The Antique Boat Show – California ‘01
Team
California – Mike Bateson, Simon Fisher, Lee Rogers, Thom Scott-Phillips, Mark
(Ressot) Rigby (part-time)
Whilst the other Poly
trip to California this year took a collection of recently developed Nanos and
Quadros, we decided to take a more retro approach to paddling: the two Kendos
looked positively modern next to the Acrobat and the Topo, but we didn’t care –
we’d still look cooler than them ‘cause we were gonna drink more beer.
Starting as we
planned to continue, we got bladdered on the way over. Simon was probably lucky not to get arrested
for harassing Frankie, our lovely air hostess; I was certainly lucky that
American customs let me in – I hadn’t been as wise as the others who sobered up
a little during the second half of the flight.
Reports that I spilt a variety of alcoholic beverages over Bateson and
myself are entirely, err, substantiated.
The eight-hour time difference meant that, confusingly, my hangover
started at about seven in the evening. I
went to bed early and nursed myself back to health.
The highlight of our
tour of Frisco’s (hey, we even, like, got familiar with the local lingo)
attractions was the wineries in the Napa valley. Our charismatic wine seller plied us with a variety of nice
tipples and even humoured us when we said we couldn’t taste the mint/oak/grapes
in their prize bottle. With the tourist
checklist (Alcatraz, Lombard Street, Fisherman’s Wharf, Golden Gate Bridge) all
ticked off, we left town and wondered what to do next. Then we noticed the four boats and oars on
the roof and headed to the Chili Bar to go rowing.
We had to wait half
the day for the dam to release and the levels to rise. They reached 1200cfs, which was a little
disappointing but still enough to have fun.
The two guys that gave us a ferry didn’t look too impressed when they
reached the get on – they’d driven over a thousand miles from San Diego to be
there. Fortunately nobody was facetious
enough to point out that London was eight thousand miles away. Later that evening we went to the pub and,
ha ha, Bateson was the only one asked for ID.
Chamberlain Falls was
next and again we found low levels. A
local, who didn’t seem to realise that he was a smug bastard, told us that
“Hey, if you’d been here, like, a few weeks ago, the levels were sooo
perfect. Ah, it was great man, you
should’a been here”. Still, he led us
down and was even kind enough to suggest “you probably wanna go down the right
here” and, after we’d run the rapid,
explaining that there’d been a few deaths on the left-hand channel in recent
weeks…
We had agreed to meet
Ressot, now making his living as the least trendy person in Silicon Valley,
somewhere in the region for the long Memorial weekend ahead. That meant hanging around for a little and
we consequently ran Chamberlain Falls again, this time with a Kiwi chick called
Jess. Fun. Afterwards Ressot came to find us at the Rolling Reservoir
campsite and we made our first attempt to cook. The only success was that my deck, as expected, made a great
sieve. Otherwise we failed miserably
and vowed not to be so silly again.
Restaurants only.
Goodyears Bar the
next day was very good, especially as I was wise enough not to risk running the
V-. I joined the boys Bateson and
Fisher on the portage; the lads Rogers and Rigby ran it, and without
problems. Congratulations. Memorial weekend had started and the whole
of California had decided to go camping.
They’d all been clever enough to book a site. We hadn’t, and eventually had to pitch up at a B&B next to a
golf course (“pitch up”, geddit?).
Simon was happy, he had his little bit of comfort and a proper shower;
Bateson wasn’t, he had to share the double bed with Ressot.
Middle Saturday of
the trip and we had faff. Loads of
it. Faff, faff, faff. Faff everywhere, water nowhere. We looked at the Stanislaus (including a
fantastic grade V 4-wheel drive to the get on) and the Mokelumne but found less
water than an average trip to the Dart.
Instead we got pissed at the oldest saloon in California – I lost my
sunglasses, Lee tried to chat up the gorgeous jailbait that was our waitress,
Bateson ate lots of meat and we sang American Pie all the way home. Canoeing?
No, we’re here to drink.
We had to go south to
find some water and we chose the Merced, just outside Yosemite, a little
downstream of El Portal. Looking from
the road we didn’t think there was much water in it, but, hey, what do we know,
we were paddling old school boats. When
we got on… whoa, whoa, down boy! Why
did I volunteer to lead, eh? Enough
water to put the shits up me, and to give me my two real stuffings of the
trip. But we all got down fine. We went back into Yosemite in the afternoon,
caught a sighting of a deer and admired the park’s sheer majesty. Our doss site for the night was nicely
situated by the river. However, upon
waking we saw a sign warning of the presence of rattlesnakes, especially in
dark, dry spots… suddenly I heard a scary noise and jumped, but it was only Bateson
farting.
Next up was the
Banzai run on the Kings. Grade III,
apparently. Well, yes, but Lee’s
comment, “grade III for grade IV paddlers” was about right. 5500cfs and the best grade III any of us
have ever paddled. The water was
stonking through, the play waves were massive and the holes even bigger (but
fortunately easily avoidable). Such,
such fun. With memorial weekend over,
Ressot left us to return home, we had no trouble finding a campsite and we planned
our sections for the rest of our trip: Vegas, here we come. With that settled we ate in at an
all-you-can-eat buffet. If anybody
doubts that Lee is getting fat, they should’ve seen him at work that evening –
he even out-ate Bateson.
Simon led for the
first time on the Gateway to Three Rivers section of the Kaweah. Halfway down Bateson, who was running
second, turned to me and declared: “He hasn’t got a clue what he’s doing”. Simon seems to subscribe to the “We’ll deal
with it when we get there” school-of-leading but hey, it’s better than the “It
goes down the right, but I fancy running it somewhere completely different”
attitude I took to a rapid the guide book described as “a river-wide
reversal”. Fortunately the Kendo makes
a great submarine.
Two sections of the
Kern finished the trip off: Miracle to Democrat (a bit too much flat) and
Fairview Dam (excellent). With our
paddling over, we drove towards Las Vegas via Death Valley. There was a scary moment when a village we
were planning to fill up at didn’t have a gas station. And there was us thinking the signs all
along the freeway saying: “Gas 30 miles”, “Gas 20 miles”, “Gas 10 miles” were
actually telling the truth. Silly
us. The temperature reached a peak of
119 Fahrenheit despite us leaving the valley as early as 10am. We didn’t fancy staying to find out what it
would be like at four in the afternoon.
Onto Vegas. Much to Bateson’s annoyance, those of us
without any gambling pedigree (that is, Lee, Simon and myself) received our
dose of beginner’s luck whilst he, umm, didn’t. I was on my way over to tell Lee about the ten dollars I’d just
made when he went and won the $160 jackpot on a 5 cent machine. Lucky bastard. Simon, now drunk, went into girl-chasing mode and asked a group
of American lasses to pose for a photo with us in front of a Vegas chapel. Three hours and plenty of drinks purchased
from Lee’s winnings later we found ourselves in their hotel room. Nice, very nice (the girls, that is, not the
hotel room). At 5am we caught a taxi
back to the camp site and tried to sleep as the hot sun rose above us. I was very happy that finally we had a
cloudy day and the intensity of the sun was dulled for a few short hours. I wasn’t so happy to wake and find Bateson,
apparently sleepwalking, trying to pull my Therm-a-Rest from under me.
The equation for the
final leg of the trip was: 24 hours ‘til we check in, 15 hours driving still to
do, plus time at the Grand Canyon and a night’s sleep to fit in. No trouble.
Not when you have Simon the Duracell Bunny to do the driving. The Canyon was as inspiring and impressive
as expected and well-worth the extra drive.
The final journey to Los Angeles was, thankfully, uneventful and we made
our flight in good time. Rather
miraculously we weren’t even charged for excess baggage despite unloading all
our gear straight into the check-in lounge and spending the next two hours, in
full view of the Virgin staff, packing it and attempting to make it seem much
smaller than it really was. Maybe their
“sporting equipment” policy doesn’t extend as far as Topos, Kendos and
Acrobats.
Well, that was
good. By some miracle nobody swam (I
blame the boats) and everybody had fun (I blame the beer). Let’s do it again sometime.
River Section Grade Mileage cfs
S.F. American Chili
Bar III 8 ~1200
N.F. American Chamberlain
Falls III+/IV 4.8 600
N.F. American Chamberlain
Falls III+/IV 4.8 600
Yuba Goodyears
Bar III/IV (V-) 8.5 ~1000
Merced El
Portal IV
(IV+) 8.5 1600
Kings Banzai
run III+ 8 5500
Kaweah Gateway
- 3 Rivers IV 5 ~1000
Kern Miracle
- Democrat IV- 11.5 864
Kern Fairview
Dam IV (V-) 5 1600
By Thom
Scott-Phillips