Southern Boof: Ice Lake Creek and Solo South Mineral: Keep it Rolling on the High Side of Good ! part 4

After getting shutdown in the Crystal drainage, we decided to head towards South Mineral Creek and the Durango Area. This area had to be my favorite of the entire trip. The drive from the Crystal towards Durango was spectacular.

Some Pics from the Drive:

On the drive over to South Mineral, the possibility of being able to run the falls at Ice Lake Creek was brought up. I wasn’t real sure what it was, but from what I could gather from Boyd and Adam was that it was steep and burly. Needless to say I was pretty excited to check it out. When we got there we found Ice Lake Creek pretty swollen. Boyd and Adam both said the water was way higher than they’d ever seen it on pictures or video. They briefly mentioned heading on to South Mineral and letting Ice Lake drop and hitting it early in the morning. I was not having that. It looked good to me, so I suited up while they scouted. Once everybody was geared up, we set up cameras and hiked the boats up. This is where we encountered the first problem of the day. The pool where you put in was good to go, but the entrance rapid was blocked with wood. This might have shut us down on a regular day, but I was determined. So I found a nice place to seal launch below the wood on the entrance rapid. By nice place I mean super sketchy and probably not a good idea.

Me Getting Ready to Seal Launch

Me About to Go

This rapid brought different opinions on how it should be run. With the high water the second drop made a huge hole with a large boil against the wall. Adam and Boyd were of the opinion to skirt it to the left, but I wanted to charge it head on. So with one last scout I was ready to go. On the hike up, I met a couple of hikers and they asked if I was going to run this. I told them yeah. Then they asked if my mother knew I was doing this. To that I replied, “Of course!” and got ready to ride the lightening. I was pretty nervous about the seal launch, but Boyd helped me get in and off I went. Entrance drop, check. First Drop, boof right and charge hard towards second drop, check. Second drop charge hard and boof the meat. This was going great until, the hole grabbed my stern. This shot me up in a back ender and the boil started to flip me. I knew I didn’t want to be upside down going into the third drop; instincts then took control. I immediately went to my back deck and started to roll even before I flipped. This was a really good decision, because I was up so quick I was able to stay on line and style the next two drops. One quick Fist pump and it was time for Adam and Boyd to fire it up.

Entrance Drop

Boofing the 1st Drop

I am at the very top you can barely see me. You gotta click on the pic to find me

Me boofing the second drop

Better Roll Quick

Hell Yeah! I am up.

Right on line.

Coasting in

Both Boyd and Adam decided to stick with their plans of skirting the hole to the left. It didn’t really work out that much better than my line. Both of them ended up getting surfed and flipping. But all in all, good lines were had and it made for a great day. Since it was late in the afternoon, and the water was pretty high we decided to go ahead and scout South Mineral and set up camp.

Adam Went too Far Left up top

Adam G Rodeo Star Cartwheels in the hole

Perfect Line (almost) lol

Cleaning the last drop

When we found South Mineral it was thumping. So we scouted and talked about how great tomorrow was going to be. While scouting the cauldron, the very last rapid on the run, I asked what they thought. Both Adam and Boyd agreed that it would go, but it probably wasn’t good to go for our first time. I really wanted to run it, but was a little worried about soloing a new run at high water. But I went with my gut and ran it. Good lines were had as I rode it out on the high side of good. Back at camp I couldn’t wait to get back on South Mineral Creek.

Hiking down for the Solo Mission