Royal Gorge of The North American

Royal Gorge of the American
(Main River)

Days 2
Miles 33 miles
Vertical Drop 3800
Level Low (550 into Lake Clementine)
Portages 3
Peeps John Grace, Nate Helms, Daniel DeLaVergne, Fred Coriell, Toby MacDermott, Nikki Kelly, Tommy Hilleke, Pat Keller
Fun Fact: Got to use your southern charm to get into the putin.
Tommy and Pat drove from Asheville to run the river and turned around and drove to the Teva Mountain Games in Vail, making for 60 hours of driving for 1 river.
We saw 3 bears, a bunch of dear, a scorpion, a rattlesnake, an osprey and a black widow spider.

Tommy performed an over the handlebars flip off a 50 foot falls. The boys goal to run the entire river with no portages came up short by a few.

Also of note is the teams blistering paddle out on Day two. Over 28 miles of river lower than 600 cfs with big rapids and falls was paddled in one day.
We began our journey at the double falls Scott Lindgren ran (at 930 am) and arrived beat and tired at the takeout just after dark.

Here is the oh-so-talented Nikki Kelly greasing the first falls at Heath Springs

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Here is a funny shot of Nate Helms in a trifold celebration after surviving the same falls

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