Hugh Graham ripping it in the Molan at the men’s expert final.

The Pyranha Stand

Yes !!!

Stephanie cooked a long time.
It’s just out of kitchen.

Green Race 2009 from stephanie augras on Vimeo.

Thanks a lot Dinver for the boats.

I wish you a good viewing, like Nicolas and me in the Green river.

Cheers,

Eric

After three month of kayaking in Chile I am finally back home. I am glad I made it back before the earthquake and feel really sorry for all the aggrieved people.

I must admit three month of paddling was exactly what I needed, day after day with nothing else to do apart from kayaking. Isn’t that great?!

During my first month some german friends and I ran the rivers from Santiago down to Pucon. One big highlight was for sure the Rio Claro, we jumped down the ventidos saltos about 5 times – the last run took us only 19 minutes from the putin to the final drop – germans like the autobahn.

Not as lucky was I after my run down the caracol in the Entre Saltos section, I landed flat and ended up with a broken paddle, a broken nose and two blue eyes … at least I kept my smile.

Entre Saltos Section Rio Claro

After my german friends left, I met two kiwis, we rented a nice camioneta and were ready for new adventures. This time to Argentinia and South Chile. One of my favorite runs was the Los Alerces Section on the Rio Manso, but at the same time it was a bit scary as we were just the two of us, had a lot of water and not much information about the river. So we ended up being in a canyon infront of a rapid which looked pretty big, but was impossible to scout and to portage. That was an explosion of emotions after we two made it through the big hole at the bottom. 

It was a really rainy season in Chile, so we encountered high waterlevels on the Futa and further down south. One thing remains obvious, it was for sure not my last time on this incredible beautiful rivers of Patagonia.

What a wonderful playwave …… unfortunately it is situated just infront of the Petrohue waterfall

Gymnastics on the Rio Palguin

Pancakes for breakfast

Park Nacional Rio Laja

Here is the start to the Pyranha Promo.  A little teaser here, enjoy and paddle hard folks.

Finished up filming and boating in Hawaii and raced back to AZ to catch the tail end of a massive storm.  Flows reaching record flows a couple days earlier, there was just enough left to get some boofs in the desert.  Photos by Paul Wackowski

For the past few weeks, we’ve only had one Molan in the US.  As a result, it’s been getting passed around from team member to team member.  I finally got my chance to try it out this week.  I met up with Matt and Graham at Scudders to see how the boat performed in a hole.  Since we were all sharing the boat, I didn’t get a great chance to figure out how it works, but I’ll say it loops big!

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Check out the Demshitz Blog for a bad ass update from Pucon Chile!

Here is a Teaser for our Next Demshitz Movie ¨Dashboard Empanada¨

Run the Shitz! Looking forward to the NEW BURN and the NEW PLAYBOAT ¨THE MOLAN¨!!! PYRANHA WORLD DOMINATION!!! DEMSHITZ!!!

2010 start very well in Pyrenees.

First, happy new year everybody !!! I wish you a lot of  rivers steep, big, in a wild nature.

Second. After a long and hard work, my friend Stephanie Augras finished my last crazy trip movie in Cap Verde.

You should never seen it….

Volcano Ride from stephanie augras on Vimeo.

Have a good time.

Eric.

The first word that everyone learns upon arrival in Nepal is the ubiquitous greeting ”Namaste”. Our trip however was to be different. The first word we learned was “Banda”. Banda is the Nepali word for a strike. These strikes aren’t quite the same as you’d get back home, where a line of disgruntled workers stand at a factory gate, they are much more extensive and indiscriminate. Traffic is not allowed on the roads, shops aren’t allowed to open and the whole country effectively grinds to a halt. 
 
We arrived in Nepal at 10pm the evening before three consecutive days of these strikes. One day of waiting may have been acceptable, but no matter how you look at it, 3 days of a 2 week holiday is a lot! Despite stories of the rather violent enforcement of the banda by the Maoists, on day 2, a local guy we met in the street said he could get us a “landcruiser” to take us and our boats off to the first river under cover of darkness. Obviously this would cost us dear, but we figured it was worth it. When the “landcruiser” turned up, it turned out to be a tiny car, and the driver wouldn’t go without his mate, but by then we were beyond caring, so we crammed 5 guys three boats and 2 weeks worth of kit into and onto the machine and set off into the night…

Although December is the low water season, there is still some great paddling to be had, especially if you venture further up the valleys of some of the rivers normally done “in season”. Whilst dodging strikes, we ticked off upper sections of: Bhote Kosi, Marsyandi, Kali Gandaki along with a few other nice runs down some of the classic sections of these and other rivers.

Anyways, enough spiel… To the photos!! Here’s a flavour of the trip:

Ominous Gorges:
 

Good Lines: (more…)

Check out the youtube video of Richard Brooks in the Molan on Marsh Weir

2010 is here! Ski-ing in the woods is the best bet as the rivers are frozen. Need to plan the summer but just taking a moment to reflect on the womens paddling we did last year. A lot of fun, met some fantastic women paddlers and we pushed ourselves out of our comfort zone, tried new things and faced a lot of fear together.

In 2009 we introduced women only whitewater development coaching, played about with the model and evaluated the impact. Overall women say they love the all girl environment (extra male coaches welcome if there name is Brad!) and find it easier to accept their fears and challenge them amongst others who can cope with tears. The dynamics are awesome! To see a group of women come together aho may never have met develop and bond as a group in just a few days is incredible. Immediately caring and supporting each other and celebrating each others sucess.

Sometimes it does not really feel like coaching, more like guiding their learning in a student centred way.

Using the Findhorn as our training venue is a stunning setting. The variety of conditions on the section means there is challenge for every grade of paddler and sometimes the gods help with water levels too.

Developing leadership skills on the river can be difficult for women, how many of the girls you know will push to lead on a club or social trip? Taking turns to inspect, analyse the water and lead with support from a coach is a development journey. It takes time, sometimes we call it tea and cakes at each rapid, but everyone has the chance to really understandd what is going on and how it will affect them when they are there.

We accept that women are not pretend men and have different styles and pace of learning. It is good to see women in the outdoors taking on more advanced water and leading, we need more though!

If you fancy taking part then perhaps here at Pyranha we can pull something together for the girls, let us know!

The recipe is always the same, no matter what grade we paddle. Equal measures of skill and confidence and a sprinkle of brave dust when required.

Mags

We’re filming some whitewater in Hawaii.  Just landed and are looking for some rains… got some surf in while kickin it.  Dipper Creek update also available on http://www.huckinhuge.com

Despite the bitterly cold whether, I’m sure it must have been -5 on the water! The testing of the New Pyranha Molan continues. The boat has reached it’s 5th incarnation and is now in it finally pre production prototype stage, these boats have shrunk a fair bit as they are the first from the mold and the hull of the boat has been changed a smidgen to allow it to release quicker. But apart from that that what you see here is pretty much how it will look. Over the Christmas period the boat has made it out to most of the popular Thames weirs and has been performing well, the later prototypes have been tested a fair bit on and in holes around the UK & across Europe over the summer but it has been nice to finally get the boat back out on some good waves to see how the modifications that had been implemented over that time would work on a wave, personally I’m pretty happy with how it’s turned out. The Molan is just a bit longer than the new 2010 All Star and you do notice that on a wave. I wouldn’t say that it’s a fast boat, But it sure dose accelerate fast! And the new sharper rails really allow you to drive the boat hard down and across the face a wave and release with razor sharp precision, far far better, easier and cleaner than Pyranha’s of old. The fit and outfitting of the Molan is like you would except from an Anderson & Sheppard suit, clean, smart and very comfortable. All in all things are looking very promising from this little chap. Bring on the production boat.

As anyone living in the UK can’t have escaped noticing, there’s been a fair amount of water falling from the skies recently, however it’s not the kind that’s filling the rivers… Not yet anyway, so to while away the time ’till the melt starts, people have been getting creative.

I was quite proud of last night’s creation: Snow-Dude. However, my weenie brothers saw this pic, and being students decided to go one better with a full-on snow boater (see pics below)!

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Last week I was able to get the new Molan out and about.  I fit in the medium Molan very well.  I was able to where shoes in the boat at 6 foot and 170lbs.  The boat was very easy to through around and looped with ease.  I think you all are going to be very excited about this one.  Here is a video I made from the day!

Here are some impressions of my time in Chile. Up to know I travelled from Santiago down to Pucon, and had an awesome time on the chilean  rivers with  friends out of Germany. It was also a great pleasure to meet and join Adria, Leland and Jeff on the Rio Claro. We did a lot of hike in runs, so I was glad to use pyranhas portaging system, but even more glad to hire horses .

Andria and I have made it down to Pucon WITH OUR KAYAKS!!, and had some great adventures along the way. Here are a few pics from the Rio Claro – you can read the full trip report at www.RiverGypsies.com

Leland’s 3rd paddle stroke in Chile – 7 Teacups on the Rio Claro.

Jeff Robinson on the first big drop in the 22 Saltos on Rio Claro.

Andria on another great drop in the 22 Saltos.

Full trip report at www.RiverGypsies.com

Santa Per running the slide

LarsG Boofing.

Christmas tradition is cold as usual in Norway. With minus degrees we still need to go out kayaking on baby x-mas day. A very happy christmas to all of you, from us here in cold cold north.

Happy Holidays everyone!

Last week Graham Mackereth flew in to the states with the new boat from the UK. My brother Casey and I drew the lucky card to test the boat out first. Yesterday we just got home from a great week of playboating in the new Molan on rivers all across the southeast and the mid-atlantic. Typically I don’t playboat very much, especially in the winter, but I couldn’t resist a chance to hop in this boat despite temperatures in the 20’s and forecasts for snow. The Molan has proven to be everything we hoped for in a playboat – predictable, easy to throw around, loose, easy to take into the air, very forgiving, and most of all, extremely comfortable.

I haven’t been this excited about a new playboat design in years – maybe this boat will get me back in line at the local playspots. Anyway, the new Molan is on its way to shred a playspot near you and I’m back inside out of the cold for a bit!

Enjoy the photos and the video.

Eternity Hole, NC
Photo by Casey Jones

New River Dries, WV
Photo by Casey Jones

Air blunt on the New River Dries
Photo by Casey Jones

Full Molan album at: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=145326&id=500041783&l=a9136a51f8

First Impressions of the Pyranha Molan from Chan Jones on Vimeo.