Frog Fest 2006
Earlier this year we all agreed that we would have to make a few trips
up to B.C. for the killer W.W. that we knew was up there. Unfortunatly
the Thompson was not high on our list. Mainly because the year before
we had driven all the way up there and found out the a cold weather
front had brought the river up to a level where the Frog was flushed
out. What a bummer. 6 + hours on the road just to boat a 4 hour flat
water nightmare. Needless to say this year when we started making plans
for the Thompson there were a few people that were less than excited to
return. None the less we all decided that with levels in the right
range we should give her one more shot. WOW am I glad that we did.
Jon Dufay, Ryan Akins, Dave Morales, Leif Keirchoff, my wife and I all
headed up the the Thompson on late Thursday night Aug 31st. Friday
morning we decided to make a quick pit stop to hit up the Nahatlatch
Canyon. Despite the extremely low levels the river channelized quite
well and was still a blast to mudder down with a group of friends.
Boy that Blanket Gets around
Friday afternoon we all raced up to the Frog to grab as much action as
possible why the sun was still shining. We were blessed with great
weather and a perfect wave.
Sat. we all decided against better judgement to run the whole stretch
of the river, just to see what the lower levels exposed as far as
play.... We found nothing. The whole group had fun on the run but also
agreed that it was a little tedious when you knew that the Frog and
Cutting board were so easy to session. After the run we all decided
that we would never make the whole run again. Instead we would session
the frog and the cutting board all day Sunday. So that night we found a loud little camp spot next to a big ass set of train tracks and went to sleep... in between trains that is. Later the next morning we explored the campground and found Dave who had found a nice little ditch to crash in, apparently he had not heard any trains that evening.
On Sunday we had the wonderful suprise of being at the Frog when
Kumsheen Rafting was scheduled to host the 2006 Frog Rodeo. The days
prior to sunday we had boated with very exceptional boaters from other
areas of the world, all had made the trek out to session the frog.
After having the chance to see some serious skill on the river we all
did not really care to pay money to get our asses kicked in an
international scene. Luckily the Rodeo turned out to be free and a
totally fun and lax time. Instead of some uptight comp, we all just
threw down our hardest moves over an hour period for a panel of judges.
And to top it off we had dope beats rocking out the whole time. A good
few solid blocks of Sweatshop were pumping while I was on my last few
rides, so it was a pretty chill scene. After all was said and done the
"Seattle Crowd" walked away with the cash. When asked what we would do
with our money, we all stated run to the liquor store and then poach
the hottub at Kumsheen. Then we realized that we were telling this to
the managers of the resort... oops. It was all good though, we did
poach the resort, and we did make some ruckus but we were pretty much a
controlled crowd... that evening.
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