Kayak Trip in La Jolla

Helpdesk had the opportunity to hit the surf off the coast of La Jolla California.  The original plan was to take a guided tour to the caves that are just off to the left of La Jolla beach.  However, the surf did not cooperate and that lead to more of a off shore float than a destination trip.  It was fun and quite refreshing to have the cool Pacific Ocean waters hit you square in the face as I fought to get through the first hundred yards of the trip.   The coast where we launched is shallow and long creating a nice long distance to paddle beyond the surf.  But I made it and hit those waves dead on taking plenty of water right in the face.  I had my paddling jacket but it was safely tucked away in my dry bag as I didn't expect what was coming.  I have paddled here in the past and it was more like the Gulf of Mexico than a violent day off the Carolina coast.  I think I got the latter on this particular outing.  Here is short clip of the footage I shot along with some photos of the San Diego area.

Look forward to getting back out to the west coast and doing this again when the surf has calmed down a bit.

Helpdesk out

Wando River–Charleston 2016

Helpdesk, HikingGeer and Gusto had grand paddling plans for November 2016.  However, the weather didn’t get the memo.  We had planned two wonderful days of paddling and it turned into a few hours on the Wando.  Our original plan was to paddle the Folly River north east to Morris Island Lighthouse following the outgoing tide, having some lunch and then catching the return tide back to the landing.  However, the wind did not cooperate and we were forced to look for a more sheltered paddling option.  That took us to Paradise Landing and the Wando River.  We have, in the past paddled south on the Wando from this same landing but thought a paddle against the tide to uncharted (well we haven’t charted until now) waters was more interesting.  With the wind and tide against us we were only able to average about 2 miles an hour as we struggled against the elements.  We traveled just over two miles upriver seeing some nice homes and scenery.  It was interesting that once we stopped paddling we began drifting quickly back toward the landing.  No paddling at all and we were moving at just under 2 miles an hour.  Our stats are a bit messed up because we floated for quite a while on the trip back.  But when I did paddle it was well over 5 miles an hour with the wind and current both assisting.  Our plans for day two were totally crushed as rain sat in and we decided not to even attempt our planned trip to Bulls Island.  Next year will be here soon and we will once again made one of our favorite trips of the season. 

Sedona 2016

 

Helpdesk and Guanojoe did an ATV adventure when our Grand Canyon tour was canceled due to bad weather.  See it was snowing and raining with about zero visibility at the canyon that day. 

So, we headed back to Sedona and grabed a few of these bad boys. 

And we spend the next four hours doing this! 

 

 

Shining Rock Wilderness Area

Gusto and I (Helpdesk) did a short one night trip on the Art Loeb Trail in the Shining Rock Wilderness Area.  We started off on a Friday just after lunch time and headed north for what turned out to be about 8 miles. It wasn’t that far to Flower Gap (our camp site) but we walked a few miles checking out other camp site options and looking for water.  The site that we really wanted had grown up over the last 20 years since Gusto had been in the area, it was my first trip so I had no clue where the best spots were.  The views were spectacular as you will see from some of the photos.  Anyway, back to the adventure.  After blazing a new trail where an old trail once existed (or so I was told) we decided that the camp spot had just grown up too much and didn’t offer the views of 20 years ago.  At that point we backtracked to Flower Gap and decided to set up camp there.  However, before we unpacked we continued north for a few hundred yards looking for the spring that would provide us the much needed water for dinner and our trip back.  We found the water but not until we had some additional fun following a rather muddy, somewhat pitiful stream (if you could even call it a stream).  We didn’t find enough water in this area to even begin to pool and filter.  Back to the trail we went and walked north a bit more, I mean like 200 feet or so and bam, there it was a natural spring with water pooling into a nice area where we could easily dip water into our water bag for filtering.  Having gathered the water we headed back to make camp.  It took no time to set up the tent and get our gear stowed away for later.  We didn’t waste a lot of time before hunger sat in and so Gusto brought out his two cat food can stoves.  That’s right we had a couple of empty cat food cans (lid removed) with holes punched around the outside walls.  Add some denatured alcohol and a match and soon you have heat and within no time we had boiling water for our freeze dried meals.  Well, Gusto had a freeze dried dinner, I had a couple of instant oatmeal containers.   After dinner we watched a nice sunset and were able to enjoy the evening under a bright, almost full moon.  So bright we didn’t need headlamps at all.  It was bright enough to almost read.  You certainly could move about with no issue and to be honest the time snuck up on us since it never seemed to get very dark.  We finally called it a night sometime after midnight.  The wind blew all night long (and no nothing that we ate!)  it was just a windy night out and from what I later understood, Flower Gap is known for high winds.  The tent was stressed at times but held up just fine.  With rain threatening on Saturday we had decided to get up around 7am to break camp and hit the trail back to the car.  We took a different route back that was along an old logging road and was a much shorter and faster walk.  Now in this area of the park you have to have a “Bear Container” to store your food items as of about a year ago.  We never saw a bear (well I think I imaged one as we were about halfway to the car).  But we did see some fairly fresh tracks along the logging road.  It was a much shorter walk out so about an hour and a half later we were back at the car and heading toward Brevard for some lunch.  Overall excellent trip!

Below is our route.  The Blue line is the Art Loeb Trail all the way to Shining Rock.  We didn’t walk the entire trail we stopped, as I mentioned, in Flower Gap to set up camp.  The black circles marks the route back so were those two come together is where we camped. 

Here are some of the views.

Hopefully we will make it back to this area again before the next 20 years.  Don’t think I could do it then.

Green River 2015 - October

It was a long summer and we missed the opportunity to get up to the Green River.  That is, until I ran into the J-Train!  We made the latest trip yet to the lower Green.  I have to admit I was a bit worried about the temperatures but with the right equipment it was extremely comfortable.  The air temperature was in the lower 60's when we started just after 12 noon.  It may have made it to 64 or so by the time we made the take-out.  The new paddling pants I purchased for the trip may have been what saved me from the cold mountain waters.  With those and my paddling jacket I was very comfortable if not a tad warm from time to time.

This was the first trip to the Green for J-Train and I think we pulled it off close to perfect.  We didn't see anyone else paddling this section of the river.  We passed about 5 fly fishermen but that is really the only other action going on this particular Sunday afternoon.

Enjoy the footage I captured along with a few pretty cool stills.

Lake James 2015

Well, Helpdesk and Gusto made the trip to Lake James for a couple of hot July days.  The temp on the water was not so bad however, the evenings were quite warm.  We camped at Lake James state park and the site was a bit of a hike from the parking lot.  Given that distance we ended up taking the boats to a nearby boat ramp to launch and then paddled to our camp site.  Gusto got a shuttle ride back over to pick up the car later in the day.  We did, however, carry the boats out on the last day.  We just took our time and carried them back to the parking lot.  I expect it was maybe a quarter of a mile but it wasn’t a flat walk at all. Anyway,  the paddling was good we ended up paddling almost 11 miles on Friday and were going to paddle on Saturday but decided to head back a little early.  The camp site was nice and we had a small beach area that was perfect for sitting out and catching what little cool breeze was available on Thursday and Friday evenings.  It’s worth a trip back in the spring or fall but wouldn’t suggest a July trip again.  This spot just isn’t far enough into the mountains.  Here are some details and a short video.

New River - 2015

Gusto, Hiking Geer, and Helpdesk braved the threat of storms to paddle the South Fork New River.  We started this trip by leaving our shuttle vehicle at the New River State Park (221 Access) where we would later set up camp.    We moved all the kayaks to Gusto’s SUV and headed south to the Wagoner Access.  This first leg was 10.2 miles and was helpdesks favorite part of the two day trip.  The second leg was just under 9 miles from 221 access camp site to the Kings Creek takeout.

Click the map for a full version.

Day 1 Stats: Interesting how we averaged almost the same speed both days ~3.5 mph.  Not sure what I was doing to get up to 9mph on day one.  Sometimes the GPS will pick up short quick movements and logs them.  Or we can go with the fact I paddle fast at times.  I like the fast paddle theory. Day 2 Stats:

Here is a short (Very short preview of the video) I still have to edit about 30 minutes of footage into something manageable.  This is the first time I have shot 1080p and 60 frames per second so I have about 10 Gigs of video data to work with.  I think I need a new computer!

If you look closely you can see the bottom of the river. It is about 20 inches deep in this section (just a guess).  Here is the full trip condensed down to about 5 minutes.

Found a great way to handle the extra video footage.  This is about 20 minutes of video time-lapsed into less than 2 minutes.   Great way to show more of the New River in less time.  I would say I was paddling this fast but you know better than that.  Check out Gusto at the 1 minute mark as he tries to pass me.  Naw, that ain't gonna happen. You got to paddle harder than that Gusto.

To get the full GPS data visit our EveryTrail site here