April 19, 2004

Check out the beautiful granite slides and non stop action for a 500 foot per mile Disney Land of creeks run right upstream of the Kern River Festival. Dane and Emily both are really going nuts over the river running action they are finding here in Kernville. It was my pleasure to paddle with Marty Cronin (our Colorado Ambassador) and Peter Wiengarten (a 63 year old creeker from Denver, Jed Weingarten’s dad). It was quite a cool thing for me to watch Dane (the youngest kid out there), and Peter, (the oldest guy out there) run the creek together and talk with each other in the eddies (what little eddies they could find). Emily is still a very nervous river runner and her fear is way higher than warranted for her skill level. Emily, in her words, only threw up once on her third run. Personally, I would imagine that if I threw up from nerves about a river run I wouldn’t be super motivated to run it. When asked if she wants to go again, she is ready to go. Christie did a great job leading Emily down, while Clay and I paddled together with Dane screaming out directions to everybody else. He really did remember it well and was able to give people the beta on the way down, very cool. Lawrence paddled down with us and is a great kid to river run with. New Zealanders tend to know how to run the steep stuff.

EJ