Baker's Adventures: 2009

This is a funny story . Dan and I put on the with no shuttle, limited beta other then knowing this section is normally dry because of dam upstream and only runs with a big snow pack or rain fed and sees very few boaters. The flow was around 900 CFS. The day before we ran the section above(our house dam to route 49). Being explorers and wanting to know what was down stream we thought it would be an adventure. We were bringing two days worth of food, but were gonna try to finish the run in a day. It was 4.5 mile to confluence with the N. fork Yuba and then another five or so to Englebright Reservoir. We put on around noon, and started boating though bushes and a lot of overgrowth in the river bed. At the first big horizon line I got out to check it out. There was a manky line down the right, and then a one move, funky hole with three doors. The right door was the best and middle didn't look fun but went and left seived out thought wood and boulders. Dan grabbed the last eddy possible and was tiring to boat-scout. I give him the beta, and just said whatever you do don't take door three. Dan dropped in and got squirted and flipped by the hole and flushed into the seive upside down. Time slowed way down and I didn't even take any photos and was stunned. There was nothing I could do.
With my bag in hand I saw Dan's boat stern stuck in the seive and was not going anywhere. Five second later I saw Dan pop though the seive. He was looking back at me and tapping his head. I was relieved and that he was safe. He know had 1/4 mile class 4 seived out rapid to swim on his own. He was tiring to get his paddle. A drybag came out and started its way downstream. I jumped in my boat and ferry over to river right and started running down the big boulders on the shore. We met up and I gave him a big hug. Dan had a couple of toe-nails ripped from his feet tiring to get the birth canel. The funny thing was Dan had the pin kit. I had lost mine the day earier, not sure how. We had a one throw bay, 5 feet of webbing and couple of biners. We re-grouped and started working on get his boat out. I clipped a line on the stern and anchored it off. After an hour or so, we were making progress, tiring ideas and then tiring different ones. Finally his boat went though the seive and was in this boiling washed out eddy. When we got his boat to shore, his outfitting was messed up. He had lost his food cashe, and all his sleeping stuff was wet in the whole ordeal. We getto rigged his outfitting together and continued down stream.

From there down to the confluence the North fork Yuba was as full of some really crazy geology with some of the most sieved-out runnable rapids I've ever seen. Expect for this sweet ledge-to boof-with a sticky hole.

Dan boofing

Dan squirting

Dan tiring to breath

We made it to the confluence right before dark, made a big fire to dry out Dan's wet sleeping gear. We found this sweet concrete level spot for sleeping and set up the rain fly to stay dry for the night.

At about dark, it started raining soft and after a couple of hours the wind started gusting and rain started to fall hard. I only brought a rain trap instead of a bivy. bad idea. I was soaking wet and was just tiring to hold on to half the breakdown paddle keeping the trap up. The wind was tiring to blow it down. Dan was sleeping and hiding out in his dry bivy. A couple of hours later I had fallen asleep sitting up and Dan started yelling at me to get up. The river was roaring and lapping to our heads. It was mad dash to higher ground. With headlamps on we started looking for our gear. The river had washed an empty dry bag and had taken his pin kit. The flow had went up to around 6000, cfs.

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Dan on our camping pad

Note: picture taken the day we put back on flow was 1100 and dropping

The night before we had gone looking for a new pot and pan since they had floated out of his boat. We found this old Minners trailer. And had cleaned the rust out of a pan to boil water. Every thing was wet outside, but inside the trailer there was some dry-spots. We started a fire with some dry wood being old cabinets doors from inside the camper. The smoke was black and give me a cough for days tiring to to get warm and dry my wet sleeping gear. I later burned a hole in my sleeping bag and for the rest of the trip I looked like a chicken every morning with feathers all over me. The morning came with singing birds and much needed sunshine. We were almost out of food, and beat up and bruised. We decided to chill for the day sleep and rest and next day boat out and finish the run. We didn't have much extra food so we starved all day and to save what we had for the big day tomorrow.

Next day, the river had not dropped enough and was still brown and swift.

Note: Just right is where N. Fork Meets Middle fork

We decided to leave our gear hike out to the road and get food and hike back in next day. There was a road that the trailer was brought down, but no one had driven it in the last 10 years. We thought it has to go some-where. We started hiking up, and I was out ahead, and rounded a turn and saw a big black/brownish bear. He or she was a shocked to see me as I was. I ran as fast as I could back toward Dan. We re-grouped and started yelling and tromping back up the road. Around the same turn the bear was still there, this time I made direct contact with him, he was curious and I was skeerted. We ran back down the road. The hillsides were covered in poison oak. No bush wacking, and it was straight up. The only way out'a here was on the road. We walked back up making a ton noise and heard a rumble though the woods and the bear was gone. The road had some forks and we were un sure which way to go. None of the roads had been driven on and had little christmas trees growing on the middle of the road.

We made to to the road that goes around the huge Bullards Bar dam. We hiked/tired to hitchhike back to car. Once we made it back to the car we feasted on food. The rest of day was spend tiring to set up a shuttle or atleast figure it out. Early next morning we hiked back in and finished the run with out a hitch.

Dan kayaking one best best drops below confluence

Dan tiring to figure out route though boulders of seives

Baker en-route to Colgate Powerhouse

Note: from the confluence to Colgate is a very seived out, with every rock either undercut or with tunnels. Fun run with little room for errors. We took out a Colgate Powerhouse for a shorter hitchhike/run shuttle. An overfilling since of joy had finally set in. I learned a lot of important lessons from this trip the hard way. Plan ahead, go slow, communicate well, carry or replace broken or missing gear. And most important, always camp above the high water line on the river bank.