BRT Insights - WW Kayaking & Hiking: Coloma to Greenwood Run, SF American River, kayaking class II

Sunday, May 13, 2007

Coloma to Greenwood Run, SF American River, kayaking class II

Springtime is a great time for whitewater river kayaking in California

CarolynD's parrot Mabel supervised the loading of our boats & other gear. Then we drove up to Marshall Gold State Park to meet the rest of the group. Check out my guide for the C to G Run (El Dorado County, California, USA).

Old Timer's Paddle

MichelleV, Steve, Mira, Troy, Linda, Barbara, Candace, Tanya, CarolynD & I joined up for an old timer's boating day. There were lots of experienced kayakers in the group who were just kicking back and enjoying a fabulous spring day of kayaking on a sparkling great flow of 1600 cfs. We saw many families of geese and some families of ducks cruising the river with their offspring.

I caught a few waves on the way down to Gremlin wave. Gremin was in its usual snarly mood, yielding long rides only to skilled kayak surfers and quickly rejecting all others. Old Scary rapid is not so scary anymore, especially for a group of kayakers who all have eddy-hopped down much harder rivers. We had a quick lunch at Henningson Park, then did a little more surfing on the way down to Barking Dog rapid. After two brief dips into Barking Dog I decided that the wave was too big and too fast for me on this day, so I retired to the eddy and took pictures of the others. After a handful of kayaking trips with this Olympus 720SW camera I think I'm finally getting comfortable with camera operation on the river.

Additional pictures of this whitewater river trip.
Pictures were taken with an Olympus 720SW waterproof camera.

Through the afternoon we were like an accordian - sometimes drifting apart into small groups, then occasionally grouping back together. There were quite a few other boaters on the river, but it never felt crowded. We got a nice rhythm going on down the river. Run a little whitewater, catch an eddy, surf a little or chat with the eddy-flowers, then run a little more. There was a series of good surfing waves at Swimmers Rapid. I was glad to get a few good surfs and then I eddied out to take more pictures.

Picnic after kayaking - what a great idea !!

We had a potluck picnic barbecue at Marshall Gold State Park. There was great food, great talk, and it was nice to eat and rehydrate before making the drive back home.