Lauren Update Piney/Easter

By Lauren Burress

Hey Ej,
Easter weekend was probably the best yet! Because we finally got to run the Piney. My dad and I have been trying to run the Piney for 2 years. But it always turned out that we would be out of town, have to work or accidentally put on the wrong river 🙂 The beginning of the Piney was very mellow. Then a few tributaries poured into the creek and it started to get a little harder.
The Piney had a lot of natural beauty from the gorge part of the run to all of the tributaries and waterfalls. I think it was one of the more isolated run that I’ve done. The first drop we came to we scouted it and ran it was pretty cool because you landed right in a hole that just fed you out in to the big pool below. Later on down the river we came to a rapid that looked like a small ledge from up top but it was blind. So we scouted it. Witch indeed up being a good thing because there was a big slide with a smaller drop below the first drop. The slide was AWESOME it went into a perfect boof at the bottom.
One of the last big rapids was Hungry Jack, This rapid has a big under cut at the bottom on the right but if you stay middle, left or even middle right your fine. Well at the top I went to far left and hit the hole witch fed me a little bit right and I hit the undercut really hard with my elbow, it was a good thing I had my elbow pads on. So I leaned into it turned my edge slowly and it pushed me right out. When I hit the rock it took a perfect bite out of my snapdragon sticker (I guess that’s why they call it “Hungry Jack”)
The Piney was a lot of fun from the white water (of course) to the beautiful scenery. I also got to paddle my new star on a river for the first time besides park and play. I have to say it was super stable I could play, but was great for a creek too. I’m glad this was the actual Piney (Not Henderson Creek)