A couple months back, Todd Gillman (fellow partner in The Range Life) called me suggesting that I try to crank something out for the National Paddling Film Festival. On a short timeframe (9 days!) I started to edit some of the footage from the summer that we had shot and eventually came up with a 12 minute edit titled “BC Summer 2006″. It was not quite what I wanted, having some additional footage from several other missions I wanted to include, but nevertheless I got it in the mail.

Came home two days ago to another call from Todd saying that I had won “best overall” at the NPFF. So stoked on this! Here is a link to the winning film

BC Summer 2006

All the footage we shot in the Ashlu this Summer was the icing on the cake I think. Such a fun project. Here is a shot of the zip line rig we used for the aerial shots.

photo copyright Todd Gillman

The Palguin river is a classic here in Pucón, it has a good waterlevel all the summer, so it’s a good option to paddle some nice drops on the afternoon. There’s a big portage too, that can be ran. The line of the portage is really hard, so you run it fliped allways…

The river is really nice with beautiful landscape and really near to home.

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Once again, I decided to escape the cold, and head for the White Nile.  I’ve been here for almost a week, getting back in shape to paddle C-1 and getting settled in.  Here are a couple pictures the wave at “Ugly Sisters” from the first week- expect more over the next 5 weeks.

For more of the story, surf over to  www.ChasingRain.com

click to watch the video

Got a break from Eugene to head back to HR for the weekend and paddle with the Crew. Lana Young took this photo you can check more of her photos at lanayoung.com. After I ran it Erik Boomer swam over it Jason Hale style, it went well he just hurt his ears from going so deep but atleast he didnt have to swim over chaos.

Here’s a couple more pics from Mexico - this time from the Santa Maria and Alseseca roadside run. You can read our full trip report on the Alseseca and the Cascada de Tamul section on the Santa Maria at www.RiverGypsies.com.

Andria B. and Emily Mahowald at Cascada de Tamul.
Photo by Leland.

Leland on an Alseseca tributary.
Photo by Ben Edson / Downstreamphoto.com.

Leland

I’m in Futaleufú, one of the best rivers in Chile and in the world. Right now the waterlevel is low, but it’s better for freestyle. The Futa is in the south of Chile, in a really wild region, but amazing.

Really nice days in Futa, a lot of good paddling, good friends…

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The Plata is a really nice river that comes from a really step valley near Pucón that ends on the Villarrica lake. The Plata has a really deep canyon with plenty of vegetation and some granite drops. The Plata has only been paddled by two other groups before us. The hiking to the put-in is long, but the worst is to get down to the river again in the middle of the jungle with no trail… The river hasn’t got too much water, but enough to be ran.

Walking up to the put-in with nice landscape.

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