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Taking this time with a broken leg to go through some of the May trip footage and stumbled across one of my favorite runs to date in California.
The South Yuba’s “49 to Bridgeport” section is an action packed 9 mile run that starts and ends at a bridge. We had paddled this section a few year prior, but our memory of it was quite vague. The run started in a rather unusual fashion (for me). From the moment my eyes snapped open in the morning, I found myself a bit nervous of the run we were about to put in on. While I couldn’t put my finger on what exactly it was, especially sense I had paddled this section in the past with no issues. With butterflies in my stomach, I kept quiet and marched down to the river following the group and hoped my mood would change.
The river starts off with a banging’ couple hundred yards before you sneak around a big portage. We came upon a rather innocuous boof over a hole. As we got out to scout it, I could still see the Bridge over the river a few hundred yards back, and I decided that I was in no mind set to be heading into a 9 mile run packed with class 4/5 rapids…
I told the group how I was feeling, and that I was planning on hiking out to the car before we got any deeper. As it turns out, another member of our 4 person crew was feeling the same way, and mentioned they would perhaps join me on my retreat back to the car. With the decision being made, a huuugggee weight was lifted off my shoulders, so much so that we opted to hang out on the rocks for a while and soak in the sunshine in the now ‘not so intimidating’ gorge.
After about a half hour of sharing laughs with the crew, myself, and other paddling companion were all of a sudden in a much more “comfortable” space in our heads regarding the run. We talked it over with the other 2 confident paddlers and came to a conclusion that we would continue on, and simply make it a ‘no stress’ kind of day.
What was to follow was some of the most fun 9 miles of big holes, big boofs and boulder gardens down to the take out! Needless to say, I was ever so grateful that the crew boosted my moral in the beginning and helped me get my head game back on track!
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