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Ruby Anthracite : Mank House
Ruby is a run that derives its excitement not so much from its hard drops, but more from
the surety with which you must paddle into micro eddies above certain death. This is a
hardcore wilderness run with amazing scenery and plenty of bear scat. When you put-on, be
prepared for more of an all day adventure, than anything resembling a whitewater run.
The amount of portages is great, too great to count. The rapid to portage ratio should not
even be mentioned while paddling the run. For all of its trouble though, it is in many ways
worth it, just to spend a day in this special place.
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| At the put-in |
When putting on at the bridge, make sure that there is more than enough water to float a boat.
This run is full-on, mank-town, bone-zone paddling. So to ensure that your boat makes it to
the bottom, intact, you should make sure that there is “enough” flow. But then again, with too
much flow, you might be flushed into some heinous cascade, which would most likely result in
death. So also, don’t put on if it’s charging unless you know the run very well.
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| Typical log jam |
From the bridge you’ll slowly begin to get a taste of what the top half of this run is like.
Steep, with a sh!t ton of wood, is how I like to describe it. About a mile in you come
abruptly to the first unrunnable cascade. In this top section, if you can’t see what’s over
the horizon line, you need to get out of your boat. The cascade is hard to recognize from the
top…besides the humongous looming horizon line. The top drop of the cascade is runnable and
looks “good”…but the allure of running this drop is lost in the fact that the last eddy above
very certain death, looks as though it would not be easy to catch. Plus, the eddy is on the
right, while the huge cascade is best portaged on the left. Do what you do, but remember, you
are a long way from being rescued.
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| Part of Cascade1 that looked good |
Another mile and half or so of boating brings you to the huge and unrunnable cascade number
two. This cascade is even harder to recognize than the first and catching an eddy above it is
paramount. Once in the cascade there would be no turning back and the lead in is quite steep.
Catch an eddy on the left somewhere above the horizon line. There is an eddy on the left,
right at the edge and if you don’t know what’s coming, it’s probably the eddy that you’ll
catch, just don’t miss it. Whoever gets there first should be out of their boat quickly and
ready to catch the next boater (this rule pretty much goes for the entire run). Staying
spread out is essential for surviving this run; many of the eddies scarcely hold one boat,
much less two or more.
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| Part of Cascade1 that didn't look so good |
After portaging the "return of the unrunnable cascade" on the left, the boating is continuous
and full of wood. Don’t expect to be in your boat for more than a few hundred yards at a time.
Eventually you come to a gnarly, but semi-runnable cascade. A cliff wall will be looming from
high above all the way to the water on the left. Proceed with caution! You will
probably catch an eddy on the left, just above where it really starts to get steep.
The problem is, to scout the entire drop you need to be on the right bank. There is a tough
move into an eddy on the right above a deadly log strainer. If you’re even thinking about
running the whole rapid, you are probably sure enough in yourself to catch the eddy. If not,
ferry over to the right above the drop and head straight up and out of the canyon to portage.
From the eddy above the strainer, to run the drop, you
must get out, walk around and put back in above a very gnarly section of whitewater.
Before you put back in, I would recommend taking a 20 minute hike, up and around the entire
length of the cascade to scout the rapid in its entirety. This rapid is full of trouble and
setting safety would be challenging at best. This is a huge, huge, seriously life threatening
section of whitewater, that should only be attempted by teams of experts.
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| Bottom of Cascade1 |
After a long portage on the right, around this third cascade, you can put back on in the
run-out and get a few exciting moves to compensate for the hike. As you continue you are
faced with more of the same: steep, wood infested, creeking, minus the heinous unrunnable
cascades. Another few miles sees you to the confluence with Anthracite Creek and puts you in
Dark Canyon. The cliff walls and “towering vistas” rise hundreds of feet directly from river
level. The scenery is spectacular, the flow is doubled, the whitewater is significantly less
threatening and the portages are further apart. You start to get the feeling that you may just
make it out alive after all. From here to the take-out is relatively painless, although
there is still plenty of wood.
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| Dark Canyon |
When Lil’ Pete and I went into this run, his boat had just been cracked and then fixed on OBJ
the previous day. The boat already had one crack from the previous year, which had been fixed
as well. During the course of this run his boat cracked in three, yes, three more places,
making for a grand total of five cracks. This type of hardship makes the run significantly
less enjoyable, yet we still had a good time. We were out of our boats so much in the top
half, that Pete would just dump his boat at every log jam. It wasn’t really even a problem
until Dark Canyon, when we were actually in our boats for much longer stretches of river.
Here he began to get cold (sitting in a puddle of alpine run-off is never warm) and we were
lucky that it was a warm day. The creek bed on this run is one of the most unstable in
Colorado and changes are inevitable. Take caution on this run, make sure your boat is ready
for some serious abuse, and plan big for an all out adventure.
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| Pete and the duct tape fix |
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