Green River Narrows – Personal First Descent
It was Wednesday night when I received the call from Chuck Armentrout – “Hey man I am headed to the Green river tomorrow – do you want to go?” I have wanted to go to the Green river for a long time now. I suddenly came down with all kinds of illnesses and called in sick to work.
The Green River was not unfamiliar to me. I have been studying the beta for quite some time. It is a class V creek run that has serious rapids and should not be taken lightly. I have the Green Race movie and must have watched it over 20 times – every time picturing myself in the boats making the clean lines. I get my confidence for a river knowing that it has been run before and visually watching the rapids being run – If someone else can do it - so can I.
The ride to the Green is a fairly easy one. Mostly Highway and then once off the exit ramp it is a winding road down hill to the take out. We made good use of our driving time drawing out the dangerous rapids and discussing the hazards involved with each one.
Not everyone is an artist but with the proper explanation of the details and you tube on the Iphone this sketch of FRANKENSTEIN made perfect sense.
The plan for shuttle was to cross our fingers and head to the take out. We were hoping that others had the same idea.
At the take out we were met by about a dozen local fisherman and one traveling fish tank.
It was pretty cool to see that many fish in one net. Bucket after bucket these guys hauled the pretty rainbows down to the river.
A couple tried to make a run for it before they made it to the river. For a small fee I will tell you where I put them.
While the trout truck was delivering fish Chuck had hooked us up a shuttle with a couple of folks and the five of us all piled into the truck and headed for the put in.
To use the green river access you have to buy a key or know someone who has one. Fortunately one of the guys in our shuttle had one.
At this point I knew the Green River was getting close and the excitement was growing. It seemed that gearing up was taking forever as I went over all my items and suited up in my dry suit. The guys seemed to think that I had packed too much gear and suggested that I leave something behind. I wanted to make sure I had everything I could possibly need in case of an emergency. As I started the hike down to the river I realized that creek boats are heavy! The hike in to the put in is about ¾ of a mile- downhill thank god. About halfway I resorted to dragging the boat.
Finally we made it to the put in and everyone got ready. My first impression was that the river was very small and it didn’t seem like there was a lot of water in the river. This seemed to ease the tension a bit. I had pictured in my mind a Gauley flow. There was less water flowing in the Green than the metro hooch.
I really relaxed a lot more once we started moving down the river. The beginning of the run was calm and beautiful.
After about 20 minutes of smooth paddling the Green River Narrows changed attitude and the thrills began. I don’t have too many pictures of all the big drops and rapids because I wasn’t about to let go of my paddle for 1 second. My guide Chuck would give me some advice on what was going to happen at each rapid and then he would disappear over the horizon. I took a big breath of air and said a prayer as I followed over each rapid – ending each one with success. Every time I pulled into the eddy below all eyes in the group were on me. Chuck told me the name of each rapid at the bottom of the rapid which in my opinion seemed the best way. Rather than think about the name of the rapid I seemed to focus more on what was happening at each rapid.
Finally everyone eddied out and began exiting their boats. Climbing up onto a big boulder I noticed this plaque. This marker overlooks the gorilla rapid.
Having seen this rapid on tons of videos I was a bit familiar with it. Gorilla. The big monkey. The whole river pours into this chunk of rock and then shoots out and drops down.
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Into a narrow channel at the bottom. It is a magnificent. The guys had already portaged the drop and were setting up to do a sliding boof launch into the river below. Slide Slide Slide Boof Zoom. Hmmm that looks like fun. I think I will run Gorilla another day.
Back on the water again the drops were huge. You can almost see some gradient in this photo. It wasn’t long after Gorilla we were portaging again. The rapid was called Nutcracker.
Why are we portaging this one I asked? The answer was obvious as we rounded the backside of the rapid. A few pieces of wood and someone’s paddle.
We put back on and soon eddied out again and started the portage process again. What now I thought.
SUNSHINE! Sunshine rapid got its name because the sun is coming in bright at this spot. I would have named it pulverize or something nasty like that. The river dumps it entire contents directly onto a huge boulder.
At the bottom of sunshine on river right there is a nice cave. Also notice that there is a cavity behind the falls as well. There is a line for this rapid but I figured I would save it for another day as well.
From here on down to the take out it was more holding the paddle tight and paddling hard. I followed closely and took tips from the veterans for the best boofs and lines. I could tell there was some disappointment when I heard one of the fellows says “Man this has been and epic less day”. I high fived myself mentally. NO Swims.
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