CO Day Seven

Thursday June 25th

Cloudy and cool morning. Decided to try to get a Brown’s run in in the morning and then do the Pinnacle section (right before the Royal Gorge) in the afternoon. Got a late start, though. And then when we got to the put-in, T was feeling lightheaded and dizzy. We decided to wait a bit to see if she felt better after eating and drinking some more. J took the time to go into town to get a new knife. Finally, around 11, T said she felt about 75% and was willing to give it a go, but maybe try paddling easier lines. The weather was very hot and sunny by this point, so the getting on the water felt great.

It was all smooth sailing, fun riding the waves and holes. We pulled out at the sandy beach above zoom flume so T could walk it. J and I scouted it a bit, since the level had gone down since the last time we ran it. There appeared to be a sneak on the left of the giant hole today. But I was determined to make it through on the traditional right side. J went first and styled it, of course. I PLH’d over to the right and went too far right and got stuck in a sticky/swirly eddy that didn’t want to let me go. But eventually I made it out, although afterwards T said she couldn’t believe I hadn’t flipped. Check out the video to see how I did. I was excited that I didn’t have to roll or swim out!

We continued on down the exciting rolling waves, with T just flying out of the water in her Juice. It was fascinating for me, being in the third position, to see the difference between J in his mega rocker and T in her juice. Good times. We stopped off at the jumping rock to do some jumping. T decided not to go, but J and I went right up. After a quick bout of RPS, J lost and had to go first. Then I went. It was awesome! It feels so cool to go down so deep and then bob back up so quickly. It was so fun that we both went again. That’s where the CF of the day came in. I had decided to try to do a tuck bomb, but what happened was upon hitting the water, my watch on my vest flew up and smacked me in the forehead. It immediately raised a ½ dollar sized lump. Ouch! It really hurt. And after that I couldn’t put my helmet back on. I had to try to be careful on the rest of the run, which was only about 20 more minutes.

We had planned on getting out at the furthest spot, but because of my head and T’s lack of energy, J decided to go on alone and let us get out at the earlier spot. We had to wait quite a while, but finally he drove in. Turns out he had to ride the dirt bike through pouring rain (which hadn’t reached us on the river). Poor guy. By this time it was 3:30 and we were all beat. So no Pinnacle run for us. After eating an early dinner, J read and T and I watched a movie. It was called Speed and was about extreme mountain skiing. We both decided that we’d like to give that a try :)

Last full day tomorrow. We’re hoping to do the pinnacle and royal gorge both.

-Missy