Scouting on the North Fork of the Crystal by Joey Jarrell

After a long day on Cheesman Canyon we had collapsed into our sleeping bags at the Corral Creek Trailhead.  The next morning, day three of our trip, we packed our gear back into the truck and headed to our next stop a short drive away.  Eleven Mile Canyon of the South Platte is mostly a class III run, but just below the normal take-out is long, continuous, class V rapid.  After about twenty minutes of scouting and discussing lines I was feeling hesitant and Jordan was feeling fired up and ready to go.   He geared up and the rest of us assumed positions at different points of the rapid with ropes and cameras at the ready.  Jordan charged the entrance and cleared the first tier of the rapid and then a bounce sent him upside down into the next tier.  He rolled up only to be knocked over again and repeated the process a couple more times, but stuck it out and emerged from the bottom of the rapid upright and unhurt.

Despite the results of Jordan’s run, Matt had his own line sorted out in his head and was ready to go.  Again we set up with ropes and cameras and watched as Matt began his descent.  Entering more slowly and slightly further left, Matt proceeded to smoothly descend the entire section without a flip or mis-stroke throughout.  After a little more discussion, Joey and I both decided not to attempt a run.  We loaded the truck again, got back on the road, and drove over Independence Pass and down into the town of Aspen. 

After a quick run of Castle Creek we met up with Anson Fogle for a late afternoon run on the Slaughterhouse section of the Roaring Fork.  We spent the evening of relaxing at Anson’s house and he joined us for the next two days of exploring and filming in the upper drainage of the Crystal River.  We had attempted to drive into the forks of the Crystal in 2008, but the road to the North Fork was flooded at the time and the road to the South Fork was still snowed in.  This failed attempt is one of the reasons we had decided to plan our 2009 trip for July and the plan was working out nicely.  We spent two days we spent rock crawling through the beautiful and remote landscape of the upper crystal river drainage.  While our driving to boating ratio was skewed in what I would normally consider the wrong direction, the scenery and quality of the drops made it more than worth it.  Despite the slow travel, looking back the two days in the headwaters of the Crystal River were some my favorite on the trip.

You can see more of our photos here.

Until Next Time…

Adam Goshorn

The soon to be released edition of American Whitewater is focused solely on inflatable paddlers. Bruce Reed and Tim Brink have been with ORT from the beginning. We are fortunate and blessed to be featured as the cover photo for the November-December edition.

Please support American Whitewater by joining their/our cause and attain a copy of this edition.

Happy paddling!

Tim

http://www.oregonraftingteam.com/ http://www.usaraftassociation.com/

Loungeband installed in less than 10 minutes. I think Extrasport/Necky designed the Looksha 17 seat expecting that it would be replaced by an IR rig. The Extrasport seatback popped out easily. The IR ratchet straps fit through the slots on the towers perfectly and sit at a nice angle toward the ratchet. The cam buckles on the back of the band are not necessary and I ran the IR black nylon strap forward and through the Extrasport cam buckle. I also took the little plastic thumb pulls off the old strap and they clipped right onto the IR strap. The top bungee clips are not used, and I ran one bungee from both bottom loops through the existing hole. No tools required. Looking forward to the first paddle with it.

The idea of putting on a triathlon in our home town of Confluence, came about this Spring when John and I entered a YMCA triathlon in the nearby town of Uniontown. It was to be my first tri, and John’s first in over 10 years. To get ready, we were doing a version of what was to become the “Heartbreaker” as workout and realized that our small town had a lot to offer swim/bike/ride wise.

Picking the swim was easy. Swim across and back near the base of the dam on the Yough Lake Reservoir. It’s about 1/2 mile swim in beautiful, clean, warm water. The water from the Upper Yough in Friendsville flows in (and Deep Creek Lake before that), the dam is here in Confluence and the release from that is the water for the Middle and Lower Yough runs.

The bike routes are endless.  It’s hilly here but there are plenty of paved roads that are traveled infrequently by cars. Some of our favorites are “the Casselman Ass Blaster” (a 40 mile ride where you cross the Casselman four times and every time you do, you have a big climb out), “the Mt Davis ride” (a 50 miler that crosses over Mt. Davis, PA’s highest mountain, and through Amish country) and “the Legend of the Laurel Highlands” (a 40 miler that at mile 30 you start the climb up Turkeyfoot Trail Road that goes on for about 20 minutes and gets steeper as you go). Someone once told me that PA has some of the steepest paved roads in the country. For the tri, we picked a 20 mile route that we call “the butterfly”.

And for the run, we have the Great Allegheny Passage Trail right here in town, a converted railroad bed that goes from Pittsburgh to Cumberland, MD (which connects to the C&O trail and goes all the way to Washington, DC), for endless, flat runs and plenty of other routes around town if you want to include some hills or variety. We picked about a 5 mile run thru town and finishing on the bike trail. Part of the bike ride makes a heart shape, and you know, it’s good for your heart, so thus the name.

Check out the Heartbreaker route here:

So picking the route was the fun, easy part….finding time on our calendars, getting the word out and actually putting together an event was a little more difficult.  Basically we were running out of warm weather and at last minute said, “hey, let’s do this thing this weekend”. I emailed tons of folks, but in the end, 4 of us from IR and a friend we know from yoga went for it on a chilly, breezy Sunday morning. There was a bit of apprehension about the swim and the swim to bike transition soaking wet and in the wind, but the temperature turned out to be just fine and wasn’t a concern, but we plan to make this into an annual event and do it earlier in the year for now on. If you are interested in joining us next year, send us me email and we’ll keep you posted.

Results:

John Weld 1:54:55

Roger Loughney 1:55:31

Jon Harmon 1:59:28

John Jones 2:02:20

Kara Weld 2:26:36

And you all thought we just kayaked!

Special thanks goes out to Jack Weld, Dave Cobun and Jeff Felton for timing. Mike, Lori, Bea, Dusty and Zoe for cheering and the photos. Nan and Pap for watching our kids. And Lucky Dog Cafe/Riversport for use of the staging area.

It’s been done before.

That’s what I keep telling myself when I think about how impossible it feels to try and kayak the entire eastern seaboard of the United States. Putting our kayaks in at the public boat ramp in Lubec, Maine was perhaps one of the most jumbled, scared, confused, excited, and fabulous I can remember feeling in my life… and what I predict I will feel when I beach my kayak on the sand of Key West, Florida. It’s funny how a kayak trip can transform from being simply a fun, crazy idea in a plastic boat to a life altering, relationship building, inter- and intra-personal experience unparalleled in regular life. Thats what my husband Dan and I are going through right now in our 18 foot seakayaks along the Atlantic Coast.

“Do it while you can” is the most popular comment we hear from the people we meet along the way and im sure there’s an element of truth in there, however, I desperately hope that I will always be free enough in my heart to go for it, whatever “it” may be. I pray that I always “can” do amazing things regardless of whether it makes sense or if I have a mortgage, children, and regular responsibilities of an American woman, wife, daughter, sister.. and future mother. Basically I never want to get caught in regularity to a degree I just don’t see that truth that I can…

Teamwork!

The hardships are there. REALLY THERE. Cold water. Wind. Waves. Nowhere to sleep. Bugs… (good GRIEF the bugs). Grumpy people. Tired bodies minds and hearts. But let me just tell you, it’s worth it.

One of my favorite events that seems to sum up the blessings that this trip brings forth was on the Eastern Shore of Virginia. We met a kind man who seemed to be the man to know on the Eastern Shore. He took good care of us of course but he also called people he knew all over the place to find us places to sleep. On such person he called and simply let him know that there would be two kayakers dropping by his house and he was to let us sleep in his home, even though he was not there, and had never met us. We are good kids he said.The permission was given. Paddling into a 20-25 knot headwind for 8 hours, making sometimes less than 1mph we paddled up to the secluded vacation home, feeling rather strange knowing that we were about to go inside a house and sleep in the beds of a person who we had never met, and who was also… not there. As we creeped through the marsh, exhausted, a man in a Carolina Skiff came up and told us he was sent by our friend to check on us and see if we were ok and to let us in the house. We slept the night in a beautiful home, watching the southern sunset across the ocean and listening to the sound of the marsh bugs knowing that we would find a restful sleep purely from the grace of strangers.

All this from a kayak trip.

It rocks.

www.dbkayak.com

P.S. Let me just say, without our Immersion Research Dry Suits, the New England portion of our trip would have been more than a nightmare of freezing cold and dangerous paddling. We’ve made it to the south thanks to their gear.

I had one of my greatest summer ever as far as paddling and progression goes. It started off with another shoulder dislocation early in the spring. I decided that driving to Fort Smith NWT would be the best way to keep my mind off boating well I drove.

The drive from Ottawa was long. But when I got to Fort Smith and saw the Slave River my shoulder started to feel good. I got so lucky to catch the right water level for a wave named Roller Coaster. Maybe one of my favorite waves now. After the Slave went into flood and no one knew what waves where in. It was to high for the high water features! The month on the Slave was amazing for me. I think it is a must paddle river for any play boater!

After a month on the Slave I headed south west to BC for some creeking. The creeking was amazing. And really really really cold water. I was glad to have my IR drydeck to keep me dry and warm there. It was my first time paddling glacier run off creeks. I got a chance to run a lot of epic BC runs. Tight, steep, continuous is the norm out there. It was a blast.

After that I headed for Skookumchuck. Such an amazing wave. It was my first time in salt water. I learned that I can only left blunt with my mouth open so I kept getting huge mouth fulls of salt water. Not good tasting at all!

I am back in Ottawa now and going spend every day paddling before going in for a shoulder surgery this fall. Wish me luck. Plan is to hit the physio hard this winter and be stronger than ever for next season!

Thanks for all the help and great gear IR!

John Rathwell
http://johnnymisadventures.blogspot.com

loading up the recycling

The rivers are low and it’s getting cold in Southwestern PA. Instead of spending the day playing Wii, local pro paddler, Jake Greenbaum decided to plan ahead for his upcoming trip to Chile and headed up to IR to work off some gear. There is always something to do around here, and first on our minds was cleaning the place up. We recycle everything (cardboard, office paper, plastic and we all bring in our recyclables from home) and it builds up on our loading dock until we can’t squeeze by. Our recycling center is about 30 minutes away but takes everything. So Jake came by this morning, cleaned up, dropped it off and this afternoon he’ll do some filing. That might get him a pair of handwarmers.
Here’s Jake doing his thing:

At NOC's Guest Appreciation Festival people wear IR clothing, even people who aim to excite. These people did not compete in any pumpkin gathering contests and will not win any prizes.

From the NOC Outfitter's Store you could see that the river was running from top to bottom. Clearly it was a perfect day for an athletic exhibition.

The instructions were very simple. Go over there and pick up all the trash that those people dump into the river.

Look at these beautiful pumpkins that we spent months growing and now we're going to dump them carelessly into a river.

These people showed up to play with the giant beach ball and were disappointed to find out that some redneck shot it with his 12 gauge. To appease them we offered awards to the ones who gathered the most pumpkins.

If Gabriel wants to front surf, Gabriel will front surf.

Hi, I paddled in the NOC Pumpkin challenge but I didn't pick up any pumpkins out of the river. However, I did bring three pumpkins from my Mom's garden and plan to redeem them for some free prizes.

See side B for the rest of the story.  Click HERE.

I wanted to check in and say hello! This past weekend kicked off the unofficial “Fall Run” here in Montauk with a striped bass and bluefish tournament held by Paulies Tackle. While the weather, calendar date and amount of entries all seemed normal for late September somebody forgot to tell the fish to cooperate. Friday evening came and went with 25kt NW winds and cranking new moon tides.

As daybreak approached the leader board was topped with a 27lb bass and a 9lb bluefish, both relatively small for this time of year and the competition in the event. The rest of the weekend held suit until late Saturday night when the fishing, while spotty, really started to kick in. There were multiple reports of 25lb+ fish and a 32lb bass was caught to lead the board.

It was amazing to see the amount of IR tops in the surf this weekend as opposed to last year. They have really taken hold and are growing amongst those who want local excellence. I estimated 25 guys wearing various tops from the Comp to the Session and Zephyr. I had my long sleeve comp on over my wetsuit at night and stayed perfectly dry and warm even into the frost we had early Sunday morning. During the day I wore my Zephyr shorty over waders and it really did the trick keeping me dry and not to hot.

You guys kick ass!!

Keep up the great work,

Ted