Gavin's by Nora Crabb

“Elevator shaft” is the far river right line down the big scary rapid “Garvins”. My first day here at keeners, we walked around garvins and looked at both “elevator shaft” and “dragons tongue”. The first day, I looked at the rapid and my first thought was that there was no way ever I was going to run that rapid. I kept that mindset for the whole next week, until we were given the choice to run dragons tongue. Right off the bat I knew there was no way I was going to run it and I was 100% set on that. As people went, I watched everyone and saw how they and started to think I would maybe run it. After everyone had gone, Becca talked me into it and told me I would be okay. I decided to run it and I had such a clean and perfect line, and it was amazing. The way I felt after was such an amazing feeling of relief and joy. Elevator shaft, was a little bit of a different experience. I was less nervous going into it and watched everyone else go before me with pretty clean lines and casually flipping at the bottom. When it came time for my turn, I went down the top part almost flipping, but not, thankfully. And rode down the rest fine until the end where everyone else flipped. I flipped as well landing right onto a rock shelf and scraping up my shoulder while upside down. I missed a roll up and Eli hand of God rescued me at the bottom. Even though I bloodied up my shoulder, I still had that sense of relief and excitement that I’d run the rapid, even if I didn’t do it extremely cleanly.