Hailstone Run Finally Conquered

Saturday April 28th. 2013, will always be remembered by me, on this day my friend John Sagars and I paddled the Hailstone run in the Upper  Buffalo Wilderness at 4.5 on the Boxley gauge. This has been adventure goal #1 for me for at least 15 years, and to finally get the opportunity was awesome to say the least. 15 miles of waterfalls and rapids and beautiful scenery, definately one of the most fun days ever on the river. Of course, we had an incredibly late start at 2 in the afternoon, but I saw the opportunity and had to take it. John was convinced we would be staying overnight on the river, but I knew we had to get off by dark, or be in trouble. The trip was not without mishaps, and both John and I took swims after being thrown from the raft. I took two swims within 100 yards, the last one causing me a injury when I was tossed into a boulder just under the surface. My new raft is made for small creeky rivers, it's only 9.5' long, and performed awesome while taking a pretty good beating. We really needed about 3" to 6" more water, because the run was very technical. We also experienced a couple of issues while making poor decisions on lines through the rapids, and I ended up on top of a boulder midstream once and had to make a long jump to get back with the raft. Huge smiles were plastered on our faces all day long as we would look back at what we had just gone through and sometimes see 10 waterfalls pouring into the river within our view. We broke all of the rules with our late put-in, single boat, no safety equipment, and no prior experience on the river, but that only added to the adventure. Not that I want to go so unprepared ever again, but I was not going to miss this run for any reason. This trip is highly recommended for any person who ever gets the chance, and hopefully I can provide that opportunity to many of my friends and family. I also paddled the next two days, Sunday with the family, and Monday with a group of folks I had never met on the Boxley run. More rain is on the way, let's hope it comes up again. Yahoo, The Hollowhead.