"Low but still fantastic!" | OH BE JOYFUL CREEK

OH BE JOYFUL CREEK
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Whenever you are in CO and are interested in doing some creeking, at no point will Oh Be Joyful not be brought up in conversation. One of the ultra classics of CO, it's one to get if it has any water. It has a few sweet boofs, one bigger drop, lots of fun little slides, and lots in between. Short and sweet, with a nice hike up, easy to lap, it's always a good time!
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[@henryroop3671]

The only person I have bell notifications on for

[@danejacksonkayak]

🙌

[@menks4511]

Yes I agree. I prefer his style of breaking down a rapid and then running those lines without music in the back. Im from the Zambezi and I love watching him run lines we never thought were possible!

[@petech6810]

Great!!! Never paddle alone)

[@Chompchompyerded]

Crested Butt. Now he's on my home turf! Back in the day my sister and I had that creek all to ourselves. The town was almost a ghost town at that point. My grandmother was country superintendent of schools, and when I was about 6 years old I remember playing Go Fish with her on the school's front stoop. The building was all locked up at the time because there weren't enough kids in the area to keep the school open. They bussed the few kids that lived in the valley (mostly kids off the ranches in the valley) down to Gunnison for school. Was kinda nice to see the place kinda grow, and eventually boom over the years starting in the late '60's and going on into the '70's. Crested Butte has changed a lot since those days. The school where we played Go Fish is now a library My sister and I decided to do something one year that we quickly came to regret. We wanted badly to run Oh Be Joyful Creek, but my folks didn't want to wait around for us to run it, and we weren't old enough to drive yet. So we made a deal with the devils... er... I mean my parents that if they dumped us off up a distance on the jeep road that we'd just paddle our way home to Gunnison. They expressed a lot of reservation about the deal, but finally gave in. We were running in spring when the water was high and we figured it would be no problem. We told them we'd be back in a week, and that we'd call when we made it to Crested Butte, and again when we reached Almont. All went reasonably well down Oh Be Joyful creek, with a few portages to get around down timber and a few big beaver dams. Those were marshy monsters, and it was better to get out before you got into them and walk around. When we got to Slate Creek we started to run into a nightmare. The water went somewhere, but it wasn't into slate creek. The creek was shallow and there were more than a few beaver dams. We ended up walking a lot of it until we got down to Crested Butte. Along the way we made camp on the abandoned bed of what had once been the Denver and Rio Grand Railroad coming down from Gothic and other mines up in the area. There were still ties present, and we came across a few rail spikes too. The cinders from the little narrow gage engines were thick in areas, even though the train hadn't run through there for nearly 100 years. Back when we were running the creeks and rivers, there weren't any paved streets in Crested Butte, and there was only one store on Elk Street which was still in business. It was a small general store with a false front. The building is still there, but the general store isn't. We secured our boats and walked down unpaved Elk Street with the wind kicking dust into into our eyes. We got to the store and we were thankful to see that it was open. The pay phone was outside, so that wasn't a problem, but we were just dying for refreshment. We each got an ice cream and a bottle of pop then called home.We finished off our ice cream cones (I remember that mine was strawberry, and it seemed like the best strawberry ice cream I'd ever tasted). After calling home, we walked back to Slate Creek (a much better walk with the wind at our backs), then before we got in, we enjoyed our pop. We saved our bottles because back then you could get a nickel a piece for them, and got under way. Slate becomes a river at Crested Butte, and since it had a bit more water in it, the going was a little bit better. There were still a few beaver dams, but they didn't flood either side of the river at that point, so it was an easy thing to get around those. We also had to take out at the Roaring Judy fish hatchery because they were taking so much water out that there wasn't enough left to paddle until the point where the water came out of the hatchery and went back into the river. There were still a few places where we scraped bottom, but mostly it was clear. We paddled like wind to try to make up for lost time. It only took a day to get down to Almont, and we were able to set up camp on a friend's ranch. At Almont, the Taylor river joins the Slate, and becomes the Gunnison river, and from that point on the water is plenty deep and much faster. We were able to haul butt and make much better time. I will tell you that there was no better sight than when we rounded a bend and spotted the "W" up on tenderfoot mountain. We new at that point that we were going to make it home on schedule. We got out at Tomichi park and walked through town to my Grandmother's house on the northwest corner of Taylor and Georgia. We parked our kayaks in the side yard, got and left the dry storage bags in them. Gunnison was a pretty safe little town back then and our stuff was safe in the yard. Besides, we were right across the street for the police station/city jail. My grandmother never locked the door. It was just a safe little town back then. After the D&RGW left town and pulled up it's rails (primarily because of the construction of Blue Mesa Reservoir which drowned the tracks under several hundred feet of water, Gunnison's only reason for being was Western State Collage (it wasn't a university yet at the time). Things got a little more sketchy when school was in session, but during the summer, with the exception of Cattlemen's Days, it was a very quiet, kind of sleepy little town. Our gear was still there in the morning, and being well rested by that time (we crashed out as soon as we got into the house and slept through supper and on through the night) we were able to unpack and clean the boats at our leisure. It was a hard trip, but it was in every way worth it. The next year we managed to get onto a team which became the first and last to run the Gunnison from the confluence of the Slate and the Taylor, all the way through Black Canyon and on down to it's confluence with the North Fork outside of Hotchkis. The reason it was never run again was the same reason why that the train stopped running. The canyon there was drowned under the waters of three different lakes, Starting with Blue Mesa Reservoir. A fine piece of river with some of the spiciest rapids anywhere were lost forever. The river which remains is a dawdle in comparison. The loss of it is a tragedy which still breaks my heart to this day.

[@grahamsiemer6908]

Living in crested butte as a young 20 year old taking in all of earth's gifts, reading this made me happy. Totally made my day

[@averycannon5240]

If you come paddle the Poudre near Fort Collins make it known! Great paddling community up here and it’s at a fun level!! Not to mention some extremely stout class V’s that would be an epic send!!!! Make the rally and let me and the boys watch you send the Narrows haha🔥

[@yetigonecrazy]

Nice to see you in the valley!!

[@judefranczyk]

Yeahhh

[@gabrieldeschenes607]

Definition of short n sweet 🤩

[@zagortriplex100]

Great!

[@laketrake]

It was awesome seeing your rig go through Leadville. Wish I could’ve grabbed a pic with you! Enjoyed this one as always.

[@danejacksonkayak]

That’s funny you saw me roll through! If you end up in Vail for GoPro games let’s grab a pic!

[@MatthewBrookKayaking]

Really slick edit of a beautiful spot. Love it!

[@davidaven3463]

Oh man your stuff is awesome dane.that did actually look do able for the normal guy compared to your normal vids,that one going down chattchnooga river o shit man a bit of wee came out just watching you . Much respect and love from uk

[@walthanas]

That looks like such a fun run! Still, those slides looked rather on the low end: Was there actually any water between your boat and the rocks, or was it more like scraping down a wet cellar staircase?

[@epincion]

Sweet and short river that

[@SS-bg7hj]

LOVE your videos as a teen who has really started to love river kayaking. You really inspire me and watching your videos help me get in a better mood. 🥰 I’m just wondering when did you start to paddle, and what was the reason?

[@kenaipeninsulawhitewater5650]

His dad was a world-famous world champ. Dane was paddling when he was tiny and winning comps against much older paddlers when he was still super young.

[@jackkayak]

next vid featuring the new bumper sticker?

[@trevortimm2443]

nice shirt 12 more days!!

[@Chompchompyerded]

If it's that low this early, it's going to be one ugly summer. People will be hiking down the Colorado by the end of the summer rather than boating it. The Yampa at Steamboat and the Gunnison and Taylor rivers are also low.

[@Sapfirinka]

Привет из Москвы! Обожаю смотреть твои ролики!

[@bryanduchane2371]

Just watched your rescue recap when you threw a bag to your buddy trapped in a nasty hole. Wish you would do more of those type of rescue videos even if they have to be staged. How and where to set up lines, what rapids to not run and why...... Etc

[@gregorydaggett7444]

An educational mini series would be so sick!

[@louielouielouee]

His dad made those videos +15 years ago 😂

[@jimmyelsen4787]

Colorado mank bro tf

[@big1dog23]

Too bad that's not July flows.

[@danejacksonkayak]

Better than no water though

[@big1dog23]

@@danejacksonkayak Tx Dane. Always enjoy your videos.