Getting Scared on the Green

I've decided to do a little post here about the Green River. This Gnars update is a bit different though, because lately, circumstances have made the Green River Narrows a bit scarier than normal...


Two Billy Goats waiting in the Notch Eddy. At the extremely low levels the river has been these days, the pad on the Gorilla has been quite a nerve-racking spot. Here we have Billy Jones and Billy Murphy inspecting the crashing wave that has formed at the lip of an already terrifying drop.


A strategy many have started to use is the drive right-to-left plan. Here Murph adds the extra thurst in his boof stroke to counter-act the left-to-right crashing force of the launch-pad. Ain't no thang but a chicken wang to "Big Water Billy" (a name he recently picked up on a stout mission up to the Mecatina River in Quebec, Canada.)


Here I am, doing the same. The playboat adds an extra factor of ass-hole-puckered-up-ness to it all. At this freeze-frame in time, you must equal your weight back out to the left to land flat in the trough. This picture makes it look like I'm about to crash hard on the Christopher Columbus Shelf, but I landed right where I wanted to be, in the middle of the trough. Thanks to Jon Angermier for snapping the pic.


Do the hokey-pocky, spin yourself around, that's what it's all about!!! I've been LOVING the Riot Nitro for downriver play. Check out Adam Herzog's Blog for some Russell Fork pics and more freewheels!


Just when you think you've seen every line on the Green, the boys find more ways to piss your pants. Here we have Billy Jones seal-launching in above Groove Tube, after running the river-right drop of Nutcracker. What is really sik about this sequence they've been doing, is it's a hot-hot move. Meaning, hot off the seal-launch into the Tube, then with-out stopping in between, hot off Sunshine.


Adam Bixby drags the knuckles Hot Hot. Nicely done, brotha!


Jon Angermier, a Charlotte transplant to Brevard, dropping into the pit of Hammer Factor like a mother bird, hacking up some yack from the back of her throat to feed to her young.


Some folks have been getting scared by hiking up and jumping back into the maw of the Factor. Redneck yell required before launch.


Speaking of launching, Yonton "the Vonton" Mehler of Astral Buoyancy was spotted launching one gargantuan boof off this tall drop of water.


I turned 20 on Septemeber 15th. I met Clayton, Pat and Jon at the river to celebrate in the finest of ways. We met early so I could get back to Crown Town in-time for work, but we kept running out of water. So we decided to pull over and wait for the river to fill up at Go Left. After chilling out for a bit on this rock, Chris Gragtmans showed up as well, paddling off Boofer in the Green Boat. We proceeded downstream and I caught the Birthday Eddy for the second time ever, (last time was last year on my birthday.) It is one of the most terrifying things you can do in a kayak. Thanks to the boys for celebrating with me! (No pics of the eddy, it's one of those moves you don't want to wait around too long before dropping in!)


The next weekend I let this dude, Keel from Oregon, borrow my boat. It was the first time since last Green Race I paddled a long boat down the Green, (the last scary-as-shit thing I'm going to cover on this post.) Last year I was convinced at the last minute to paddle a Pirouette S down and do the Ironman. This year I figured I might as well get used to it, so I took my buddy Pablo's Wavesport Excel. It's a very pointy boat; Pointy, on the Green, means scary. Thanks Pablo, for letting me abuse the boat.

Lately, I've been skeered on the Green. Tis' the season.