Leap of Faith...

The first run we did in Canada was last Wednesday, on the Elk River. It started out with an amazing waterfall called Leap of Faith, then went into a beautiful class IV gorge. Levels were low, but the drop was really really fun. It’s a perfect spouting lip with plenty of water to cushion the landing perfectly. I went first, penciled in, rolled up, and paddled away smiling. Mark Basso came next, landing a bit past vertical but rolling up just fine, and Scott aced the drop landing at 60 degrees and not even rolling. Since last week we’ve run some classics in beautiful gorges, and yesterday, found an amazing unpaddled drop we plan on coming back to tomorrow or the next day. It’s a super high volume 30 foot cascading drop that looks really fun and quite scary. The crew is down to Karl, Scott and myself (trip) for another day of scouting, but after meeting some friends on Wednesday, we’re fired up to run a first D!


Scott runs Leap of Faith..

Basso runs Leap of Faith...

Scott at the bottom of Leap of Faith...

Paddle Hard!
Trip

EP in BC!

Well, we started off this Canada trip with a bang. I went up to Skookumchuck Tidal rapids to meet Karl for the weekend. He had already been at Skook for 4 days and had it dialed in. His trip was full of Pistol Flips, huge Pan Ams, and plenty of other tricks. Sick video and a great way to start off a kayaking trip!

Yesterday Karl and I joined Scott Fiendel and Mark Basso at Kooteni falls in MT. We met in the thriving metropolis of Libby, home of 10,000 people and one kayaker, Dan Blackburn (not sure of the last name, sorry Dan!). We ran the 20 foot drop 12+ times apiece, and then played at superwave afterwards. Today we ran a great 45 footer into a huge gorge with 200 foot cliffs on either side in South Eastern BC. Can’t wait to keep hucking tomorrow, and keep shooting sick footage for Disarm.


Karl on Skook...

karl goes big...

Karl doing the pistol flip...

Trip blunting

Paddle hard,
Peace,
Trip

Back In Action!

OK, so posting blog updates in Cali didn't work as well as I thought it would. Sleeping in the woods every night for three weeks was really good for the soul, but, not the blog. We did however run the gnar and some will be on Disarm. For the past 5 weeks I've been teaching kayaking to kids at a camp in Richmond, VA called Passages. It's super fun, and I love teaching kayaking.


Stuart Hyde on the Horsepasture River...

Last weekend it rained and a group of counselors got to head down to the Horsepasture River in western NC. It was ridiculously fun, super steep and not really that hard. The run starts off with a 20-foot cascade/waterfall, and pretty much just keeps dropping from there. It heads into about half a mile of boulder gardens, which are mostly read and run except for the one with the sieve that you can't really see if you boat scout! After that it's mostly pool drop the whole way, and the pools are pretty short, separated by high quality slides, more boulder drops and the most interesting feature on the creek, Staircase.


Mike Stratton, Dave Rugh, and Van Null Dropping Staircase...

Staircase is 4 drops of close to 10 feet, some taller, some shorter. The drops are stacked so closely on top of each other that when you sit in a kayak at the top of the rapid, all you can see is the first horizon line and the pool way below. Amazingly, all of the drops are very straightforward and low stress.

There is no shuttle for the run, so after four river miles, the real fun begins. It's a 4-mile hike out climbing near 2000 feet in elevation. Luckily the trails are easy to follow.

We headed down with 5 girls and 5 boys, all either climbing or kayaking counselors. The boys went kayaking and the girls climbed Looking Glass Rock, so we went to meet the climbers at the rock only to find that all five were descending their route completely topless. Sorry, we only had the camera out for the kayaking.