TRL out!

The crew takes flight in under 12 hours, so as you might imagine, we are up to our eyeholes in last-minute details readying for a month in Peru. So I don't have tons of time, but I'm gonna bomb TRL with a couple pics from this spring & summer in BC.

Enjoy!

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Bryan, Andrew & I "just put on" the rarely (if ever?) paddled Upper Squamish this spring. What we found at low flow was cruisey class IV/V rapids -- with a couple bigger ones mixed in for good measure -- in some of the tightest & most amazing gorges imagineable.


TGPhoto


TGPhoto

Next two shots are me in the first gorge

Photo: Andrew Oberhardt


Photo: Andrew Oberhardt

Drew in what we called the Magic Gorge. From the scout, it looked like gnome heaven .. It was gnome heaven.


Bryan in Magic Gorge


Me in Magic Gorge


Me scouting the lip of a really big rapid we didn't run .. but could have & should have.

photo: Andrew Oberhardt

Bryan dealin' with some standard BC BS on the portage .. devils club + post-holing in rotten spring snow = rad.




For the most part, all the rapids were pool-drop & went into sheer-walled gorges with deep, calm water meandering through the corridors. At one point, we got lured into a very tight chasm by a mellow rapid, then realized that around the corner lurked another totally unportageable rapid. I saw the look on Bryan's face as I backpaddled against the current pulling me toward the rapid & blurted out "Uh oh, now we've done it!". A couple tense seconds followed, but Drew was able to scramble out onto a tiny slimy ledge & spot a line for us. The rapid dropped us into this gorge.




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From another scouting mission, here is the Upper Squamish with much more water in it




We couldn't help but notice the largest pile of bear poo EVER.



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Oh, hello perfect 30-footer .. future project.


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Silverhope is a great river in the Lower Fraser valley, not a far drive out of B'ham. Some Bellinghamsters, some Right Coasters & my friend Kyle from CO all got on this one a couple days ago.

Chris Young on a big 3- or 4-part rapid




Kyle McCutchen on the same



More Kyle ..




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So some friends are starting to show up at mi casa, so I'm cutting it short. Big thanks to all the folks who've called & emailed to offer encouragement & support. Y'all are the best! We are super excited .. & a good bit nervous too.

Grace put up a fun little segment on LVM TV (you have to navigate to the LVM TV part of the site). And don't forget, you can follow along on our (mis)adventures on the Vacation To Hell Blog, which we hope to be updating pretty frequently.