski]

...and &D pulls into the lead...

Yikes!

[Phillips]

Swam on Clear Creek of the Ark twice at 350. Lost two paddles and broke my boat before the second swim in the second gorge. Had to hike/climb out of the second gorge. Man I'm out of shape. had to lay down in the grass and pray that heart rate would eventually drop below 140. Way too young for an MI. Bruised shoulder, ass, feet and ego. Does anyone know where I can get a new creeker

[mania]

okay this is for someone else since he doesn't do internet. his name is BH aka coverboy and he swam vallecito both yesterday (entrance) and today (no way out). it didn't sound too pretty but he is okay of which I am very glad since he is a dear friend of mine. be careful out there boys and girls. If he can swim anyone can.

[craven_morhead]

Swam today in the run-out of Sports Car on the Poudre Narrows. Got knocked down by a lateral when I wasn't paying attention, and then when I set up to roll my paddle snagged a rock and was pulled out of my hands.

You may note that there is another thread about my lost paddle. Myself and my boat are fine. The drysuit works.

[KSC]

Man &d, glad you got out ok, that sounds bad. Honestly though, are you not fessing up to zipping up the suit all the way or something? I don't see how that much water could get in your suit without it being obvious what happened. I just got a drysuit this year and made the rookie mistake of leaving the relief zipper open during a run - scared me straight.

I've had one swim on Canyon Creek in Washington. It was on the Big Kahuna, the main waterfall on the run. Apparently I didn't know what I was doing (what do I know about waterfalls...) because I thought I was on line, but when I hit the bottom I did a monster stern squirt out of the water, my boat caught air and I flipped over backwards, rolled right up, but the water was pushing hard into a slightly undercut wall on the river right. Before I could paddle away, I hit the wall, flipped, and then rolled up again against the wall. I thought I'd made it as I put my arm against the cliff wall to brace myself, but got flipped again, tried to roll but got rejected under the undercut and think I swallowed a bit a of water on that failed roll. Tried to set up again, but was getting nothing but wall. I'm sure a better man would have hung in there, but given that I knew I was in a giant pool, I pulled and swam my stuff to shore.

[ski_kayak365]

Got a swim on the class II- wavetrain under the highway 50 bridge at the start of Royal Gorge at 2800 today. Missed three rolls then started hitting rocks with shoulder and head. Was even thinking to myself that this is the dumbest swim ever as I pulled my skirt. Full self rescue to the 1st island. Sure better than a class V swim though.

....and yes, completed my booty beer requirement...

[BastrdSonOfElvis]

Royal gorge today with some friends in a raft. Beers all around at corner pocked (below just about everything). Ditched my paddle in the raft and decided to use hand paddles the rest of the way:

4 or 5 beers + hand paddles + high water = swim

Got sucked down pretty low in a big eddy line for a bit, feet on the bottom looking up at the shimmery surface. Bashed around a bit. Lost a hand paddle. Deserved it.

[tango]

haven't swam from my kayak (yet) this year. maybe i'm not challenging myself enough lately? but today i flipped a raft while guiding commercially at 1 & a half on the numbers. the flow was 2360 or so as of 7 AM. probably at least 2401.314 cfs by put in time.