Three days in the Devils Postpile

After having an awesome time on Upper Cherry Creek (story to come soon) Jess, Matt, Shannon and I headed to Sonora for some well-earned R and R. Checking the flows online at Starbucks it looked like the Devil’s Postpile (Middle Fork of the San Joaquin) was the next big adventure. With a quick call to Taylor Cavin we now had a team of three – Shannon, Taylor and myself. We were still looking for another member to join our team but most people had work or other obligations. While we waited to hear back from other people, we had a daytime mini movie marathon. 

With a good night of sleep behind us, we met up with Taylor in Sonora. We decided to rally to Mammoth in one car after Jess kindly offered to do shuttle. The goal was to put on that evening but with the drive taking longer than expected, Dan Menton (group member #4) rallying straight from UCC and Kevin Smith inviting us to his house for a BBQ in Mammoth Lakes, the put on was delayed until the morning.

Flows still holding steady, we made our way into the Devil’s Postpile National Monument. We put on the Middle San Joaquin just above Rainbow Falls. This was a bad idea because the paddling took roughly three times longer than the walk would have, due to lots of wood in the river. After walking round Rainbow Falls we put back on the river.

A short section of whitewater and one rapid, called Mini Rainbow Falls, we started the biggest portage of the trip. It was about an hour, on river left, before we got back to the river. Once putting back on, the river felt very pushy. It was a tight gorge with boulders sitting on solid bedrock. We made our way down one of the best rapids of the trip – a clean 15 foot drop into a 5 foot drop into a 5 foot drop. The variety of rapids was huge. Small waterfalls, 300 foot slides, chunky holes and tight gorges all with beautiful scenery. 

Mini Rainbow Falls

Me on the first clean 15 footer

Taylor Cavin

Shannon Mast getting ready to keep his nose up

Dan Menton in a tight gorge

Dan still in the tight gorge

Seal launch into Crazy Fan Falls

Looking at the Crazy Fan and Dan

Start of the slide section

More slides

Best for last, the 300 foot slide into boof

While paddling through Waterfalls Gorge, Mexico Gorge and Boof-O-Matic Gorge there was very little portaging. The ones that did need portaging were all at river level and quite short. Once we exited Boof-O-Matic Gorge we arrived at our campsite for the night, just upstream of Fish Creek (a tributary on river left).

Entrence to Waterfalls Gorge

Perfect 20

 Boof-O-Matic from the ramp

One of the many fish caught on the trip, great fishing everywhere

It was a beautiful night, but an hour into my sleep I was awoken by Taylor and Dan when they found a rattlesnake. The snake was quite big and had 14 rings on his rattler. We spent a while chasing it out of camp before we could go back to sleep. 

In the morning we forgot to give Taylor a timeframe so at 10.40am we put on the river. Fish Creek came in quickly adding a lot more water than we hoped. The gorges opened up to a wider valley floor that gave things more of a big water feel. We had paddled about an hour when Barny Young and Blue Eyes Nick caught up to us. They had set off three hours earlier in the hope to catch us. The were trying hard to catch us after Charles King got his boat stuck the day before and they had spent three hours trying to extract it. The boat stayed, so Charles had to hike out which meant that their team was down to two.

An early boof on day two

 The rapids of the day were steep, bouldery and mostly good to go with a few river level portages thrown in there. Just after lunch we arrived at the entrance to The Crucible. The first rapid is a portage on river left requiring team rope work. It took us almost as hour for all six of us to be back in our boats below the portage. On second thought this rapid could have been portaged on river right starting upstream at the Miller Crossing bridge, which would have saved time and not been as risky. 

Team Portage

Looking into the Crucible

We paddled a few more rapids then got to a big one with a log in the middle. We decided to portage on the left. After putting back on we found ourselves stuck in the gorge with no good eddies and all the water going under some downstream boulders. I saw a crack upstream that I knew I could climb out of, but not with my boat. Barny grabbed my boat as I started to climb up the wall. Once at the top of the gorge I attached a rope to a tree for other people to climb out on. I climbed back down to water level and used my sling, attaching to the front of each boat, to hold them in place so each person could climb out and up without losing their boat. 

After a few more tricky portages we were exhausted but managed to find a good campsite. The downside to camping in the middle of The Crucible is that you still have the must-run rapids downstream which can make it hard to sleep.

Day two camp, fish on the hot stone

Learning from the previous morning, we gave Taylor a timeframe. Up at 6am and leaving at 8.30am, in the hopes of being on the water by 9am (we left camp at 8.45am). Within half an hour we were looking into the crux of the run. Barny and I managed to run a sneak chute on river right of the first rapid so that we were able to set up safety for everyone else. The next rapid was Broken Arrow, which had a good line down the middle. With a big pool and no real way to scout the next two rapids, Nick probed the double right line that ended with everyone getting backlooped in the bottom hole. The last rapid of the gorge was a pothole on the left – everyone got a good boof in and then we had made it out of The Crucible. We took a few moments to rejoice and take in the awe of our surroundings - one of the grandest places I’ve ever been

Rapids leading into The Crucible

Looking into the first must-run rapid

High flows, pushy water

 Shannon boofing the left line

Taylor above Broken Arrow

Boofing Broken Arrow

The first blind rapid, we went right

Second blind rapid, right again into back loop

From the bottom of The Crucible to the lake was a mixture of great rapids and obvious portages. The South San Joaquin and other tributaries were still flowing at a good level meaning that the last section was still very pushy. Taylor’s description for the line on one rapid was “Down the right and fight… There will be holes... Go for it, Daan”. Even the last rapid into the lake saw most people get tail-stood. 

 Just after the Crucible, water falls on river right

Taylor fishing

Such a beautiful place

More pushy rapids

Barny on Kidney Breaker

Taylor getting his stomp on

 Once on the lake there was a seven mile paddle out to the boat ramp. Barny spent the first half an hour drafting behind me and talking to everyone on a jet ski. After a few attempts he managed to get us a ride on some jet skis. Getting towed behind a jet ski was more complicated than first thought, so the jet ski drivers took us to their camp and upgraded our ride to a jet boat. The remaining hour and a half paddle out was completed in seven minutes. Shannon, Dan and Taylor weren’t as lucky so they had to paddle the seven miles unassisted. On the brightside, there was cold beer and chips waiting at the boat ramp for them.

The boat ride back

Overall the flow we had was high however it did fill in a few of the nastier holes and it gave a bit of cushion where there would normally be sieves. 

Next year Taylor and I are going to hold the first annual Devil’s Postpile Fishing Classic - a multi-stage competition including largest fish, best cooked fish and the most catch and release in an hour.

Cheers to Jess for the shuttle (a small feat in itself).

Royally Thrashed on Royal Gorge

The big decision this week was where to go... Within a few days Royal Gorge, Dinkey Creek, the South Merced, Devil’s Canyon and Bald Rock Canyon had all come in. For our group of seven: Daan, Shannon, Matt, Lou, Tyler, Gordy and myself – Royal Gorge was on. We shanghai-ed a driver (Ryan), a wagon that could fit all (Mum) and we were off.

Mum, in all her glory

Some major fluffing around, a few wrong turns, some 4WD action, lots of snow (for July), an empty gas tank and one big truck to hitch a ride with meant that we were finally at the river and starting to paddle at 5.30pm. Royal Gorge is a three day wilderness trip up high on the North Fork of the American. Royal Gorge itself is 16 miles (two days) and then a long paddle out on Generation Gap and Giant Gap (26 miles on day three). 5.30pm was less than ideal for a start on day one.

Hitching a ride down the last five miles (Pic: Tyler Fox GoPro)

 The latest Bromance... Matty and Shan (Pic: Tyler Fox GoPro)

The locals kindly reminded us that the first five miles would be through private property so we would not be able to stop until after then. Some fun rapids, an induction into Royal Gorge portaging and fading daylight saw us ignore the plentiful “No Tresspassing” signs and pitch an incognito camp about three miles in.

Daan checking out some early Royal action, late on day one

Sweet campsite on the first night 

 ShanDog chilling out

We woke early, planning for a big day to catch up on what we should have paddled the first day. Daan’s night of sickness didn’t help so much, so it was around 9am by the time we got on the water. The next part had some cool rapids through a couple of mini gorges before we got to Heath Springs (about four miles in). This is the home of Heath One (clean 40 foot drop) into a short pool then straight into Heath Two (60 foot drop). It’s a spectacular place.

Shan on the Breakfast Drop

Heath Springs

 Looking at, and into Heath One (Pic: Tyler Fox GoPro)

A bunch of the team fired Heath One, resulting in a couple of clean lines, one skirt implosion, two broken paddles and one swim. Matt’s swim wasn’t so bad (he got to the side pretty quick). The problem was that we didn’t manage to rescue his boat or paddle before they disappeared over the horizon line of Heath Two (there is still debate whether the paddle was in two parts or one, video footage suggests still in one piece). Sure enough his boat ended up in the massive and severely undercut cave on river left. The pool and cave at the bottom of Heath Two are completely walled in except for a decent drop exiting the pool. You can drop into there and then paddle out… Or you end up abseiling in. 

Tyler Fox givin' her on Heath One

 Matt Coles on Heath One, before things got exciting

Looking into Heath Two... The cave is on river left, out of sight

We set up a solid anchor in a massive crack on river left, using six of our seven throwbags and almost every biner and prussick on hand. Matt abseiled 60 feet down, clipped a line onto his boat and then prussicked back up. The boat got hauled up and around, and two hours later Matt and his Pitonicon were reunited. 

Boat retrieval: Matt scenic-ascending out of Heath Two

So now, around 12.30pm and having lost a bit of our ‘flow’ we started walking around Crux Gorge, below Heath Two. We were certainly thinking about the fact that it was lunchtime on day two and we were still technically paddling day one of Royal Gorge. On a steep descent back to the river, I slipped and didn’t let go of my boat fast enough. There was some forward flipping action down a reasonably steep rocky bank before finally coming to a fortunate stop. One seriously sprained ankle and a smashed elbow, thanks.

So on my bum, with Lou helping out and the boys shuttling boats around, we all made it back to river level. The in-between paddling of the “big drops” is mostly Class IV – IV+ boogie with a few bigger drops scattered in there. We had some nice boulder gardens and drops down to Rattlensnake - the end of day one for most, but for us 3.30pm on day two.

Lou firing it up on day two

The rest of the afternoon passed pretty quickly, mostly because people were starting to get tired with scouting, portaging and carrying my boat (because I really couldn’t). We passed Scott’s Drop (a milestone) and started portaging Wabena about 6.45pm. A steep, below average, rocky, vicious manzanita and poison oak-infested portage that seemed worse than it probably actually was. We were tired. 

We camped up on a beach below Wabena, happy to have a fire and looking forward to food and rest. Before long we heard a helicopter, which proceeded to circle us super low and numerous times before finally landing on the beach across from us. As it turns out, we weren’t the only ones to have an adventure that day. The chopper was on the hunt for Heath Springs to heli-evac out a guy who had broken his back earlier that day.

The rescue chopper that wasn't for us

Another early start and we were on the water again. Getting my foot into my boat was a mission, as was the ensuing pain. The paddling seemed to mellow a little and we felt like we were making good time. We had left a vehicle at the trail between Generation Gap and Giant Gap, in case we wanted to get out early (it was also so we could potentially finish Royal Gorge early and get to Dinkey Creek). The day dragged on and on, as did the miles of paddling. At best, we estimated that we would have had perhap four miles left of Royal Gorge and then 12 miles on Generation Gap. Turned out to be the longest '16' miles, ever. 

By 4pm we were starting to think we had missed the trail, which would mean paddling Giant Gap (14 more miles) that evening with pretty much no food, but half a bottle of Jagermeister. We weren’t really looking forward to a potential night out either. But as things would have it we paddled a rapid that did a 90 degree bend, followed soon by a small tributary on river right and a footbridge across the river. 5.30pm and we had made the trail. Just 2000 feet of vertical gain and two miles of steep switchbacks between us and the end of Royal. Tired, broken, sick, injured, hungry and thirsty it took the better part of 2 ½ hours before we all met at the top, shuttle done and with chips, beer and Gatorade… Happy to be done.

Matt and Lu celebrating

Royally bitten on the hike out