Great Way to Celebrate Dina's Birthday!

Dina's Birthday was yesterday (5/22) and I had the day off. She was kind enough to let me "go play" for the day. And play I did!

I started out the day by meeting Steve up at Alpine Meadows at 7:30, which closed weeks ago, and we skinned up to the top of Ward Peak and then dropped over the back side towards the the Sherwood Bowl chair for two nice, steep corn runs. Then we climbed back up to the top of the peak and skied down to the cars.

Here's Steve heading up:


Here I am up on top of the ridge:


Here's a short run:


After skiing, I drove up over Donner Summit and met Chad, his friend Mike and another kayaker they bumped in to, Buddy, for kayaking the "Summit Run" of the upper South Yuba River (aka Rainbow Lodge run). It's one of my favorite runs, but since I haven't been kayaking much in years, I was a bit nervous. I remember the run pretty well and Buddy knew it cold. It was at a perfect level (bout 650cfs) and dropping in that first rapid from "Hansel and Gretel" bridge was a blast!
Here's a picture of the first rapid from above:



I was concerned about the second big rapid b/c I've seen people get worked in the hole at the bottom, but it went fine. We enjoyed working our way down thsi wonderful "pool and drop" river and I really enjoyed the new line on the big ledge drop that Buddy showed me. Here's the approach and drop:

Chad and I hiked the cascaded above Rainbow Lodge, but Buddy and Mike ran part of it. Impressive! Below Rainbow Lodge, "Double Drop" or "Z Drop" was next. Chad and I had really clean lines on it, and everyone did fine. The whole time I've got the final big drop, "Tombstone", in my mind. Will I run it or not? I've run it every other time I did the river, but... Well, we got down there, I looked at it and I knew my line. What a rush and what a fun rapid!

Here's the drop from below after I ran it:


Here's my run. Unfortunately a big drop of water got on the lens after the first drop.


Now we just had a few little rapids to bop down to the take-out. But lo and behold, Chad and I decide to run a narrow entrance together and we knock each other over. After getting banged up a bit and missing a role I pull the sprayskirt and bail! Oh, the shame of it all. Oh well. Maybe it's just rationalization, but it felt good to "swim" and realize that it's not so bad.

We were famished by the end of the run and enjoyed a beer and sandwhiches. I got home with just enough time to shower, change and go out to a lovely dinner at Lexie's overlooking the Truckee River in downtown Reno with my lovely Birthday Girl.