Steering into the stars with the soft flicker of a dying fire at an altitude of 7000 ft with the sound of some serious rapids some 20m away, I couldn’t think of a better place I wanted to be. Steering into the stars with the soft flicker of a dying fire at an altitude of 7000 ft with the sound of some serious rapids some 20m away, I couldn’t think of a better place I wanted to be.
Maybe a bit warmer and a bit more food but other than that I was in my paradise. I was on the Fantasy Falls section of the Moloqume River in the Sierra Nevada Mountain range. The group of six of us, four kiwi’s and two Americans, put on the fantasy falls section at about 2 pm Tuesday at an elevation of 8000 ft, with 21 miles of class V river and 4000 ft to descend we set off for our three day’s of paddling. Our Kayaks were loaded with three days worth of food, sleeping bag, thermo rest and some dry clothes that weighed around 30 - 40 kg depending on how lightly you packed.
This was my first multilayer paddle mission and I was loving it, it is a totally different ball game. You have to seriously think about running rapids with big consequences as if you make a mistake and hurt your self there is no easy way out, with huge Mt ranges, Bears, Snakes and Mt Lions you defiantly think twice.
We arrived at our first camp at about 6 pm were we made a fire cooked up some pasta a talked about life and the days paddling. As we all went to bed the moon appeared and dozing off we all thought about the rapids that await us in the morning. Later that night the wind set in as well as the high altitude cools air. Waking up in the morning we all stayed in our sleeping bags until 7 am waiting for some one too makes the fire, as it was super cold. Finally we got up put all our gear on had some rolled oats an set off for a massive day of paddling. For the first couple of hours we froze we couldn’t even grip the paddle our hands were so cold. I managed to step up one rapid that no one else ran and was sweet. We made good time on day two we paddled for ten hours did one massive portage around the 3rd gorge that looked almost certain death, which took a good hour of walking up steep granite caring all your gear.
When we finally got to the time to set up camp we were all so tired I had become hysterical an I couldn’t move I sat down on the rock and watched the others set up camp an make a fire 100m out of my reach. Finally I arrived to camp to instantly fall asleep yet again gazing at the stars. On the Third a final day was where the good quality white water was. It was a day of Hucking off some big rapids. Finding myself scared on almost every rapid my eyes began to widen. I managed to get it together and run everything on the last day with rapids like Island Slide, The Thing Slide, Fantasy Falls and Kern Drop. When I finally made it down to the endless 4 mile paddle out on the lake, which gave us all time to reflect on our adventures and crave the classic American fast food
Brendan, Josh and Sam at camp 1 chomping some Kai
View from Camp
Jimbob every multiday essential
Stunning gorges
Sam on a fun wall slide
Evan the Killer Garcia 100% Style
Sam and Evan
Evan is the man he is 18 and is one of the sickest paddlers to roam the globe leaving a tail of Hucks where ever he goes and is one of my favorite paddling Buddies
The only sign that man exists
Brendan Bayley Dominating
Nick Wimsitte at The Fantasy Falls
Evan Garcia High on Life
Josh Neilson Fantasy Falls
Brendan Bayley Skimming out
Evan Garcia Round 2
