Continue reading »]]> While the British Columbia low lands have been covered with snow most of the winter and records continue to be set for low Spring temps, low elevation snowpack, ect…, Spring is finally showing its face. Weather forecasters are predicting that warmer temps will begin to prevail as La Nina weakens and as a result we will certainly have a big water season in store. Todd Gillman and myself have been out despite the lack of Spring breaking in our new Burns and also getting some cockpit time in the new Everest. From post holing into the Ashlu to racing Robe Canyon and from backyard classics to Van Island explorations, the BC boating season is in full swing. It certainly feels like Pyranha is taking over the world out here on the creeks. Everyone is either paddling the Burn (or Everest) these days or wants one!

The Everest loves BC creeks!

Todd Gillman Ucona River, BC

Bryan Smith Pamela Creek, BC

Chris Tretwold Ucona River, BC

The season here in BC opened up really late this year. April produced extremely cold temps and the snow stayed locked up with the exception of a few days. The Ashlu was the savior for sure. Todd and I managed to get a few runs in the Lower Mile with the Squamish crew and then a couple weeks later the Box Canyon came in. This is likely the last season that the Ashlu will be free flowing. We will be spending a bunch of time up there later in the summer.

Squamish local Tim Loubier stomping out this tight slot on the Lower Mile. He has been rocking out the medium Burn this year.

Tim Loubier Lower Mile Ashlu, BC

The Box Canyon is such an impressive landscape!

Greg Daspher Box Canyon Ashlu, BC

Greg Daspher is in the new Everest. He is a bigger guy and tall and wow is the boat performing for him. Taking an “Everest Line” here at Kernage on the Box Canyon.

Greg Daspher Box Canyon Ashlu, BC

Another Pyranha convert…Whistler local Matt Compass paddling the Large Burn in the lower canyon of the Box.

Matt Compass Box Canyon of the Ashlu, BC

The stoke for the boating season got even higher when we got warm temps and sunshine for the 1st Annual Robe Race. Todd Gillman organized this event and the turn out was great. Super fun grassroots event! Teams of two, a portage and race times of around 32 minutes made this race a little different.

Gillman getting the race logistics sorted and dialed in.

Todd Gillman at the start of Robe Canyon Race, WA

Most of the crew here in the Northwest rallied for the event. Great to be on the water with such a big crew.

The racers for the 1st Annual Robe Race, WA

This past week we packed up the rigs and headed out to Van Island for some exploratory runs in the Gold River area. Despite lower than optimum flows we managed to find a few sweet waterfalls and several quality runs. Vancouver Island continues to get opneed up a little more each year as the beta circulates and people make the trek. Todd and I were both thinking of how many people fly to third world countries in search of new un-explored zones. Vancouver Island has fullfilled that nitch for us this Spring. Difference is we only have to ride a ferry for two hours rather than sit on a plane for 10.

Chris Tretwold has been fully on the scene in BC lately…again another paddler who has not been able to resist the large Burn.

Chris Tretwold Ucona River, BC

The water quality on Van Island is second to none.

Chris Tretwold Pamela Creek, BC

You can read some more detailed posts on all of these trips and see a bunch more pics at The Range Life I have also just launched a new website for my production company Reel Water Productions. I will be spending my spring and summer on the east coast shooting another sea kayaking film Eastern Horizons and then back to BC for the August and September season. Hope to see you all out and about.

Continue reading »]]> After spending a month in Peru paddling the Huallaga and the Abismo section of the Aprimac, it was so nice to come home to BC at prime water levels. The classics were falling out, but all the stuff in the Ashlu and Elaho drainages were lining up perfect. So this week has been the mission to get Tatlow going for 2007. With a solid crew on Tuesday we managed to get down the run discovering that the mandatory portage mid way had turned into a sweet new rapid. Levels being perfect, we went back in yesterday and bombed the run top to bottom in a hour flat. Did not even get out of the boat until below the log waterfall. 6 footer, 6 footer, 8 foot slide, 20 foot waterfall, 25 foot waterfall, 6 footer, 8 footer, “Little Dave’s Hole”, the old portage which is now a sweet double drop, 35 footer into the wall…aka “Wall Drug”, 10 footer, 10 footer, 45 foot slide, 25 foot waterfall, and then some more sweet ledges to finsih it off. Has to be one of the best creeks in BC! More stories and pics coming soon.

Continue reading »]]> About three months back I was talking with Jim Hagar and he was talking up the Ammo like crazy. At the time I thought that the boat was kinda odd and I was unsure where I would really want to use it. Well as the Spring run-off starts to kick off in BC, the Ammo is maybe the most sought after boat in the quiver. It does so many things well and has made some of our local runs that are not that fun in a playboat or a creek boat ultra fun. This boat has so much to offer!

Lise-Anne Beyries dropping into the the first bigger rapid on Fear Canyon, Elaho River.

Lise-Anne Beryies dropping into the first big rapid on Fear Canyon, British Columbia

After spending some time in the Ammo and letting Lise-Anne have at it, I think this is a perfect boat for many applications. Lise-Anne is 5’4″ 120 and the small Ammo performs as a solid creek boat for her. Because it is light and ultra manuverable, she has found it really good even in a bit bigger water. It lacks the speed of the Burn, but stays on top of the water very well. The weight and rocker in the bow makes it a boofing machine.

Lise-Anne dropping into the “Pinch” on Fear Canyon, Elaho River

I can already see a lot of river days where I set the Burn aside for the Ammo. It is going to be a great boat to teach out of and an excellent boat to put newer paddlers into as well. Nice work guys…great design!

Continue reading »]]> 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

Continue reading »]]> After a record setting Fall of floods here in the Northwest, my wife Lise-Anne and I decided to escape the short days and cold water of BC and head south to Ecuador for a month. This was my first trip to South America and it could be best described as a posh boating trip or an adventurous honeymoon depending how one looked at it. Lise-Anne and I decided that what we wanted more than anything after the September Skookumchcuck wedding was a boating trip somewhere away from North America and warm. We decided on Ecuador and it was amazing!

Photo by Bryan Smith

photo by Lise-Anne Beyries

The Eastern Slope of the Andes in Ecuador is loaded with classic day trips that provide ample amounts of whitewater ranging from low volume creeking to large volume river-running and play.

After spending a week on the coast, we headed for the small village of San Fransisco de Borja and the home of SMALL WORLD ADVENTURES. Don Beveridge from Small World had become a recent friend over the summer creeking in BC and his help proved to be extra helpful in the Quijos and Napo valleys. Small World is an excellent resource for those looking for a guide, rental boats (THEY NOW HAVE A SMALL AND MEDIUM BURN IN THE FLEET THANKS TO US!), and deluxe lodging and food right on the Quijos River. We based out of here for ten days before heading South to Tena.

the Andes mountain culture…very simple, peaceful people in Ecuador

photo by Bryan Smith

The last rapid of the Papallacta River in the upper Quijos Valley

Part of what makes Ecuador a perfect international desitination for kayaking is how many rivers are within about 3-4 hours of each other. In 12 days we managed to paddle the middle Quijos, Lower Cosonga, El Chaco Canyon, Cheesehouse section of the Quijos, Oyacatchi, Upper Jondachi, Lower Jondachi, Hollin, Lower Misahualli, Upper Jondachi again, and the Upper Misahualli. Nothing too gnarly, but lots of continious read and run IV+ with the occasional V.

Lise-Anne loving the small Burn on the Lower Cosonga

photo by Bryan Smith

Gotta love taxi drivers who know all the put-in and take-outs for the rivers!

photo by Bryan Smith

Typical pool and drop rapid on the upper Jondachi…there are 80 plus rapids on this run…one of the best rivers I have paddled.

photo by Lise-Anne Beyries

I have a bunch of images up as a flash slideshow and a bit more beta for anyone thinking about heading to Ecuador over on THE RANGE LIFE. You can also check out a high res ECUADOR SLIDESHOW I have up with some tunes.

Continue reading »]]> To many kayakers the Ashlu River is on the must hit list in Southwest British Columbia and to everyone else it should be put on that list immediately. Simply stated the Ashlu is one of the finest pieces of whitewater in the world. With five unique sections and Tatlow Creek, the Ashlu pulls rank as the best river in the Sea to Sky corridor. The irony is that this gem is now becoming part of BC Hydro’s massive scam to privatize the power industry and turn over the control of the public’s river systems to private corporations. This fall we spent a bunch of days on the Box Canyon of the Ashlu filming and photographing a wild and scenic canyon that will never be the same again.

All boaters should be really scared of what is happening in BC right now. The Provinchal government passed Bill 30, which took away all the zoning rights of local governments when it comes to power related projects. It was a direct result of the local community and government here in Squamish denying Ledcor the zoning for the Ashlu project. Ledcor purchased the water license for a mere $10,000 and will now have the ability to make hundreds of millions of dollars over the next 40 years. It has been a process loaded with backroom political moves and a lot of greenwashing on Ledcor’s part to convince the public this is a good, green energy project. I will save my rant to that and really encourage you to please check out ASHLU INFO site and the RANGE LIFE for more information on the selling of of BC’s rivers to private corporations.

We had several weeks of action on the Box Canyon section this Fall. Has to be my favorite run in the Sea to Sky corridor. Polished granite, a pushy bigger water feel yet technical, 300 foot boxed in canyon, unscoutable, and super clean drops. Completely full on spirt place and special section of the river. Here are a few pics. LVM #21 will have a short segement I edited on the Ashlu with some pretty cool aerial fooatge of that canyon. The Burn was rocking it for sure…

Leaving for Ecuador in two days…more soon from South America!

Continue reading »]]> There is nothing that gets me more fired up about kayaking than being fox holed into some remote gorge and knowing that I’m one of a select few that gets the pleasure to take on the scenery and spirit of these deep cracks in the Earth. Second to that is reading stories and seeing pictures of other boaters across the world doing the exact same thing. When I scoll through this site, it is obvious that there have been many epic missions this summer. All of us united by the stoke of kayaking and the lifestyle that goes along with it. Excellent work team…it has been an amazing season. And an extra huge shout out to Pyranha this year for producing the Burn and 420! With a record snowpack coming into the summer and an absurd amount of bluebird days, we had one of the best seasons I can remember in BC. Here are a few shots from some of the summer 06 missions!

the 420 was killing it at Skooks this summer…so fast and dynamic

photo by Phil Tifo

despite not being able to remove the old growth log from Skookum Creek (for those who have seen the Range Life’s winning video for the IR Vacation to Hell that I produced) we managed to get the lower waterfall section anyhow. The first shot is in my eyes Squampton’s best waterfall, the second is the 60 footer that nearly broke all of this year.


photos by Andrew Oberhardt

13 dudes and 3 days on the Stein for my bach party…so sweet!

photo by Matt Thomas

crack of doom on furry creek. the best after work waterfall run of the year!

photo by Phil Tifo

We have been doing a bunch of filming up the Ashlu this season. This river is being taken over by Ledcor and the micro hydro project is moving full steam ahead at the moment. Here is a little TEASER of some of the whitewater we have been filming.

Thanks Pyranha…it has been an epic 06!