After a healthy level on Beech our second day of Lance and Shelby's Tripple Crown Adventures was largely unplanned. Overnight on Saturday it went from drizzle to rain back to drizzle off and on through the night with the wee hours of the morning being mostly light rain.
After several hours of indecision on Sunday morning we finally broke from our restful spots in the cabin and decided to run the East Fork of the Little Buffalo (EFLB).
Heath Day and I set shuttle. The shuttle down to Murray is now Class V, anything less than 4WD need not apply.
We had a small but capable group as several of the other party members elected to go run a fat Richland rather than speculate on what could have ended up being a lowish ELFB. Alas, they were wrong. EFLB was healthy and perfect. Party consisted of Scott Hanshaw, Heath Day, Don West, Lance Jones and yours truly.
At present there is a tree down in the first hundred yards - be advised. I expect it may be mechanically removed soon as it is accessible by ATV.
We enjoyed ourselves throughly. I failed to take many pictures at all except these.
Heath Day running slot proper on Johnson's Falls. It looks like there isn't much room because... there isn't much room here. He got through fine. Lance has a much better photo/angle of it.
Scott Hanshaw followed with a similarly styled line.
I would allow as this or just slightly higher level are very close to perfect for being able to run the falls on creek left. To my knowledge there are only a very short list of folks who have run it through the slot on the left. In no order they include, Andy Judkins, Ryan Johnson, Sammy ?, Ray Skinner, maybe another or two Team Stupid members, and now Heath and Scott. Fish should be able to corroborate the Team Stupid facts.
We enjoyed the remainder of the run having the most fun in the upper gorge and then again the most fun in the Swinging Bridge gorge. EFLB was a near perfect level, the overnight maintanance rain had accomplished the same thing as witnessed on the Richland gauge which was a slight drop overnight, to hold steady with a slight increase as the day progressed. It is a RARE thing for these creeks to hold steady let alone see an increase with only minor maintenance rain.
There was another tree somewhere else along the way but it wasn't in a significant drop and so it can be declared that EFLB is open for business from top to bottom post 2009 Ice Storm.
An evening check of the Richland gauge revealed that it was 4.9 at 8PM so it was easily conceived that day three would be Richland.
