N. Frf Payette Top to Bottom with Cats!!!

 

The morning of the trip Fish informs me that this is his one weekend of the year when he cat rafts. So much for having a hardshell companion for the 16 mile N. Frk! Suddenly there I am at the put-in with a huge group of catarafters, and I'm the only kayaker in the group. It had been 15 years since the last (and only) time I ran this famous stretch of continuous class V.

 

I knew before I put-on how difficult it would be to run with a large group of cat boats. They hover and float like water spiders on the water, surfing and stalling in a very controlled slow motion crawl downstream. I love to paddle with other watercraft than just kayakers all the time, but this was the N. Frk of the Payette, a run to be taken seriously. Once on the river with them I was faced with practicle challenges: I'd love to have someone to follow down, not knowing the lines, but by following them I couldn't see anything coming at me. And as anyone who's kayaked with cat boats before knows, you keep drifting up on them repeatedly. A run like the northfork requires running down the gut, charging through it, and scouting from the tops of gigantic exploding waves as you go.

   The best option therefore was simply to get out front and go ahead. I resigned myself to the fact that I was essentially on a solo trip down the N. Frk, because if I got into trouble, likely I'd swim long and far before the cat boats could catch up.

 

This run was more or less just as challenging as I remembered it from 1993 or whenever that was when I ran it with some buddies from Ohiopyle. While I consider myslef to be a far better paddler than I was then, the run seemed only slightly easier. Back then when I ran it I had to deprogram my tendencies to want to eddyout every so often to boat scout. I was spending way too much energy trying to get towards the banks, trying to find eddies, let alone catch them. I quickly learned back then that the modus operandi was "Hey diddle diddle", that to stay in the main current and run right down the gut was the best way to conserve energy and find the most fluid lines.

 

On this return trip, running way out ahead of the cat boats by my lonesome produced a strange mix: my mind was apprehensive about charging into the unknown without knowing the lines, but my body, having been paddling about 60 days since Febuary, was nimble and relaxed.

 

"Steepness" and a few other named rapids early in the trip fly by as intense maelstroms of exploding whitewater, yet because of the North Fork's nonstop freight train nature, none of these upper rapids seem very distict or memorable.

 

"Nutcracker" on the otherhand is very distinct. It's a long rapid but it is very simple and organized, with more green water between the features. Some big moves require precision through here, but I didn't have any trouble.

 

"Disneyland" and several other rapids just go on and on. The best thing to do is avoid blind pourovers, and stay out of the shallow boulder gardens that sometimes form in the center of the river. These are a submerged shoals between braided channels, and often have some trashy

rock that can tangle you up. On the other hand, you can also find slower water here to slow down and rest (but not stop completely).

 

This run is all about matching your rhythm to the river's pace and keeping up with it, requiring faster reflexes than most whitewater, a spirit of improvisation, and a strong intuition of universal whitewater patterns. You strategically surf across the the faces of waves and bank off of the backside of holes to constantly reposition yourself through the riverbed.