Fordyce is fun!

It's 10pm on a Friday night and I just go back from a long day on Fordyce creek. It was a great day with lots of fun rapids and a fair amount of good luck - most especially the opportune free shuttle we got when we pulled up to the put in and found a group of boy scouts getting off the lake after a three day backpack/canoe trip. One of their leaders was only too happy to drive my truck out so they could have a little extra room in their one vehicle for all twelve people. And he decided to drive it all the way to the take out (we only asked if he could get it back to the freeway) and he refused to take any money for it (we offered cash first thing). The shuttle road is steep 4-wheel drive only and since our shuttle vehicle was a Jetta we had planned on doing a combo car/bike shuttle which would have been a killer workout on top of a long day of paddling.

This was my first time down Fordyce and it was a great run. There are some really nice slides and drops, some big falls and a fair bit of mank at this low water level. But even better than the paddling was the scenery - smooth granite everywhere you looked. Huge walls of the stuff that you only get in the High Sierra. It was just Matt and I and he was leading the whole day since he's done the run a few times. When he fired off Fordyce Falls (pictured left) I just had to follow him. When he ran Split Falls I wasn't as sure but I still followed and all went well. And when we made it to the paddle across the lake at the end of the day we only had a nice cool breeze and a setting sun instead of the usual killer headwind and struggle to finish before dark.

I'll get to editing the video next week - teaching again this weekend. Hopefully the big drops came out well...
UPDATE: video is here: