Dirt Bagging It on Upper Cherry

Upper Cherry Creek lives up to its enjoyable reputation. I was a little misconstrued on the level of whitewater within its bounds and believed i was about to enter a multiday class IV waterpark ride...the waterpark part held up, the class IV did not.

The forest fires were thick and the smoke caused some crazy images of the sun.

The Emigrant wilderness at its best

Upper cherry put-in is a funny place, it is one of the only high-sierra runs (other than middle kings) where people come from far and wide and are intermingled with the local crowd and the full-time summer dirt bag boater crowds. There's so many stories and lure that you really just gotta see this place for yourself to know if any of it is true.

Salvation...styx pass marking the final decent to the river

The stories almost always start with the notorious hike-in. I was reading another blog about Cherry Creek and they felt it would be appropriate to put a sign at the trail head that states:
"4.5 hours to the river, results may vary...widely" And widely they do. A good portion of people are trying out their legs, lungs and carrying system for the first time ever or at least the first time this season as they meander up the UCC trail and i swear not more than 100 feet from the cars the little demon in your head starts speaking to you and cursing at how painful the next 4.5 to 9 hours of your life are going to be.
Some people get lost within the first mile and never find the river, some people give up on day one and sleep on the trial and are devoured by turkey sized mosquitoes that seem to survive only off the blood of kayakers, some grunt it out and slowly and miserably make it to Styx pass after 7 8 or 9 hours with bloody feet and numb minds...whether you do it in 2 days, 9 hours or 4.5 you're gonna hurt - but if you're running wilderness class V then some tiny little morsel inside of you kinda likes the pain and it makes the reward on the river that much tastier.

Sleeping on the moon

We were in a bit of a jam when Chris K and I got to the trail head: Jeff Hazboun and Phil Lemarche we're arriving on Friday morning and hiking in as soon as they showed up. We would most likely be finishing our trip friday afternoon and missing them - boating with them was a priotity however and instead of finishing our trip and starting over again trying to play catch up we decided we'd take the dirt bag approach and shack up at Flinstones campground until the two showed up sometime on Saturday. Being that it was only Wednesday we were projecting somewhere between 5 and 7 days to do what most take 2 or 3.
Digging into the summers collection of dried meals and random food we parceled out enough grub to last almost a week, i packed in a hardcover book for some lounging and we rallied towards the river. It took us about 5 hours to do the 10 miles or so and with the sun starting too drop we decided we'd make some quick downstream progress to get out of the swarms of mosquitoes that populate the marshy lake area at the put-in. Two manky drops and 300 feet of river later and we were scouting "good morning slide" and decided to call it a day, no need to rush perfection. The granite was open, the bugs were at bay and we were like pigs in shit.

Wait...more open granite you say? this place would be epic in the winter if you had a sled

The vagina slot that stole my paddle

We met up with the rest of our group the next morning, there were 10 of us in all i think, some idaho boys, some colorado boys, some local cali guys, lizzy E and us. Open bedrock slides were on the menu for the day and we rallied all the way through the first few gorges and to the top of cherry bomb gorge. I managed a cheeky little swim falling into a vagina crack where my paddle was rudely removed from my grasp and i promptly swam like a guppy. Bitches - thats all i have to say about that.

And Kicking it on the way to Cherry bomb

The plan: leave boats at the top, hike gear around cherry bomb. Eat and be happy for the day, run cherry bomb with a light boat tomorrow, and the next day, and the next, and probably the next (just for good measure).
And so thats exactly what we did - 3 or 4 nights we spent at flinstones, actually we stayed across the pond from flinstones at a different spot.

The lead int stuff to cherry bomb. Once you're in you're pretty much committed

Cherry Bomb Proper going off with Scott Baker making the move

CB Gorge - there's not a lot of room for error in here and there's an awful lot of dots to connect.

Day 1 in the gorge in the midst of a safety meeting - er, setting safety

I attempted a pano of the gorge..doesn't really do it justice

Think Heaven - we were surrounded by open polished granite, we had a pond to swim in and our view upstream was the perfect set of teacups which come right after Cherry bomb. It only takes 5 minutes to run up to the top of the cups and take a lap and then it only takes 30 seconds to kayak back down them, those are some damn good 30 seconds.

The slide and teacups below cherry bomb and the site of camp for 3 or 4 nights

So the plan went as planned and we on our 3rd or 4th layover day a new group came down and mentioned that they had passed 2 guys in green pyrhana boats just up in cherry bomb.
I spared no time and went running off in my flip-flops and board shorts looking like a beach bum to go find our compadres. I maneuvered myself up into the gorge and was happy to find phil and jeff in the thick of things...the two contrasting lives collided at that moment. Picture Jeff and Phil with no beta on Cherry bomb, running everything more or less blind with full boats and not too much time in their kayaks over the last few months, they were stressed, dealing with some heavy whitewater and the adrenaline was pumping full out - picture me, shirtless, flip-flops, board shorts, i had just spent the last 3 days lounging under the sun living the easy life. Needless to say we all got a kick out of it and i had brought my boat up with me and rallied the final slide and teacups together and enjoyed watching these guys absorb the scene.

"So no shit...there i was" Chris K telling stories at camp with heaven behind him


A little closer look at the goods

Odd breads of tree climbing dwarf albino bear are found around cherry creek. They bark a lot too

Lunch out of the relentless sun

The next day we hiked back up to cherry bomb and planned to paddle out back to civilization...plans change though and our 15 minute lap of CB gorge turned into 3 hours after jeff slide off cherry bomb falls a few feet to far right, got caught in the pothole and had the swim of his life out of the pothole, through the weir and then more or less self rescued before the next 8 drops. Jeff caught up with his lungs and screwed his head back on and proceded into some sketchy climbing and swimming through the gorge - 1000 foot shear walls do not provide exit routes and so downstream (boatless) was his only option. The sieve had stopped his boat nicely and we spent some time finding and anchor and dragging it out from under it. All in all things went well and we were back to the lake by noon. Jeff decided he would spend and extra night there and paddle out in the morning.

The More Advised Route off of Cherry Bomb Falls

The Less advised route off of cherry bomb falls

And the results of an ill line off of cherry bomb falls...testing your gills in a oxygen deprived environment.

When you spend 4 days in the same spot you take a lot of picture of the same spot

The river continues its crazy gradient immediately downstream of camp. Lizzy E on double pothole.

Cory Beux on the give-me 20fter

Chris K and i gave him the last bits of food we had and rallied the last 10 or so mile of cherry bomb out to the lake. We ran everything but some of the bigger drops and even managed to snag a ride with a fisherman across the lake. The whitewater in the 2nd half was just as good as the first and were sitting pretty by the end of the day with ice creams in our hands from some store in Groveland.