We hooked up with KB and Luke at Strongwater and caravanned to the Alberton Gorge. As we pulled into the parking lot of Triple Bridge we kicked up a whole bunch of Wild Turkeys while walking to the bridge to take a look at the water level. We decided to launch our SUPs at Sandy Beach, a 1/2 mile up from Triple Bridge. Our first rapid was at Triple Bridge with a long whitewater section and a standing wave. All 4 of us ran the rapids and walked back up to do the standing wave a couple times. The wave is normally a world renowned standing wave, but do to us being there in fall and the water levels being so low, it made it very challenging although we had a few good rides. Overall, we were very happy for our first time. After the humbling first rapid, K.B. and Luke taught us the tricks to SUPing the river such as our stance, falling and covering up, river reading and when in doubt paddling fast and hoping for the best. After going down a couple more wave trains and getting our confidence up, they threw us straight into a cliff jump and the infamous “Fang” rapid and standing wave. We watched K.B. from the cliff run Fang and landed the whole rapid for the first time in his life. After watching that, we all jumped off of the 40ft. cliff to get some adrenaline in our system and ran it one by one. We ended up doing a 6-mile run of the river filled with 3 standing waves, 2 cliff jumps and countless class 3 rapids. We learned a lot about being safe on the river and had a really good time although it was about 28 degrees outside and 40 degrees in the water with ice on the shoreline….
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