Oh Be Joyful!!!
Eliot Berz, Hunt Jennings, Grady Kellogg and I decided to go check out Oh be Joyful – a 1 mile super popular Class V Colorado Creek. Before we headed out there we called a local outdoor shop and asked “if it was possible to get there?” They, of course, said “NO WAY!” We, of course, went anyway.
When we got there we had to leave our 2 wheel drive van down at the beginning of the gravel road to the camp site, aka the putin, due to all the snow. Luckily we had Hunt’s beast truck and drove right over the snow all the way.
When we arrived at the camp site we immediately got suited up. There was no way to check the levels unless we hiked up this super sketchy road all the way to the putin and looked at the river. We crossed the Slate River and began hiking. We found ourselves hiking in knee deep snow, so we decided to leave our boats to make sure Oh Be Joyful was running before we made the huge effort of hiking up a full mile in deep snow.
When we got to the top we were psyched to find that it was a go so we hiked back down, got our boats and hiked back up to the putin tryng to scout as much as possible along the way.
When we got to the putin we decided we should scout more so we hiked back down again to the take out and scouted it all over again. Yes, we scouted the heck outta this 1 mile run but we quickly realized that we must have been the first people to run Oh Be Joyful this season so extra scouting was in order and the water was literally snow melt so it was beyond freezing.
In the end the extra time spent scouting really paid off as we were forced to portage a 10 foot boof and two additional drops due to a river wide log.
We putin at Heart Attack completely bypassing Ankle Breaker. Heart Attack went smooth for all four of us, we all boofed off the right side and ran it clean. There was just a little bit of boogie water until we were at the spot we had to portage to avoid the river wide log below the 10 foot boof.
Next was Dead Zone. Grady and I set saftey for Hunt And Eliot, Hunt ran the drop left to right and found himself running it to the bottom right wall. Eliot was planning on boofing of the flake, he ended up scraping on a rock that kept him from making it to the flake and ended up diving of the drop.
After Dead Zone we found ourselves on the slide right after it, I’d tell you the name, but it seems no-one has a clue! But, we ran it middle left and boofed between the two flakes on the bottom left of the slide. Sweet.
We paddled a little bit bigger boogie water till the take out for the upper half. We then scouted the next three slides and they were all a go except Avalanche.
Avalanche was super sketchy. We were tring to decide what rock we would rather piton on and which one would be the least painful! The concession was that we’d rather not peton at all and walked to Ode to Joy.
We put in above Ode to Joy and blue angeled it. At the very top of the slide I caught a flake and flipped over and pretty much grinded down the sharp rock until I finally rolled up and ran the last half smoothly. Here is where I sure did not regret wearing a full face and elbow pads.
Up next was Oh Be Grateful. We ran it starting right, then charging left above the hole in the middle, after the hole we all stayed left and boofed on to a rock ledge and slid a few feet to the end of the slide.
All we had left in front of us the the hike out, luckily it was only up hill for 50 yards the rest was down hill and covered in snow, so we took advantage of the hill and went snowyaking the rest of the way to the camp site. Not only did we run Oh Be Joyful but we also got some snowyaking in – epic on all accounts!
By Brody Kellogg
Awesome story. I enjoyed “being” there with you guys.
That is just plain crazy. Wow.
I need a dictionary of the sport to be able to gain the full adventure of what you fellas accomplished that day. It’s still a thrill, and it’s like reading any athlete’s account of a particular day in his/her sport. How do you all remember it all it such detail. But y’all do!
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