10 things you should know about Overflow

The last 6 months have been crazy.  Liquidlogic and our brotha brand Native Watercraft have moved our entire manufacturing facility and offices from Greensboro to Fletcher NC, near the Green River.  Its kind of like moving from one house to another except the moving truck is a tractor trailer and instead of one truck it took us 50 tractor trailer loads to get everything in the building.  I have had the pleasure of designing new offices, helping design the manufacturing floor plan, helping train new staff, integrating new manufacturing plans, and I am definitely getting pretty good on a fork lift.  All that has been on top of the normal stuff so to say the least its been a fun busy time. A different sort of Class 5 which has made it difficult for me to take off and run much other than our home run the Green.

However... the other day it rained cats and dogs.  It rained enough that I knew things would be super high in the morning but that they might start dropping in during the afternoon.  I had convinced myself I would be fine just going to work and not worrying about it but as the day wore on my leg started that twitch thing.  The boatingbeta flows page was on constant refresh and Overflow was looking like it would drop in perfectly, if I left right then.  Fortunately Yonton was ready and on call for a paddling adventure.  We loaded up my van with boats, gear, and the motorcycle for the shuttle and we were off.

10 things to know about Overflow

1.  The shuttle road is longer and a little rougher than you think.
2.  The mud on the put in trail is slicker than snot.
3.  The right eddie in Hemlock is a bitch to get out of while you wrestle rhodos.
4.  There is a new tree after 7 Car Pile Up. Watch the video.
5.  The left hump boof at Round About is awesome.
6.  Gravity is much harder at lower water.  Fortunately we had a sweet level of 1.3579341
7.  If you haven't been on Overflow there is an initiation.  If you have its your job to initiate.
8.  The Twilight mini gorge is one of the coolest sections of whitewater you'll ever run.
9.  The Great Marginal Monster is an awesome iconic rapid.  Go left on the drop below it.
10. The motorcycle shuttle is awesome!

It was a perfect fall evening, enjoy the video.

Sometimes you forget how good a river is...Overflow from Shaneslogic on Vimeo.

Shane

Stomper testing on the Green with Brown Claw

Brown Claw wants a Cracker

 Last season seemed to be the, thankfully, climax of the brown claw epidemic.  However I didn't enter my video into the Brown Claw archives so here it is.  You will see your basic Claw, The Spinning Claw, Under Over Claw, Double Claws of Fury, The Clap On Claw, The Clap on WTF, The Double Shocker Claw, The Claw of Terror, The Claw Your Way out of a Hole, The Preemptive Claw, The Claw Your Friend, and the Claw Your Way Up Out of the Water.

They Wander Downstream...I Claw My Way

Enjoy and May The Claw Be With You.
Shane

Testing the Stomper with Woody and others on the Green at 9"

Dropping into the Green with Woody

Another classic day of footage that I recovered from the depths of the Stomper prototype testing archive.  It was a day much like we have had lately.  Water and air temps were just starting to get downright comfy last year as the final touches were being put on the Stomper.  All the crew was out on a perfect weekend.  It just doesn't get much better than that.  Oh and add on top of that I got to roll down the river with my paddling and business partner Woody Callaway.  He is living my goal in paddling to just keep rolling out smooth lines for a really long time.

In any case the Stomper proved fun for all... and it rolls well!

Cheers
Shane

The Green River at 16"

Its not that different just a little more padding

Well now that I found this little nest of forgotten footage I might as well keep going.  Adriene and I got out on the river last winter at 16".  I was testing out one of the early protos of the Stomper 80.  It was a fun day just the two of us out there.  We didn't see a soul.

To me the river is actually easier and more fun at this level, except Gorilla of course.  The whole thing is just softer.  The boney rocks and slides that beat you up daily at normal flows are well padded and the extra juice makes it more splashy and bouncy.  Yes there are a few holes that become a bit more disconcerting but over all it makes the river easier.  The best examples of that are Go Left, Zwicks, and Sunshine.  At Go Left you can start to run down the entire left side of the whole rapid which makes it a direct line rather than having to paddle out on the dome and turn hard to run the slots at the bottom of the rapid.  In this video I run the sneak and Adriene comes down the Left Left line.  Just watch the log its pretty exposed at 16 and gets better as you go up.  At Zwicks you can run right of the top hole which takes this one from being one of the tougher rapids to being one of the easier.  You can't help but run out over the shallow slide.   At Sunshine as the levels get over 16 inches you can just run straight off the middle and pretty much clear the center rock.  Adriene ran straight and I ran the right line.  I should have run the straight line because I did flip over.   Gorilla is a beast and it gets really beastly as the water goes up.  We walked it.

Going Direct at Go Left

The down side to the river being this high or higher is that when things do go wrong they go wrong really quickly and in a much worse way.  Its going to be a long time before you can pull your boat out of the river if you swim and it may be a rapid or two before you can swim yourself to shore if you aren't aggressively swimming.  So if you are thinking about running this river at higher flows make sure you know the lines well and know you can deal with the issues that can arise.  If you have that covered this can be some of the best runs on the river you will ever have.

Oh and don't forget about Hammer Factor.  When the water levels rise the bad ass paddlers that are on this river at hi flows aren't worried about Go Left or Sunshine.  They are pinching a loaf about Hammer Factor.  Its big, nasty, and it gives grown boys and girls nightmares.

The Pit in Hammer Factor

Here is the video from the day.

Adventures from found footage: Testing the Stomper on Yellow Creek

I was sifting through my hard drive and stumbled across a few extra morsels of Stomper prototype goodness.  These tidbits came from a day when we were doing the classic chase the rain around looking at rivers that were too high or in the case of the Santeetlah the gate was locked and we couldn't get near the put in or take out so we had to opt for something that none of us had done and as always happens on these types of days we had 45 minutes of daylight.  Yellow Creek flows into the Cheoah River.  Its the last river on the American Whitewater database of rivers for North Carolina.  However we had no idea what we were getting into. We didn't know what the level should be but it looked paddleable.   We had no idea how long it would take but we did know that it was short and worst case we would be able to walk out in the dark if all hell broke loose.   As it turned out it was a fun short run that takes about 45 minutes.  The top 2/3rds is easy peasy, fun and cheesy.  The part from the falls down to the Cheoah River is pretty juicy with a nasty sieve and some fun read and run.  The Stomper rocked it in this tight and technical environment.  Mefford, Adriene, Snowy, and I had a great time.  Enjoy the flick. Fast and furious helmet cam love.

Cheers
Shane

Steep Creek Skills wins at The National Paddling Film Festival

We got some cool news the other day. The video that John Grace, Penstock Productions, Liquidlogic and I put together, Steep Creek Skills, won the Best Instructional Video category at the National Paddling Film Festival. Pretty Cool. I am psyched. It was a fun project that we had been talking about doing for a long time. The Penstock crew did a great job of bringing together all the footage, and audio. John also had to organize a group of kayakers. We all know how that goes. The best part of the whole thing was that we got to spend a bunch of time on the home river with a bunch of friends. In fact I think we had two days in a row where it took us 5 hours to get down the Green which usually takes us a little more than an hour.

The DVD not only has the Steep Creek Skills video it also has a full Green River Guide which includes shots of most of the different lines through almost every rapid on the river. There are also a few other extras including a top ten from Tommy and the highlights of the Green Race this past year. All in all its a packed DVD with instruction, beta on the green, and just plain old entertainment. Here is a sampling of what is on the instructional portion of the video.

Whitewater Instruction Steep Creek Skills from Lunch Video Magazine on Vimeo.

Buy the video at the LVM Store by clicking Here and look for more instruction at Liquidlogic's instructional page Here. We will be updating that site regularly with instruction tips of all types. In fact send us some ideas and we will try our best to cover them.

Take it easy
Shane