Godshpeed, Godshpell USA 2000
Trip
Dates: 16th to 29th May 2000
Flight: Heathrow
to San Francisco, UKP350, 11hrs out, 9hrs return
Team
Members: Lee, Gary, Steph, Garf, Marco, Mick
Posner (part time) |
| `Just one more gin and tonic !' . We were 10hrs
into the flight and only Garf was still drinking with me. However,
before the end of the flight, he was to spend some time looking
down the airplane's toilet bowl. In all our team managed to
consume 1.5l of G&T miniatures as well as a list of other
beverages. We had little trouble flying our 4 boats. At San
Francisco airport, we picked up our `Mercury Moutineer 4WD'
to be our home for the next 2 weeks (UKP600 hire). Steph drove
us on our first leg with horrendous hangovers to Coloma for
the next mornings warm up on the Chilli-bar (South fork of the
American River). Of course now in California, we had to breakfast
as the Americans do. The immense feast caused us to feel very
sick and out of breath once on the river and is my primary excuse
for my donkey grade 3 swim. As well as normal campsites,
the Americans have `primitive campsites' which have a minimum
of a parking area and toilet (similar to NZ). After paddling
the North Fork, we stopped at the REI outdoor shop at Sacramento
to buy the shop's supply of thermorests. I then lost my spray
deck by leaving it on the truck's roof to dry (trying to make
up for the missing Bateson). Lee and I spotted some nice
chicks in the truck next to us in the traffic. Thinking that
we had to act as ambassadors for our country, we started to
wave and be sociable. The hidden boyfriends in the back of the
car revealed themselves by winding down their tinted window
and didn't look very impressed. Remembering that there's more
guns than people in America we quickly turned off to find the
freeway and our route up to Oregon. |
| During the long drive, we explored our vehicle's
cruise controls and electric powered seat. We paddled the North
Umpqua near Winchester en route which had lots of good play
spots including an excellent wave that the four of us could
surf together. We drove to Mick's house in Portland, drank
his beer and ate his food. Micks house was very clean and tidy
(before we arrived); we think he'll make someone a good wife
one day. Mick has a cool truck which seats 6 and you can put
boats in the back. Together, we paddled the Clackamas and played
in a stopper called `Bob's Hole' which provided excellent puns
such as `Bob's hole is fun to play in, but there's a load of
shit below it you don't want to get stuffed in'. The Americans
we bumped into laughed at our boats. To them, the Kendo is old
hat and they don't recognise the Topos at all. American
TV is crap, one morning they had a 10 minute advert on a beauty
product called `Nads'... `Pamper yourself with Nads' they said.
I took a day off paddling and went into Portland with Steph.
We accidentally turned up in a rough part of town and shat
our pants mingling with vagrants, cripples and all sorts of
potential muggers. We hastily managed to escape to the shopping
areas. Monday 22nd was Lee's Birthday, Mick insisted
on going to work as he was trying to move in on a girl in
the office (sadly he got blown out). We paddled the West Fork
of the Hood River, but got on far too early and had to do
a massive grade V portage around a gorge blocked by a fallen
tree.
There's lots of beautiful wildlife to be seen in the states,
we saw birds of all sorts of different colours, giant butterflies
that land on your paddles as you bob down the rivers, loads
of eagles, squirrels, big ratty creatures and even a deer
(but no wild beavers). In the evening we went out for pizza
and beers ending with a drunken rampage home playing `shove
'em in the hedge'. Steph showed her true vandalistic colours
releasing the estate advertisers balloons.
The next day turned out to be the most epic day. The keen
paddlers in the group wanted to mark up a high grade river
for the trip log book and chose the grade IV (V) section on
the Farmlands section of the White Salmon river over the border
in Washington state. The river was running quite high
and after several sections including the awesome `Sidewinder'
(me and Mick portaged), we found ourselves slowed down and
inspecting drops as we ran the first few stages of the gorge.
I was quite surprised at how the mood had suddenly changed
for the first time during the trip. The others looked quite
petrified. I felt quite accustomed to years of being in danger
of my life and was probably the most calm - but I shouldn't
have been. As we rounded the next corner, I found myself looking
straight into the mouth of Mr F**k off big-bastard stopper.
With no hope of evasion, I went straight in and was spun around
deep in the stopper (while still in my boat) for quite some
time. I was spat out after pulling my deck, then went for
a very fast gorge swim. I got to the side thanks to Lee's
boating and Garf's line throwing. The others then paddled
a short distance before getting out and having a difficult
climb, only achievable due to an old fence cable that was
dangling into the gorge. I don't think I've ever been pleased
to see Lee before, but definitely was when I'd been waiting
2 hrs and eventually saw his face at the top of the cliff
armed with a rope. That night we camped out under the stars,
re-told our epic tales and reflected on how happy were to
be alive. We also wondered how Mike Leaford would take the
news that the new club Kendo was lost.
Next day we spent some time looking for the boat, going to
the police etc. The others paddled the lower section of the
same river to see if they could see it but without any luck.
We later returned to Portland to watch Mission Impossible
II which had come out that day. The next couple
of days involved a lot of driving (we covered 3000 miles in
2 weeks). We paddled on the Rogue river on the way back and
were unable to find a campsite during our journey. The friendly
ranger woke us the following morning `here's your early morning
call folks - did you know you're camped in a parking lot ?'.
Next me and Gary had a water fight and a grumpy Ginger Tosser
kicked me in the nads when he got squirted with some water.
Lee, Gary and Garf got on the North Fork of the Yuba at Sierra
city to have their last proper paddle. Garf got caught in
a pour-over, swam and lost his paddles. He set off again armed
with his splits, but humorously took another swim when his
splits `split' and entered the next chewy drop with a paddle
in each hand. They decided to call it a day after shooting
2 miles of the 13 mile section and walked out.
The paddling over, we transformed into tourists for the last
1.5 days and looked forward to our visit to Alcatraz Island
and the streets of San Francisco. We had been quoting lines
from the film `The Rock' all week such as `Welcome to the
rock' and `Goodspeed, Godspeed, Godspell' with appalling Sean
Connery impressions. We were very pissed off to find that
all visits to the island were booked. We were also very pissed
off to find that as it was memorial weekend, the traffic was
extra busy. We did get to see some of San Fran including Golden
Gate bridge, Fisherman's wharf and the very steep Lombard
street where the others shat themselves with my driving incase
we might roll back into the car behind. The flight back involved
far less alcohol as the lads counted down the hours to TBJ
(you can work out what that means for yourselves).
Marco. |
