Getting Ready for Water

Hey all you Shastafari out there. School in Santa Cruz is good and the swell down here is getting huge! I wanted to drop a line since it’s been a while and say once there is water it’s on. Other news, I wanted to recognize my newest sponsors Liquid Salvation and GoPro Cameras. Salvation Nation provides great water in a killer flask and GoPro has been kind enough to lace me with some helmet cameras for filming this winter and spring. Check them out. I am stoked to be working with them and look forward to this coming up season. Stay posted for more kayaking adventures to come.
Shon-A-Thon

Liquid Salvation-www.liquidsalvation.com
GoPro Cameras-www.goprocamera.com

A Quick Vid

Just wanted to post a little kayaking love for all you fellow Shastafarians. This Promo has footage from my trip to Chile, a decent of North Fork of Cottonwood Creek this winter, and bunch of other fun drops. Hope you kids enjoy.

Truly Yours-
Shon

Un-expected So-Cal Trip

After work on Wednesday myself and Devin Knight set out from Mt. Shasta heading to Chico to meet up with the rest of the crew (Garret Brown, Taylor Robertson, Darin Mcquoid, Eric Petlock) to go and run The Royal Gorge of the American. Unfortunately, we heard that there was a snow drift that blocked access and would require a 6 mile hike in with boats fully loaded for 3 days on the water. Taylor made the brilliant suggestion of driving another 5 hours and running the classic East Fork of the Kaweah next to Sequoia National Forrest. We opted out of hiking 6 miles with 100lb boats and drove to the land where you can run miles of classic class V and take out at a bar for a drink if needed. After the long drive we decided to run the East Fork the second day and go for a warm up on The Hospital Rock section of the Middle Kaweah.

This run is full of clean big boulder gardens, beautiful gorges, and fun drops. Here's a pic of the biggest drop on the run 0-60.

After the run we met up with Taylor's friend Jason Hollerman for some dinner and party time. In morning as we drove out for the East Kaweah we were told stories of good and bad runs, we were also informed about the mass amounts of poison oak and rattle snakes on this run. Once down to the river, after a twenty minute hike down, we started with fun slides and smaller drops.
The smaller drops gradually got bigger and the canyon got steeper.
Overall the East Fork is the definition of "classic" in California, with over 30 drops and a steep 500 ft per mile, this is an epic run for the seasoned boater. It's good to have someone who knows the run to lead because it is much faster than having to scout all the horizon lines.



It was Taylors 21st run on the East Fork with us, so I think that we scouted twice in the 9 miles outside of portages(major props to Tay for leading the crew down). Fired up after the East Fork, Jason told us of a creek with big slides, fun tea cup waterfalls, and bedrock, called Clover Creek. So we drove high into Sequoia National Forrest and hiked a little over a mile up the creek to reap the goods.


This creek is rad with long slides and a beautiful granite background. It reminded me of South Silver but lower volume and more continuous.


After a 9.5 hour drive home, arriving at 3:30am, Devin and I passed out to get ready for work in the morning, satisfied with the 4 day adventure.

Photos By: Devin Knight
Posted By: Shon

I wanted to throw a shout out to my sponsors: Shasta Base Camp, Electric Visual, Astral Buoyancy, Liquid Mountain, Ipath footware, Caliproduct, and Liquid Logic Kayaks for supplying the gear to make these trips possible. Thanks guys.