Where in the World is Nick Murphy: January 2012

Wednesday, January 25, 2012

Kaweah's

Well there's not much to say about the Kaweah's except that there awesome. We parked the car in Three River's for 5 days running the Hospital Rock and East Kaweah sections multiple times. Both are super high quality and are rather conducive to laps. The whole scene became a big party for days on end as we were camping 20 strong and taking full advantage of all the fun to be had in the great town of Three River's. Big thanks to all the locals that showed the boys a good time! Enjoy these quality shots and imagine yourself traveling on these amazing little gems of the Southern Sierra!

Will Pruett Chargin- 0 to 60 - Hospital Rock (p. Nick Murphy)

East Kaweah (p. Nick Murphy)

Jake Greenbaum - East Kaweah (p. Nick Murphy)

Charles King Stylin - Tripple Drop - East Kaweah (p. Nick Murphy)

Jake Greenbaum - Toxaway Drop - East Kaweah (p. Nick Murphy)

Geoff Calhoun - Lines it up - East Kaweah (p. Nick Murphy)

Monday, January 9, 2012

Fantasy Falls

Fantasy Falls is another super class high sierra run. The three day run is in the North Mokelumne drainage and is about as bad ass as they come in Cali. The run is full on and one of my favorites as far as scenery goes. The amazing granite bubble landscape is awe inspiring with it's contrast to the sky and water. By this time in the summer I was really feelin fired up besides the ridiculous amount of poison oak on my leg from Dinkey- watch out the stuff will eat you alive, had to get a shot as soon as we got off the rio. Fired up- the plan was to do as many of the infamous 7 Rivers of the High Sierra (Royal Gorge, Dinkey, Fantasy Falls, Upper Cherry, GC of the Tuolumne, Middle Fork of the Kings, and Devils Post Pile of the North Fork of the San Joanquin) and I was well on my way with alot more to go. To better explain the craziness of this epic one must understand this to be a string of multi day expeditions on California's hardest class 5 with major logistical challenges in the form of thousands of miles of travel across the state. Not to mention the tole that dropping close to 30,000 vertical feet in your kayak will do. I was weary of my body and what it would take of all of this- but we were gonna give it a good charge. Fantasy went off with out a hitch, we had a great group, water level, and weather. Some highlights from the trip were the camping (so epic- up there with Kings and PP), Will Pruett running Jedi, peering into the Untouchables Gorge- Pure Gnar, laps by all on Fantasy Falls, and myself firing up Show Me Your Tits. We had a great trip and next on the list was party time and laps at the Kaweahs.

-ENJOY-

Jake Greenbaum FF (p. Barney Young)

Nick Murphy FF (p. Barney Young)

Josh Hill Slides FF (p. Nick Murphy)

Charles King Slides FF (p. Nick Murphy)

Jake Greenbaum Slides FF (p. Nick Murphy)

Will Pruett Sieve Slide FF (p. Nick Murphy)

Cruisn FF (p. Barney Young)

Will Pruett lookin dow the scope FF (p. Nick Murphy)

Yeah Mahn!!! Slides FF (p. Nick Murphy)

Charles King on the mission FF (p. Barney Young)

Charles King in the busy FF (p. Barney Young)

Will Pruett on the sizeable Jeddi Mind Melter FF (p. Barney Young)

Jordy Searle amongst Fantasy Falls (p. Nick Murphy)

Charles King in a special place FF (p. Nick Murphy)

Jake Greenbaum feelin small FF (p. Nick Murphy)

Will Pruett taken her deep FF (p. Nick Murphy)

Jake Greenbaum and Nick Murphy firen FF (p. Nick Murphy)

Nick Murphy on the Island Slide FF (p. Barney Young)

Nick Murphy on Show Me Your Tits- the Big One FF (p. Barney Young)

Chow- much more to come!!!

Park Closures

California is an amazing place for outdoor recreation and we need to try our hardest to keep it that way!

The First 70 Trailer from Heath Hen Films on Vimeo.

Dinkey Creek

Dinkey Creek is one of the most amazing places I have ever been. The Creek is absolutely made for kayakers. It supports an uncountable number of ridiculously clean boofs, slides, falls, and combinations of all three. The scenery is amazing, including the female raft guides in Kings canyon- get in good with them during Dinkey and you might find yourself a King's shuttle for later in the season. Dinkey Creek in my opinion might just be the best all around trip for the bulk of class 5 paddlers, with its steep but clean character it is as quality as you can get before you push over into more sketchy realms. We had a great crew consisting of Kurt Lamberth, Jake Greenbaum, Billy Jones, Drew Duvall, and myself. Making our way down the river in a relaxed but quick fashion we took a day and a half to complete this must do run. As my friend Jakub Nemec said, "Dinkey... More like dankey", so go check it out and enjoy the boofs.

We stopped at the classic South Silver on the way to Dinkey (p. Nick Murphy)

Jake Greenbaum on Dinkey (p. Nick Murphy)

Drew Duvall @ Put In (p. Nick Murphy)

Jake Greenbaum- Spike- Dinkey (p. Nick Murphy)

Billy Jones on Dinkey (p. Nick Murphy)

Kurt Lamberth on Dinkey (p. Nick Murphy)

Nikki Kelly's Slide (p. Nick Murphy)

Jake Greenbaum on Nikki's- Dinkey (p. Nick Murphy)

Wednesday, January 4, 2012

Some sweet vids- Oh Yeah!

Both of these videos were made by friends of mine and both include footage taken by myself. It's been a great year and it was great to meet and paddle with so many new people!!!

Bomb Flow Episode 6 "The Rise of Blue Balls" from BombFlowTV on Vimeo.

Royal Gorge of the North Fork of the American

The Royal Gorge is a hot ticket item on the California paddling list as it offers one of the biggest days of hucking in the Sierra. This waterfall stacked run kicks off the High Sierra Season and for most presents the first overnighter of the season. With heavy boats and anxious mindsets even the best paddlers find themselves walking around some of the giants which lay in the gorge. This is a must do run for those who want a lil piece of the real stuff. Going back next season will be interesting as the big drops of Royal make it easy for you to walk but hard to forget about. This year we started the process of going big at Heath 2 but a multi hour extraction of Charles King from the cave at the base of the falls slowed momentum and the stoked level. We camped and fired hard the next day with Rattlesnake, Scotts- no takers, and Wabena on the plate. We all fired Rattlesnake and Barney Young fired Wabena. The Royal Gorge was an amazing and humbling place to visit and I'm stoked to go back and hopefully fire more of the giants that lie within it's granite walls!

Nick Murphy on Heath I (p. Jordy Searle)

Charles King on Heath II (p. Nick Murphy)

Chris Korbulic scopen King in the cave (p. Nick Murphy)

The crew pullin King out (p. Nick Murphy)

Jordy Searle (p. Nick Murphy)

Chris Korbulic on Rattlesnake (p. Nick Murphy)

Nick Murphy on Rattlesnake (p. Jordy Searle)

Nick Murphy on Rattlesnake (p. Barney Young)

Scotts Drop- I want it bad-we'll see...(p. Nick Murphy)

Barney scouting Wabena- he fired it! (p. Nick Murphy)

Wabena (p. Nick Murphy)

Looking out from Wabena (p. Nick Murphy)

Much Love to the Charge!!!

Tuesday, January 3, 2012

Clavey Mission- High Water

I made the travel to the Clavey River outside of Groveland and in the same area as the Cherry and Tuolumne runs on two separate occasions. The Clavey actually dumps onto the Tuolumne at Clavey Falls and you finish the run on the last 13 miles of the T. The first time I made the trip to this gem my group decided not to put on due to high water. A week later I returned to find higher water and put on the river. My group consisted of myself, Jake Greenbaum, and Kurt Lamberth. With flows of 1500 cfs on the gauge we set out to do the whole Clavey in a day with no beta, all first timers to the run, and 2o miles to cover with no overnight gear. The Clavey ended up being one my best days of paddling ever! The run obviously had plenty of water and the group dynamic was that of pure CHARGE! There was hardly a chance to scout and I found myself in the lead the majority of the time . The river had what we came to call stacks of class 5 . Super continuous with big wholes, S-turny high flow boulder gardens, and most of the time no sign of slowing down or coming to an end. I was really able to get stoked after this run and become very comfortable finding my way down the hard, continuous, and pushy style of whitewater, that is quintessential Cali, just relying on my skill and judgment to attack foreign horizon lines. I felt alive and realized that the summer ahead of me had more potential than I had previously believed. I was finally in Cali for the whole season and I now knew that if my friends and I wanted to go big, it was gonna be fine, as my buddy Jonas Grunewald would say, "It is what we have come for" . I highly recommend the Clavey as it falls into an amazing category of rivers that are not so talked about in Cali. The Clavey, along side the South Merced, Purdon to Bridgeport, Rubicon, and Goldengate all offer what my friend Rok Sribar calls, "Real Kayaking"! These higher volume and less steep rivers in comparison to the more notable slidey creeks of Cali are in someways harder and much more aerobic. It is an amazing feeling to be immersed in these rivers and the chance to travel long distances of hard whitewater with minimal portaging brings a since of combat and survival that, I feel, sculpts and defines a paddler more so than the stunty steep drops of the creek. If planning a trip to Cali, I would highly recommend these rivers as they are as quality as any I have found. REAL KAYAKING!

When charging, even if charging in the wrong direction, continue to charge!!!

Monday, January 2, 2012

Pacific North West

With California having record setting snow pack it was only a matter of time before all the rivers spiked and rose above sane levels for kayaking. We had a plan though, after surfing rogue waves and running the Clavey so high and blind we didn't even catch a single photo, we decided to head north to the Hood River region where we spent 10 days with a change of scenery. We headed first to Summit Creek in Washington. This Micro creek was pretty manky but had a couple of huge and clean drops, most noted being the skate park drop. We found ourselves doing multiple laps on the Little White Salmon and Green Truss at high water. Park and huck opportunity drove us to the Lewis in the north and then to the McKenzie in the south, we found either high or too high water at both. The McKenzie holds two giant waterfalls, Sehalie and Koosah- both 80 ft., that call to me and I hope to return to the area in the next year with less water. The trip north was nice with it being my first chance to kayak over volcanic rock, we found quality water and big drops, and it proved to be the perfect amount of time for California flows to drop back in. The return to Cali would usher in the beginning of the high sierra runs- the real shit Cali is known for- next blog will start with the infamous Royal Gorge!!! Everyone needs to do whatever they need to do to get their butts to Cali this next season - it's the Truth!!!!