i'll post again later- this is from another friend here in town.....russel kelly: gone to the spirit river
ophirian russel kelly has gone on to the spirit river long before his time. he was undoubtedly one of the worlds top paddlers, but more importantly, he was a friend and inspiration to many, myself included. i'll spin a yarn in his honor to share some of the ways I knew him on a level that i think few people except those closest to him did.
3 or 4 years ago, after i hadn't boated with russel for quite some time he interested me in going to crested butte on a june weekend to paddle oh! be joyful creek with him. i was worried that it might be a little much for me after all the crazy stories i had heard about it but, true to form, russel was my guardian angel for the day and walked the whole run from bottom to top along the creeks edge, pointing out all the critical moves. after watching him ace the waterfall above the put in that most people don't run due to the tiny landing zone surrounded by shallow rocks, we stroked it down through the first 2 technical and tight drops and then launched the first waterfall, making a shallow landing in the center of the pool to avoid the rocky landing on the right. thanks for the tip, russ! we continued working our way downriver. me: nervous but psyched. russel: all fired up and showing more confidence in me than i had in myself. it helped and i was thankful. we would cruise the class 4 boogie water, him leading, me following. he would always be there in that critical eddy offering me the beta on the next drop just in case i wanted a reminder. he always offered me the option to go first, which i did a few times, not being one who likes to follow much except when out of my comfort zone. on the second waterfall, i pencilled in perfectly but due to a loose left shoulder that likes to come out at inoppurtune times, i was holding my elbows in tight against my sides, not proper waterfall technique. well, as sure as snow melts and we will paddle it, the paddle that was so snugly laid across my lap snapped neatly in two. two paddles better than one? i think not. toss one half and use the other half to roll up and get your butt into the eddy or you're going down avalanche falls shy half a paddle. russel waited patiently while i ran back to the camper to get my backup. no bummer for him to wait, he was on his favorite creek in the world! and, no heckling for my amateur waterfall faux pas, though for sure i had earned it and would have heckled him endlessly had he broken his in the same way. russel, lorne and i all aced avalanche falls and the complicated drops below it that many boaters don't run. my first run on oh! be careful (that's what russel called it, it's real name being oh! be joyful) was mighty fine, mighty fine. many thanks to russel for being the man that he is. kind, helpful, considerate. not necessarily the character traits he was best known for around town. my favorite people do seem to be better known for their wilder side.
sunday ,we went on to paddle the double "spider" rated class 5+ ruby fork of anthracite creek, a personal first for each of us. russel and lorne both are some of the best paddlers anywhere to tackle a complicated, wilderness creek run of this difficulty with. they treated me as an equal, though i wasn't so sure i was worthy of it. this run earns its double "spider" rating due to the 3 difficult portages around nasty sieves and the 27 log jams we encountered which often suprised us at the last moment. it made for a long day, but luckily there was always a mini eddy right where we needed it and we made good time getting downriver considering the epic nature of the run. kyle, a grand junction boater we had met at the put in, broke his boat running a nasty pile of rocks that looked more like an irrigated boulder field than a rapid, requiring a big hike out of the remote canyon. us three Ophirians knew better than to take that kind risk in a remote location and we struggled our way along the shore around the drop and completed the run without any problems.
although many thought of russel as reckless, those who had paddled what he called "the sick!" with him knew him to be an elite world class expedition paddler in possession of uncommonly good river judgement. how else could you survive the multiweek self support class 6+ super epic solo descents he had done all over the himalaya. (read that phrase again carefully! it is sounds heavy...and it is) he wanted me to join him for some "fun" in asia one fall. i passed on the offer and when he returned to ophir that winter to score some of his beloved colorado "whitewater" in its frozen form, we gathered at the Finn after skiing to tell our tall tales from our respective fall adventures. though i am known to some for my adventurous ways and am thought of as reckless by many, russels tales were always very much taller than mine. still, he would listen attentively to my stories of my little paddling adventure to run class 4 rivers in the jungles of ecuador. they paled in comparison to his epics. at his mention of many class 6+ rapids that he had to run for lack of any possible portage or escape back upriver left no doubt in my mind that i had made the right decision. i was alive and happilly enjoying one of jay raibles fine margaritas at the Finn and wouldn't be if i had tried to tackle those rivers. but he could and did, boasting only a little, but mostly just wishing that he could have shared the privelidge of visiting some of the worlds most secret, beautiful and remote places with some of his buds from the windy valley. the 9/11 tragedy had prevented him from continuing on to pakistan that fall to paddle the Baltoro river from it's source at the Baltoro glacier. but, no worries for russel! "where we gonna paddle this spring?" was his response.
russel was a finely honed paddling machine, having cut his teeth on the premiere class 5 training run in north america, the north fork of the payette in idaho. he picked off the easier rapids first and gradually worked his way up to paddling the whole 17 mile 1700 foot descent at all water levels, including the 6,000 cfs or higher flows of big snowpack years believed by many to be a "die if you swim" level. lucky him! safety boating on the south fork of the payette and camping just across the highway from the north fork. not just any north fork...THE north fork! it is a dangerous river but learn your lessons here and you will be ready for anything, anywhere
we had the good fortune to spend some time with russel and annie in chile last january. although both angelina and i were having back trouble and couldn't paddle with him, we couldn't wait to hook up with them and hear about his runs through the Colca canyon and the Abismo of the Apurimac, two of the hardest, most remote and challenging runs in all of south america. angelina and i had paddled the 3 day class 4/5 commercial run on the apurimac and had wondered of the epicness of the Abismo that lay hidden a few miles below our takeout. true to form, russel had successfully run both the abismo and the Colca with his friend damon of durango and a local peruvian, juanito. he regaled us with stories of the upper canyon of the Colca, which they had made the second descent of, scurrying around the sieves carrying their fully loaded boats over their heads to protect themselves from the constant rockfall. that was the scariest moment of the trip for him. they found the polish account of their first descent in 1982 to be just a little overly dramatic. russel and damon ran many rapids that the poles had portaged, but to be fair the poles had used a ragged second hand paddle raft and a couple of beat up old fiberglass kayaks that they had tortured on their paddling adventure from the western US all the way to deepest peru. they simply didn't have the equipment, nor had paddling abilities or boat designs evolved to the point where the worlds most difficult and fearsome rapids could be slayed by their capable team.
yes, russel stared down the river dragon many times. he took his lickings occaisionally but mostly popped into the eddy below sick! drops hungry for more. he and damon continued south in chile to slay the 3 canyons of the baker (Russel quiet and pensive before running the first drop, knowing it would all come out fine but mortally scared just the same) and on to make the second descent of the Rio Pascua, even further south. we pelted him with emails hoping to hear the stories as they unfolded. he didn't let us down. the last time we saw them in chile they were querying a chilean guacho about some local waterfalls they has heard about. classic scene! boater dirtbags in the patagucci baggies and nappy t shirts and the gaucho all stylish on his horse with his burgundy beret. we all went down by the river to fish a little and have some lunch before angelina and i headed across the andes and into argentina on some little travelled, dusty mountain road. they, headed ever further south, in search of the sick!
one of my fondest memories of russel is
dream your wildest life and live your wildest dreams! russel did and we're all the richer for it even if he did go to the spirit river long before his time. i hope the ophirians will honor his inspiring life with a giant bonfire with all the trimmings. i think you know what i mean. you know i would if i was in hte valley.
big wave dave
kwazulu/natal, south africa