I have been buggin about this stretch of run for a long time now. Should I do it? Nah, It'll be there next year I thought, year after year. Starting off this season on the Lower G I thought,  I'm happy here. I don't need on the Upper G anyway.  Although, I'm still watching videos of the Upper G, trying to figure it out. Reading descriptions till my eyes bled. Sounds and looks completely insane.

 Fast forward 3 weeks. I'm primed, have had stellar runs on the Lower G every weekend. Everyone I know has told me for years, "Yeah, no problem man, you can do it". I'm not so sure, but I'm growing weary of the dark cloud that had been hovering over me for so long. I hear a few people will show up to run the Upper on the 4th weekend of the season. This time, I'm in. As the weekend comes, the small group had grown to a large size group. Jason suggested that he, Andrew and myself take off and run it. I prefer much smaller groups, so I concurred.

 The evening before the run I couldn't sleep at all. I thought I was managing my fear of it pretty well, and although my heart wasn't racing, I was still feeling the impacts of the anxiousness. Everyone gets up, we eat (thanks for the sausage biscuit J!) and head to the put-in.

 Ok, we're here. I get out to unload boats and just about start having a full on panic attack. Oh my god. We're here. The river is right over there. I'm out..  I was tired from no sleep, tired from busting out hard lines on the Lower the day before, and my bottle of vagisal was _completely_ empty due to events from the previous two weekends. I make my feelings known that I'm kinda freaking out. Assurances abound, "You're good to go" I'm told. I'm tired of hearing it. Let's rock.

 I put on the river with a new sense of combativeness, instead of panic. The day before, Andrew and I had taken some new lines (to me), and paddled very aggressively all day. I put myself into the mindset of the previous day. My only thoughts were.. Paddle hard, stay confident. I remembered Eric saying a couple years ago, "Hell, it's the same freakin water as the Lower anyway". I laughed silently, and off we went.

 The warm up rapids were a great build up. Initiation was easy. Great so far, but I knew Insignificant was coming up. I was tense, but paddling great and staying loose. Then we get there. The place that our guide had gotten 'lost' not so long ago. Jason explains the route..head down, go right of the hole, back left, big wavetrain, then left of the big rock at the bottom. Got it. It's pretty easy until we start nearing the hole we need to avoid, then I started feeling the power of the river. Hear we GO. Dug in, paddled hard, whew, got around the hole. Ok, wow, big waves! Damn here comes that huge undercut rock, paddle left!!! Flailing away, I had made it to the bottom. YEAH! Alright, maybe this won't be so bad!

 The next few rapids were fun, nothing crazy. Jason had a ton of great boof lines all day, and some good ones were found in here. We come up to Pillow. I want to scout it. We get out, J shows the line. Ok, I can see it, I think I might be able to do this. Up until this point, I had committed to running most of the rapid upside down. After seeing the line, I felt much more confident. We took off, dodged a few holes, then started the speedy decent towards pillow. Jason drops over a wave and all of a sudden I see the bottom of his boat but I still can't  see the feature that flipped him. "Oh crap, this is gonna nail me" was my first reaction. But it didn't, I somehow made it passed that point, and further up into the pillow, then rode down to the right, punched the toilet bowl and emerged into the eddy unscathed. I'm pretty sure I erupted into at least a few HELL YEAHS with a raised fist.

 Run some more rapids till Lost Paddle. My nervousness was creeping back in. I knew this was a big, long, and potentially very harmful to a human body rapid. 1st drop was cake. Then I ask, are we at 2nd drop now? "Yes". Jason asks, "Which way, creek line or right line?" Hell I don't have any idea but whatever is easiest would be great I say. We head left to go down a creek line which I won't even try to explain, and somehow ended back up in the main flow eventually. Not to say the creek line was easy, nor the re-entry into the main flow which required dodging some hefty holes, nor being back in the main flow. It was crazy, I was fighting to stay upright, kind of losing track of everyone. I had somehow got 'auto-eddied', had a chance to catch a breath and then I saw Andrew coming. I looked at what I had to peel out into, a violent, frothy mess. Dug in hard, peeled out.

 At some point in the rapid I came up on Jason, our boats collided. We moved apart, then Andrew came flying in, our boats collided. It's still hard to stay upright, then all this bumper boat crap, and I see we're heading straight towards the big undercut rocks. I actually laughed because although it was mayhem, everyone was doing fine.  We all broke up and paddled around it. I have no idea where the 3rd drop was, or 4th drop, or what happened exactly. That my *very rough* interpretation of what happened. lol. 

 The next few rapids were easy fun, until we got to Iron Ring. I had already promised myself before putting on, that regardless of how the day was going, I was going to portage this my first run down. We got out and had a lunch break, watched tons of people run down it. I see the line, it's kind of ugly but I'm pretty sure I could do it. But no, I'm sticking to my promise. I climbed down some rocks while J and Andrew (man, you need a nickname) ran it. No shame, I will conquer that rapid eventually for sure.

 Yet EVEN MORE just flat out fun rapids until Sweets Falls. There's a ton of people on both sides of the river watching. Not a good sign. I see a wide horizon line, and a lot of mist coming up from behind it. Again, not a good sign. J says, "DMan, we're runnin this one blind!" Laughs at me, and has that grin he's had on his face every time he looked at me before the top of a rapid. "Small hump, we're gonna go left!" he says, and takes off. I look at the horizon line, I see a few different humps. Hmmmm. He falls over the line, and disappears. As I come to the lip, I can see him down below, rolling up. This time, for sure I was getting destroyed. I was prepared for it. I could then see what I was heading into. I was on the right side of a V-shaped flume, heading down at what felt like a 45 degree angle, I leaned away from the left side of the flume, aimed for the hole at the bottom, slammed into it, pulled through. I was out! Eddied left, stared at the PILE of rafts and people stuck in box canyon. Hilarious. Peeled out, around the box canyon rocks and into the slackwater.

 I had made it! Sure I portaged a rapid, but every rapid was clean. Ok, lost paddle wasn't 'clean' but it was all pretty much under control, and never a flip. We had to head down to Woods Ferry where we set shuttle, and hit the huge hole at fuzzy box of kittens, which DID manage to flip me, but we were playin, it doesn't count, Andrew. Julies Juicer was pretty meaty, with a rather large hole in the middle of the rapid that we all punched. At the end is a sick looking pourover, hole, kind of thing that I can't even explain. I've never seen anything like it. I couldn't see what Jason did, but Andrew came down and dropped right down into it, putting him into an instant bow stall that  he held for a few seconds in his huge boat. Awesome stuff.

 Incredible day, one I had been fearing for much longer than I should have. In hindsight, watching all those videos, and reading all those descriptions was absolutely pointless.

 Thanks J, as Andrew would say, "Fabulous" lines. Thanks Andrew for playing cleanup.. And everyone else for riding my ass to get out there, you were right. Yeah, I know. Shutup.