Pray for Rain: Johnnies Creekin

I watched the radar anxiously. I kept my fingers crossed. When no one was looking I even rain danced a little. Needless to say I think whatever I did it paid off as it finally rained enough to get back on Johnnies Creek , AL. Adam Goshorn and John Eskew ran it the day before with lightning and thunder and rising waters. After hearing about this I was up early with the sunrise the next day and on the road.

I was happy to see when I arrived at the put-in that it was still at a pretty good level, right about 0" on the gauge. I was also lucky enough to have my friend Megan Huston coming along to try out her new digital SLR camera. The only concern was how to get her into the steep gorge where Johnnies flows as it's formidable scrambling to say the least. I dropped her off though along the road to begin her decent and I head back to the put-in to gear up and begin mine with Adam. The put-in falls was a sweet as I remember it from last time and we were soon on our way into the mile long 290' drop to the Little River.

Hucking the put-in falls(photo credit Ryan Moore)

As it's been a year since I had been here this first lap was spent with Adam giving me great beta about each drop.

Nice shot of Boof Right which leads directly into this:

The big slide from way up high. Makes it look even bigger than it already is.

Though this first go was a bit shakey from lack of remembering the run I still felt really solid and when we reached canyon mouth park and couldn't wait to load up and head to the top again. The only real concern I had was that we hadn't seen Megan in there. She should have been sitting somewhere along the river but as I later found out it was even tougher to get into the gorge than we thought but she finally made it and we saw her on our second lap snapping tons of pics below the big slide. Our second run was lots of fun too and we reached Canyon mouth park to find 3 times as many cars as when we had arrived that morning. It was a Johnnies sort of day. Laps three and four we turned with a couple other local Bama boys and they were much faster than the first two as we all rushed to stick together.

Up until the fourth lap Adam and I had been walking Gorilla Constrictor, the only solid V on the run. But by this final tour of the creek Adam was feeling froggy and decided to fire'er up. I completed my portage quickly as not to slow down the group and got back in my boat at the bottom. There I sat waiting and waiting and wondering what was taking so long. I started to get worried that something might have happened so I popped out of my boat and grabbed my rope only to see Adam running the bottom drop of Gorilla and styling it. As we continued on down I was worried that we hadn't seen Megan this last lap but figured she had already begun the hike out. We later found her, just before the confluence with Little river. She had gotten walled in, nearly fallen off a cliff band, and slipped in the water and was now soaked. Thankfully though we got her across Johnnies and she picked up the trail that leads to Canyon Mouth Park where we got her into dry clothes. Needless to say her day was far more epic than anything we did! As we departed for home the rest of the crew were headed to LRC falls to fire it up where they all had some stylish, and from what I hear some not as stylish, lines. Enjoy the pictures, all credit for them goes to Megan unless otherwise noted.

Well that's about it. Till next time

Stay Wet

&

Pray for Rain