Hi Kids,

First, congrats to Kaila for nabbing the First Blog Post. She even included an instructional YouTube video starring herself. That's usually the kind of egomaniacal narcissism only I can manage.

Anyhoo, we recently had a streak of warm weather. Rather than lament the snowmelt, we decided to embrace it and took to the creeks. Drew and I ran the Big Sandy one morning. We were expecting mid sixes on the gauge, so we were susprised to find that the creek was running at a juicy 7 feet. As it turned out, there was nothing so scary about 7 feet. We did read'n'run and standard lines in all the rapids except Zoom Flume and First Island; those two we scouted. The line for ZF was the same, just way punchier and a lot more fun. First Island was a good choice to scout too: there was a sweet variation down the left side that avoided the mayhem. Sure, there was the occassional nasty pour-over, and Big Splat looked munchy enough to eat a bus, or even Kirstie Alley, but from now on I'll get excited, not intimidated, when I see the Sandy at 7ft.

That afternoon Seth and I did Meadow. That was also a lot higher than we expected, which led to us running the Cascades about 6 inches apart. At 7-foot-falls, we got out on the left and scouted. We decided the only good line was a sneak far right, and there was wood in the only viable ferry move. So we made the ballsy decision to walk around. On the portage I found a Teva sandal I had lost during the '05 training season. Lesson learned: at high water, scout from the right bank.

The next morning Scoville, BT, Seth, and I fired up Fikes. I had an awesome run, which is how I describe any Fikes run where I make it through the Room of Doom upright (no matter how much bracing I end up doing).

I have the next two days off and I really want to shoot some video for my next post. Let's hope weather, water levels, and boating partners cooperate.

Lou