Spankin’ The Monkey
Yesterday I woke up around 3 a.m. as the Green River was robbing more of my sleep. To be precise, Gorilla was stealing my sleep. I knew Duke Energy had changed the schedule and that the Green would be running, but I didn’t know if I had a crew. Well, once morning broke, everything seemed to fall into place. All signs were pointing in the direction of finally taking that stoke off the monkey. And this is just what happened yesterday.
Anyone out there reading this, do you feel as though Frankenstein has changed? I seem to get booted to the left and it is hard to make the proper angle with the proper boof stroke. Anyway, the top stuff went well. My buddy raced ahead and I had two guys behind me, of which I was completely to myself on most of this stuff. It was a fantastic feeling.
I have never had as good of a line through go-left and zwick’s was smooth as well. Chief’s and then time for decisions. I got out of the boat, looked downstream, turned to my buddy and said “I’m running it.” Both of us got out to take a look and he hiked back up to run it. Smooth. He smoked his line. Now it was go time.
I got back in my boat, said a few thoughts to myself, one of which was “I’m really going to run Gorilla” and then I took a stroke. There was no turning back now. I went off Pencil Sharpener fine and lined up for the Notch. I did not get the angle I wanted, and I hit the left wall with my paddle, but I was upright. I wanted to run direct, but the water took my bow toward the eddy. I tried to claw my way in, but I was getting pushed backwards and not to the eddy. Plan B. I turned my shoulders, looked to my right, just in time to straighten it out, take a boof stroke and then….
I cannot describe how I felt going off the lip of this bad boy. It was a bit in slow motion and I felt a bit at peace. And then, reality came rushing back to me. I knew I was about to hit speed trap and thought, “Here we go” but I made it through without hesitation. My fist went up and I looked back up at Gorilla and thought, “Hell yah!”
Tags: creeking, gorilla, green narrows, the monkey