Pin Kit, a quick study

Last week we had to pull out a pinned boat and I figure it would be a good idea to create a quick resource for pulley systems and pin kits.

For the simplest system, you would need:

1. webbing or a cordelette for a sling
2. 2/3 carabiners
3. a prusik

This would allow you to create a z-drag or a 3:1.  At this point, every additional pulley would require a prusik and a carabiner.

a simple z-drag:

During our recent boat rescue, the friction from the carabiners seemed quite large and I would recommend getting a few pulleys instead.  These petzl pulleys are cheap and work well. When using a pulley, it is best to use an oval carabiner so the pulley sits balanced.

The brake is also key.  We didn't use one and had to tie it off or keep it tensioned, which is a pain in the ass.

Here are some sample systems.

Depending on what you are doing, the 3:1 or 5:1 is likely enough, but I would probably have used a 12:1 this last weekend.

Images courtesy of http://www.rescueresponse.com/store/technical_pulleys_pt1.html, where you can read alot more about it.

Upper North Fork Poudre

We had heard that the Upper North Fork of the Poudre was running and the gate was open so we decided to make an attempt.  Mike had heard reports that it was low, but runnable.  In fact, it was really low and barely runnable and quite boat abusive.  Despite all that we had some fun and quite a bit of excitement.

After camping at the takeout and heading up to the trails end parking lot, we embarked on the mile hike in.  Damn those land owners.  It sucked hiking way out along a fence line when we had just passed a bridge we could have used as a put in.  All information says to not test the locals, so we obeyed and hated every minute of it.

Despite that it was nice to be kayaking again, er bumping of rocks.  There were quite a few islands and the correct paths were not always clear.  With the water divided between the channels it full on rock humping.  I took one channel and got pinned so bad I had to get out of my boat in the bottom of a mini-drop.  Every little drop held the fear that you were about to boof into a pin or find some wood, but all was well until we reached the 10 footer, which doesn't really like 10'.

We came around the corner fairly tight and saw some ugliness and caught the eddy on river right for a scout.  It was tight, but the four of us piled out and stacked the boats.  Note to all:  don't stack your boats.  As we were negotiating a view of the drop, Tanner's boat slid off the side, into the main channel.  Someone probably could have gotten it, but the instinct were to avoid swimming around above a waterfall so it disappeared around the corner.

Tanner was up on top yelling, "it's fucked now, it's totally f'ed now".  I thought the boat had hit a rock and the bottom of the falls and exploded or something, then I finally saw that it was stuck in a gnarly sieve that non of us even knew was there.  It was actually in a bad spot, as you could easily have ended up getting sucked in backwards if you made a mistake on the entrance to the falls.  It was guarded by two rocks you had to shoot between at low flow.

Tanner's boat was screwed.  There really wasn't a way into the sieve as the rocks creating it were 15' high and no real way down, if you could even get on top.  We spied a 30' log downstream and decided to make a bridge to the sieve.

It was quite sketchy as the end was flimsy and could have broke, but Mike tied off to Tanner and trekked out to secure two bow lines.  We decided it would be best to pull from the other side of the river, so I crossed and we threw the ropes over.

It was a tough extraction.  We set up 2 5:1 systems and yarded for about 3 hours.  We had to switch directions a half dozen times, trying different angles along the bank.  Nothing was working.  Our hands were blistered, our backs and shoulder were sore and Tanner could see it in our faces that defeat was looming.  his hike out would have sucked real bad.  Finally, someone decided to change to an extremely high poistion at the top of a cliff and everything got real easy.  We still had to pull hard and move the second line, but the boat was out and over the falls.  A couple of things we learned.

1. Have multiple pin kits, if it was my boat, it would still be there
2. Don't stack your boats if avoidable
3. Make sure your shit is secure before leaving it on the bank
4. Try many different pulling angles
5. Try using a double 3:1 system for a 9:1 advantage

With Tanner boat out we ran the falls, which was quite anti-climactic.

There were a couple of more rapids, one of note slammed into a wall and almost flipped me, Tanner flipped and nailed a sweet combat roll.  We paddled on down and out.

City of Longmont "Gnar"

Little did you know, Longmont has a park n huck.

So there we were, it had been raining for a couple of days straight and we started driving around looking at rivers.  The Little Tommy was running, kinda.  It was hard to tell, but the bank were full of water as well as willows.  We decided against it.  On the way home, we pulled off at this little puppy.  It was getting dark and unfortunately I had a plane to catch the next morning.  Tanner went back and gave it a go.  Looking good...

Slaughter House

After Frying Pan we headed over to the Slaughter House section on the Roaring Fork river. It was getting late and we put on about 6:30pm. Tanner was feeling tired after 6 days of paddling so it was just Mike and I.

This is one of the juiciest, quality, class IV runs in the state. It goes on and on, it stays pretty consistent in its difficulty for the full four miles. The general character is technical, channelized IV.

We finished it in just under an hour.

Upper Frying Pan

Cousin Allyn informed me I was swaddled in impenetrable jargon so I have added some links on the left frame to help. I can't help with the general extreme sport lexicon.

I guess the Upper Frying Pan would have been our 6th day paddling across Colorado. We left Eagle and headed over this cool pass to the Frying Pan River near Basalt, CO. I loved the scenary everything is green in Colorado right now.

The Upper Frying Pan is a cold technical class IV+ river that has the feel of a creekwith its boulder garden style drops. It had been our list for a couple of years. We took a look at it last year and decided to back down, this year we were feeling a bit more confident, but still put on with some anxiety, as we always do.

The first drops were on us fairly quick and were a load of fun.
As with most unknown rapids we usually scout horizon lines, but we came upon on rapid were the eddy wasn't large enough for all of us. Mike tried to eddy beside me, but decided to charge the rapid rather than flushing into it backwards. He looked good going down and I positioned myself to follow. Tanner had chosen a different line and was also below. I dropped in and apparently chose the wrong line and found myself pinned on a rock. I tried everything to get leverage to move over it or wiggle around it but I wasn't going anywhere. The rapid was rather long and Tanner and Mike were not in eyesight so I blew my whistle for a while and they came to the rescue. Luckily Tanner was on my side of the river and was able to pull me off the rock and send me on down.

It was a good lesson learned. Stay within eyesight and always have one boater stopped on each side of the river.

We regrouped and moved on down through some more fun rapids and finally to what I imagine was the crux of the run. Mike looked for while and decided to walk, Tanner followed. I decided to just portage the opening move and run the majority of the rapid minus the sketchy entrance.
The river was really a lot if fun, the remainder had a less boulder garden style and a more continuous nature.

Headed out

We are headed down to Aspen and then over toward Buena Vista, I'll update you guys when I get an internet connection. Thanks Barb and Don for the 5 star accommodations in Eagle it was great!

Dowd Chute and Upper Eagle

Shortly after meeting up with Mike we decided to forgo the Gore Creek run since they probably had some Teva game competitions on it. We set shuttle and hooked up with the nice guy from Breckenridge that ran the Dowd Chute (Huge Water!) and the Upper Eagle. It was running just over 5.5 feet high on the bridge. This correlates to a a rating approaching V-, but was likely IVish in actuality. I was rather nervous but Mike seemed comfortable. I let him go first.

Dowd Chute from put-in to take out is just over a mile long and was over in less than 10 minutes. The rapid proper is channelized and pretty much the biggest water I have ever been in. Waves that seemed taller than me and probably were, we missed the holes that would swallow a car. You would take huge hits that would move your entire boat laterally 5 feet. Good fun.

After Dowd we enjoyed the relative safety of III+ on the Upper Eagle. I could argue it was harder as once again the waves and holes were enormous. The river was flowing at 2400 cfs and is pretty high. We enjoyed the endless wave trains on down. Thanks to Greg who led the charge as I was feeling rather tentative about the huge water.

No pictures, this water was just moving too fast and we really didn't make and stops.

Eagle Source 09

Good fun today. Headed out early to watch the Teva Games kick of with the Homestake Creek race. It was fun seeing the lines, but the water was low and didn't look that tough. I wanted to see some more carnage.

Shortly afterwards we headed up to the Eagle Source for revenge. Last year some willows tried to destroy my shoulder and I ended up walking two of the three major drops. Not this year. The river is a narrow low flow creek that quickly decends into Redcliff. In the middle there is this cool little mini-gorge.


The river keeps on trucking into a rapid called Not Done Yet. Last year, we read some horror stories about a pin in the middle that was rather dangerous. This year, I decided to man up and hit it. Not before bending and breaking some willow branches that were in the left channel.


That was about it for the Eagle Source. We did have some excitement with a log jam I though I could skirt on the left and missed the move and plowed right into it. Luckily it moved with me. We rolled down to Red Cliff portaged the last wood section and hooked up with these 18 year old lads from Georgia for a ride to the put in. We rolled back down to Minturn and the take out for Dowd chute and Mike showed up 5 minutes later perfect timing.

Sweetwater Creek

Sweetwater Creek is quite possibly the worst run in Colorado. Worst run that I have actually run at least. The fact that it took an entire day is what really kills me. Despite the deadly combination of singletrack boogie water and constant log chokes, the run started off with a really fun drop. So fun, that we hiked back up and dropped it again. Stay left on the flake or you'll careen sideways off a block and end up upside down and backwards as I quickly learned while trying to improve upon my nearly perfect boof the first time.


A different angle shows its character a bit more. Quite fun.
The fun didn't last long. 30 yards downstream was the first portage. The drop could have been runnable against the right wall, but there was just too much wood. After this the river picked up and we dodged rocks and trees in half blocked channels. We came across the next wood choked rapid and Tanner decided it was all good. Famous last words. The picture below is the second log in a three log series.

Just below is another 3/4 blocked channel. I actually had to wade out and grab Tanner's paddle so he could hold on and pull his skirt. If he tried to flush and roll and missed it be would have been screwed as we figured out when we washed close to it after he pulled. It wasn't really that bad, because Tanner told me take a photo and we wouldn't have had the chance to talk with the angry rooster and his Billy Goat friend.


we negotiated the ruffled rooster without incident and put in just below this third log and I headed down to the next bend, the left channel looked clean. Oh man, was I wrong. I tried to grab an eddy and check the next rapid but it wasn't happening. I flushed out the back and saw the next log blocking my path. In horror, I whipped my boat around again facing upstream and started clutching at the willows and rocks. I finally got purchase on some precarious twig. It was a balancing act until I got my left arm on a rock and was able to pop out and get to shore. I tried to tell Tanner the right line was rocky but clean, but he decided to portage as well.

A couple of dozen more tentative trips around blind corners and we came upon a man-made diversion that we decided had too much wood, not to mention a log we would have to ram and boof in the runout. we were right beside the road at this point and decided that was the end of this adventure. Tanner hitched back to the car and I walked down the next gorge to scout. I saw 3 more wood portages in my short walk before Tanner picked me up.

Alkali Creek

Tuesday we got off to a late start because I forgot to run billing before we left. I think right around 1pm we took off for Tenmile creek and the Snake river in Keystone. As we were passing through Wolcott, Tanner mentioned something about this obscure creek that rarely flows and 50cfs is cranking. It is short and gets pretty steep at its best. On a side note, this creek runs right under about 5 zip lines. Some of them are huge. It's kinda crazy. Anyway, Alkali Creek was what we were looking at apparently.

Barely a boat's width wide it starts off winding through the valley towards the canyon's constriction. We knew it was steep in there because you are quite a bit higher than the Eagle river and you can practically see the Eagle river take-out and the put-in from the same vantage point. Quickly the tempo picks up and we saw the first horizon line, I had no idea what we were in for so I hoped out and scouted and yelled up to Tan man that it's all good.



The next drop was weird looking and I thought I would be slammed into the wall. That said, I should have realized the water really wasn't powerful enough to do much. Tanner showed me how and I followed along.


A couple of more minor obstacles and we were at the crux. A fun quadruple drops that really made the run worth it.



A couple of more and we were out on the Eagle.