Back to the South Feather: how a Hobbit falls 30 feet!

October 23, 2008

By Stephen Wright

Yesterday I had the opportunity to paddle with Phil Boyer, Reno hot-shot Luke, Darin McQuoid, young Jason Craig–straight out of a quarter with New River Academy (Huge Experiences), and two other truckee transplant paddle masters. We headed over to the South Feather once again, making thing my 3rd run of the season. I’ve been doing some research on that 30 foot falls, and people have been saying encouraging things: it goes great! It’s been haunting my dreams since last week, but the question of falling 30 feet into a potentially very shallow pool was unsettling. Darin and Ben Stookesberry have been running it every time without incident which was encouraging.

After working our way downstream through the opening 3 drops, we found ourselves at the lip/portage line at the big fella itself. Darin didn’t even get out of his boat, but waited patiently for us to set-up for photos. I was feeling pretty confident but was happy to watch Darin ace the move first from behind my camera. His run was great–a late boof to 30 degree landing. Phil went next–unfortunately, he boofed early , caught his stern on the shelf 1/2 way down, and plugged it dead vert. He totally disappeared. After re-surfacing, he gave us the "all ok" signal and told us that he didn’t hit anything. That sold the drop to me–if Phil could plug it and come-out unscathed, I felt ready to rock. I followed Darin and Ben’s advice: came in through the approach, moved all the way left, rolled over the lip to vert, then late boofed it to a controlled 45-60 degree soft landing. BEAST!!!

The rest of the run went great, making for another long day with TONS of great water. Jason Craig may be the youngest person to ever run this stretch. He aced the run and is a boat-control ninja, despite this being his first time back in a creek boat since April! Enjoy the photos!

Live from Reno, NV,
Stephen Wright

 
Darin falls 30 feet
Lunch Time
Phil depth testing
Phil opening boof
Put in
SF Feather canyon
Stephen Big Falls
Stephen Smiles
Jason Opening Boof