Kindly Old Dr. K's Hydrosphere

2008 Potomac Whitewater Festival - Attainment and Wave Surfing

On Sunday July 13 we ran the two events I help organize: the Attainment Race and the Wave Surfing competition. We had good water conditions for both events this year. The Attainment Race was held at Difficult Run rapids, in a figure 8 loop as shown in the earlier post. The ...

2008 Potomac Whitewater Festival Attainment Race Update

I'm not confident we will get the water levels needed for the Carderock course shown previously, so we're going to move the race upriver a bit. We will meet at Anglers Inn lower lot at 0800 for the competitors meeting and the race will start at approximately 0830. The race will ...

Potomac Festival Attainment Race, July 13

The Attainment Race will be something different this year, if water levels cooperate. If the gage stays around its current level we will race from Carderock Picnic Area to Anglers Inn. This is two miles of intricate, knuckle-bustin', route-finding hell. All flatwater you say? Try it going upstream and I think ...

I Got a Chance to Try the Green Boat

It is ...interesting. I was walking to the put-in at Anglers on the Potomac when I saw Mike Mathwin and friends at the Potomac Paddlesports demo event. Lying there on the ground was the notorious Green boat. Mike suggested I take it for a spin and I was happy to oblige. ...

Where are we?

The Outdoor Industries Association occasionally publishes real numbers on participation and economics of various outdoor sports, including whitewater boating. I took their numbers on participation in whitewater kayaking state-by-state and reorganized them into something like reasonable whitewater community regions. I also divided the number of paddlers by the area of ...

Superstar Serves Science and Society

I recently helped out some colleagues doing inspections of some dam structures. My young engineers didn't have a boat to get out to the riser, so they came to Kindly Old Dr. K for some help. The Superstar may not be known as a workboat, but that's what I had ...

Adam’s Backlund

Adam Van Grack got his new Backlund last week. The photos speak for themselves.

The Potomac Whitewater Festival is Coming

On July 11-13, 2008, the Mighty Po will come alive with fun and competition. Freestyle, attainment, boater-cross, the Great Falls Race, and a big party on Saturday at Anglers Inn restaurant are all included. For more info go to http://www.potomacfest.com/ Here's a glimpse of the venue.

High Water Gauley TR, a Little Late

I ran across another old article I had forgotten about years ago. This trip report is from the January 1974 issue of the Cruiser, the newsletter of the Canoe Cruisers Association of DC.

Some Old School Fun

I ran across a few more old photos and I thought I'd stick them up here just for fun. Here's me 34 years ago, modeling career already headed south. This is around 1974, when I worked for Appalachian Outfitters, an outdoor store and boat shop with several branches in the DC/Baltimore ...