Summer 2014

Here is a collection of pictures from my summer adventures, I left the day after school ended and returned back to St. Louis at 11pm, the night before school started. It was a summer full of adventure and meeting truly amazing individuals. I kayaked new rivers, rode new trails and hiked to some astounding peaks. Enjoy the pictures, until the next adventure.

*Side note- not all the pictures were taken by me, most of the quality ones where taken by Natalie Herron.

All the Gear for kayaking all summer

Summer Home

My bed/gear

High Falls on the West Fork of the Tuck

Flight Simulator

Ross and Craig running bear Creek Falls on the Cheoah

Typical Work day on the Nanty

Lunch time Ducky Duck Raft

Body Surfing

Ted on the Green 

Welcome to Altanta

New Found Gap

Clingman's Dome

Clouds and wind moving in

The sinks on the Little

Cubs in Cades Cove

Another Black bear, we saw 7 total

Nashville, TN

Headed to Boulder CO

Add caption

Rocky Mtn. Park

Switch Backs

ELK!!

Emerald Lake

Deep thoughts

ELK in the campground 

Steamboat Springs!

The Road to Mtn. Albert

View from the campsite

Colorado Trail

Tree line! 12,000Ft

another false peak

View from the top

On top

First two weekends in Andrews

Summer home

For the first two weeks of the summer, visitors from St.Louis came to kayak. My first weekend off, started with meeting ted for an after work Ocoee run. After dialing in our creek boats we headed up to Knoxville, where Rick was going to meet us for the weekend. After a bit of a bender night, we got a really late start into the drive to the West Fork of the Tuck. We arrived at the put-in at 3 and the water turns off at 4. In a hurry, we started the hike in on the long steep trail. It was the worst hike in I have yet to do, but at the put in we were greeted with high falls, a 200ft water fall. After some complications, Ted decided to hike out, but Rick and I continued down the river, eddy scouting our way down, trying to not run out of water. The run was fun, but full of wood. We finished the weekend with mountain biking on Sunday at the tsali trails.  

Heading to the West Fork of the Tuck

High Falls on the West Fork of the Tuck

Scouting the entrance rapid

Just a little choked up

Flight Simulator on the W. Fork of the Tuck

For my second weekend, I meet up with Chris and his girlfriend. We paddled the tuckaseegee river from dilsbro down. This was Stephanie's first time in a hard boat, and she did great. It was also the first time Chris had paddled his kayak on whitewater in a long time. We camped that night and then headed to the NOC to paddle the nanty. After lapping the falls a couple of times, we chilled at the take out befor parting our ways. It was great weekend, and Chris never swam. Playing on boating harder stuff the rest of my weekends and there is a class IV/ V release every weekend I'm down here.

Stitches on the Tuck

Chris getting ready to kayak

1. 

My Life

The end of the school is always a stressful and tiresome time for teachers. To make my life even more stress full, I decided to wait until the last minute to finish all my grad school papers and to sell my house. But through all of this craziness there is a bit of light. My house sold, I earned my Masters and I even accepted a job teaching whitewater skills in Andrews, NC for the summer. With all this going on, I still managed to get a few weekends on the saint and one road trip to see Ted and the Cheoah 

UMSL Graduation

While on the Cheaoh River, a man lost his life just below Bear Creek falls. As we paddled up, we had no idea what was going on, we just saw a boat on the shore and other kayakers around. We asked if everyone was ok and they said yes, so we continued on. At the take out, we learned that the kayakers found the kayak empty on the river and did not know where the guy was. Hoping he was hiking the trail but afraid he could still be in the water. As we drove up to do another lap, we were flagged down by a women saying they found the body. It is crazy to think about, we were just right there on the river. Smiling and having a blast, completely unaware of what was happening under the surface of the water. Life is short, do what you love and do it often.

River.

 As school comes to an end, my last day working is May 28^th; I close on my house May 29^th and leave for the summer May 30^th. I’ve placed all my belongings in a storage unit and have decided to deal with them when I get back. I can’t promise a lot of blog posts over the summer because I will be spending too much time kayaking and mtn. biking, but I’ll do my best to try and keep up.  Stay safe out there.

-Curits