TR Upper Cherry Creek

[slide_for_life]

First time poster, long time lurker. I figured I would kick off my illustrious TGR forum career with a story about my trip down a magical canyon nestled in the granite bosom of the High Sierra. We had a pretty big group of 10 paddlers for a four day sojourn through a creek boater's wet dream. For those who haven't heard, Upper Cherry is stacked with slides and waterfalls from the first 1000 footer at the put-in to the last 10 footer into the reservoir.

Jared Johnson coming down the home stretch of the 11 mile approach to the putin.


After the a night spent covering all exposed flesh for fear of the mosquitoes, day 2 dawned.


After a quick breakfast and scout of the first monster slide, we suited up and dropped in. Lizzy English and Forrest Noble lead the charge.


An incredible series of slides and drops followed, resulting in a deepening sense of stoke. Yours truly cheesin'


Eventually the walls closed in and presented us with the first major challenge: Pinball Wizard (also known as the Cali Gorilla). Scotty Baker airing it out.


After Pinball Wizard, we approached the top of Cherry Bomb Gorge. Here the group split up with half of us hiking our camping gear around the gorge and the other half taking a nap before dropping in.

Andy and Scott waiting for the show.


Soon we saw the crew scrambling on the huge boulders above Cherry Bomb Falls. Here's Corey Boux dropping the Bomb.


After watching the crew's successful runs we hiked down to camp for dinner and a few laps on the Tea Cups. Corey and Jared Johnson paddling into camp after a flawless descent of the Cherry Bomb Gorge.


The next morning, it was my turn. I had some serious butterflies hiking up to run Cherry Bomb Gorge. After you run the lead-in drops you are committed to run Cherry Bomb Falls, unless you are Chris Sharma. Right above Cherry Bomb there is a huge rock pile the dams up the creek and makes a surreal lake.


Then it was time to scout the big boy.


Then it was time to run that shit, photo courtesy of Jared Johnson.


After the falls you are still committed to some stout walled in drops. B-Real demonstrates how to stroke it.


After that mega dose of adrenaline it was time to chill out at camp and lap the Tea Cups.


Typical camp scene.


The last day of Upper Cherry caught me completely off guard. Below camp the drops seemed to just grew bigger and bigger, while my balls shrank smaller and smaller. Luckily for you the viewer, a few in the crew decided to fire it up. Jared Johnson lines up Perfect 20.


Right below Perfect 20 was Double Pothole, a big photogenic drop that had me and B-Real walking. B-Real says "not today."


Lizzy says "fire that shit up."


Below Double Pothole things mellowed out for about 10 yards before the next set of Tea Cups.


Those Tea Cups feed into the infamous Kiwi in a Pocket, which all but one of us walked.


Of course, right before Alan dropped Kiwi my camera ran out of batteries. Rest assured homeboy styled it and we did not have hoist him out of the "pocket", which a good portion of the flow recirculates into. From Kiwi, we bombed down the lower gorges and paddled across Cherry Creek Reservoir to our waiting vehicles. As I pounded a warm beer at the takeout I felt that twinge of anxiety that accompanies a return to civilization after days spent in the woods.

Instead of giving in to this anxiety, we pointed it toward Washington and went to hide in the canyon of the Little White Salmon for a cooldown.
B-Real on some little ledge.


And that's how I spent my summer vacation.

[donutlynx]

Please tell me that you didn't paddle with those two goofballs on viewer's left...


Good stuff.

[slide_for_life]

Them? Just a couple of Jong hikers who came in and cooked hot dogs for us.

[RootSkier]

Decent first post.

[teledave]

Decent first post.

Yeah, that did not suck.

[donutlynx]

Them? Just a couple of Jong hikers who came in and cooked hot dogs for us.

Good to see that Team C was reduced to hot dog duty.

[slide_for_life]

Okay, they did a little more than cook hot dogs and oogle the pornstar that hiked in with Cory. Korbulic routed us down the lead-in to Cherry Bomb with his own special brand of highly informative hand motions. I think he ran the bomb four times or something ridiculous like that.

[Fenris]

Please tell me you have more creeking stoke! It's been pretty quiet in here recently.

That is one of the runs I can only aspire towards right now. Dammit, I still need to finish ski season first. Hoping to get my first paddle this weekend.

[Alpine Dreams]

That's one friggin bitchin TR!

[406]

nice stuff and welcome.

[GiBo]

I don't even paddle and I think this TR kicks ass.

Man, what a cool creek!

[BFD]

I'm also not a paddler but seeing the title I knew to click. Amazing place and trip. Seeing trips like this makes me think I've wasted my life. Thank's for posting.

[brice618]

Psh, sharma couldn't climb granite to save his limestone ass if you held a gun to his head.

Seriously though, awesome TR, can't wait to get back in a boat!

[jahve]

Nice tr...

[smalls]

[Flowtorch]

Kiss ass. First class. Keep the good creekin stoke fired up.

Cali granite creeks Look like pure paradise. Hope to get sum someday.

[summit]

Holy shit! Awesome!

This guy can definitely stay!

[Yonder_River]

You are no longer a jong!

[slide_for_life]

Thanks for the props folks. Now that I have officially switched gears to paddling mode I'll drop a few more choice cuts. But, I've got a problem because none of my other potential TRs will really top Upper Cherry. Y'all better hope we get on the Middle Kings or the Stikine or something, because as far as I can tell it doesn't get much more epic than Upper Cherry.

I do have enough pics to make a Clarks Fork Box TR, but that's about it for the epic creeking-type runs. I live in Idaho where we don't put on if it's under 1,000 cfs and even the shuttle vehicles run the shit:
Photo: Mike Leeds

[Fenris]

You don't have to top Cherry Creek. Any stoke is still stoke. Especially with how rare TRs in this corner of the forum seem to be anyways.

I kinda want to just hike up from the bottom and lap those tea cups.

[pablo]

Great pics and good TR. Hope to tick that off my list.

[cloudpeak]

Beautiful! Out of my league (I stick to Class IV), but great TR!

[Bart T]

sweet TR

is the subaru photoshopped in there, if not pray do tell the story on that one.

[slide_for_life]

No, that's a real picture of he-who-shall-remain-name-less's Outback after it rolled into Juicer on the North Fork Payette. The boys were getting out for a quick scout, the parking brake was set, the engine was running, and the shifter was in neutral. The parking brake somehow failed and the car rolled backwards across Highway 55, just missing the jersey barrier before flying into the river.


It took two tow trucks to get it out and the engine was still running after about an hour in the drink. Luckily, all the gear except for a demo boat was recovered. The demo boat met an untimely end somewhere in the run out of Juicer.

[GiBo]

Hey slide, maybe I missed it, but when was this trip?