Dinkey Creek: The Spring Mission

Last week we ran Dinkey Creek. During the summer, this might not have been such an epic adventure but in the spring, when the roads are locked in by snow and the rivers are on the rise, running Dinkey creek can turn into a mission.

After attempting to drive Stephen Wright's van to the trail head of the standard hike in, we quickly realized that the snow would simply not allow that to happen. After pushing the van up a few hills and out of a few ditches, we finally decided that it was simply not going to happen. So from there part of the group decided to start hiking. We knew we had somewhere between 5 and 15 miles to go until we reached the trail head, and chose to commit to walking there.

The team using our paddles to dig the van out of a ditch

Dragging our boats through the snow up the road

Will Pruett charging!!!

After seven or so hours of hiking about ten miles of road, we eventually we made it to the standard trail head and started working our way down the two mile trail to the river. We were tired and sore and way over carrying our boats, but we still managed to take some time to enjoy the scenery on the hike down.

Dinkey Creek!

A tributary on the hike in

Right around dusk we finally made it down to the put in of the river. We decided to set up camp there and rest up to charge the entire river the next day. Dinkey Creek is generally paddled as an overnight, but because of our late start, we would have to paddle the entire river in one day. It was awesome.

Taylor Fearrington at the Willie Kern slide

Taylor taking a moment below a big rapid under the rainbow

Me at the bottom drop of Spike

Drew Duval entering one of many big rapids

Beautiful scenery on the Dinkey Creek

Taylor going for it on a classic Dinkey rapid

Me running the bottom 20 footer

Drew in the middle of the Nikki Kelly Slide

Me entering into the meat of the Nikki Kelly Slide

Our group hiking around the water blasting out of the dam

Was it worth the hike? Hell yea!!!!

Ecuador Video

Along with the photos posted below, I also wanted to share this video that Gareth put together of our time down in Ecuador.

Going South for the Winter: Working in Costa Rica, Belize and Ecuador

Two trips to Costa Rica, three weeks in Belize and two weeks in Ecuador very conveniently helped me avoid most of what was considered one of the harsher winters Western NC has seen in a while. While it felt like I was always on the move and never in one place for more than a couple days, I can't really complain. From golfing for my first time in 10 years, to seeing Mayan skeletons, to spear fishing to swimming like a fish in Ecuador, it was a great winter. Check out some of my favorite photos from each trip below.

COSTA RICA

Working on some rolling at the Fischer Condo pool

Taking a day off of boating to work on our golf swings

El Rio Tenorio

El Rio Colorado

A self portrait from an early morning chill session on the beach by the condo

BELIZE

Scouting out the islands we would return to with the Wofford College group (this picture was taking after the bumpiest/scariest boat ride I've ever had)