Lower Blue 7-12-09

Where's Devil's Thumb?

I think I like this Pictures before the right up thing. The wildflowers were amazing with all the rain this summer.
The Devil's Thumb
Devil's Thumb Lake

The Mountain Dog

Gunnar found a snow field and repeatedly slide down it. It was his first time on snow and he was loving it. Next winter should be fun, but lets enjoy summer for now.

Byers, Bills and the Gores

Val and Gunnar on the way down.

Val and I decided to hike up to devil's thumb yesterday so we packed up lunch and hit the road. Long story short it took us an hour and a half to find the trail head. It should have taken about a half hour. While looking for the trail head Gunnar our new dog threw up in the back. Luckily there was a sheet in the back so we rolled it up wash off some of Val's gear and headed to the trail head. The hike was 7 miles with around 3000 feet of verticle and takes about four hours.

We got the trail head and started the hike. We made it about a 1/4 mile and Gunnar left Val a present to hike with.

Swim Lessons on Clear Creek

Write-up below besides pictures are easy. Andy and I in the PCat with Wayne Following
Entrance to Outer Limits

Hole #2 of Outer Limits

Hole #3 and almost dumping in Outer Limits

Still Upright

Wayne in Outer Limits

A little drop in the Town section

Wayne in the same drop

Andy and I decided we would run the Dumont section of Clear Creek. This is definitely a step up so I put a post on mountainbuzz to see if we could get a crew together. We were able to get four boats together, safety in numbers is the name of the game. The crew ended up being Glenn +crew, Wayne, Matt+SSfatkid, Andy and I. Glenn and I had talked about running from the culverts down and decided against that and putting in down stream. When I talked to Glenn the next mourning we opted to run from the culverts down.

Andy and I were in third with Wayne running sweep and the other two boats ahead. Wayne was really solid and had been boating for decades so we felt confident with him running sweep. The first part of the river is a lot of 3-5 foot poor overs with not much time in between. It would have been nice to have some longer paddles (already went and bought some new ones) because a lot of the time we were digging into air. One of the drops turned us sideways and we were digging in air to right ourselves. Funny thing about air it doesn't create the resistance that water does so over the drop sideways we go. We both get tossed out of the boat and get flushed quick. We end up swimming two drops with me holding onto Andy like I am his mother. After the second drop I was able to get back into the boat and pull Andy in as we went over the third drop.

We had a couple of extra paddles rigged but had no time to get them between drops. We went over about four drops like two cats trying not to get wet. After the forth drop we got pushed into some slack water and were able to get to the river left side. We took awhile sitting on the side to get are breath back and let our juevos drop back down. I couple of kayakers got one paddle and Wayne the other so nothing was lost. We got back on the river and had a really clean run after that with some really fun drops. Stopped and had lunch and a beer at the park with everyone and then Wayne, Andy and I continued on to Kermits. All in all it was a great day. I felt really comfortable in the water today and kept my wits about me. Andy even agreed that he would go with me again..... Good Times had by all.