Check out the Demshitz movie tailer due out spring of 2009.

Back at the start of October Nottingham played host to the 2008 British Freestyle Championships with all the usual suspects out in force and a surprise or two…

Photo by: Jim Evans from Alpkit.com

Back in 2006 after the 2006 Europeans I decided to retire from OC1 paddling due to the fact it was starting to break me but I decided to give it a go again and see if I could still do it. Well, I can and amazingly I managed to win the 2008 British Champion title!!

Photo by: Jim Evans from Alpkit.com  

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Jared skying it out at Knife’s edge.

As the leaves turn and the temperature starts dropping, it’s time for Team Pyranha to take our annual pilgrimage to Old Forge, New York for the Moose River festival. (more…)

Oops

Sorry this is a bit late, but with all the fun and games of the past few weeks I really have just had no time to sit down and write some words about Pyranha Fest! The event took place over the weekend of the 20th and 21st September, on the River Treweryn in North Wales, there was quite a bit going on over the weekend, courses organised by Tom Parker (and run by the Pyranha Team paddlers) covering a wide range of core paddling skills and group dynamics! Boater X competitions, boat outfitting master classes (If you didn’t go to this you missed out on the biggest pile of free foam I’ve ever seen!) Photographic workshops, Free style coaching with the Legend Mr Pete Catterall and many other interesting paddling related bits, oh the two new boats were lunched, The Karnali, a softer river runner designed for the progressive intermediate paddler went down a treat & the big one, the Z.one, this is the boat that has been produced to take over from the very popular Ina Zone and shares many design characteristics of the Ina zone, But made better with slightly changes in the cockpit, bit more bow rocker, a longer softer but more defined rail and the whole boat has been stretched out to make it super fast threw the water. However it’s still really easy to paddle really user friendly, a great boat. If you haven’t paddled them yet, find them and try them!

Mikey Abbott and Andy Phillips, of the informs Whitewater Warriors had made the long trip over from Norway for the weekend to run a “Warrior Master Class” which proved very popular and of course the river was open to enjoy

Saturday evening the entertainment didn’t stop! It just left the water and moved into Bala for a night of beer drinking, Film premieres curtsey of the FatCats with there resent trip to Greenland a great talk from the Warriors about there travels. The night descended into a beer glass and some good naked dancing, what a night!

Sunday was a re runs of Saturdays paddling fun. I’m very sorry to the nice chap whose shoulder became dislocated! I hope your well….. And sorry I did forget to give out the names of the winners from the boater X
4th place (but 1st woman home) Emma Runcorn, Very well done!
3rd place Graham Milton
2nd place Adam Donlay (think that was your name! Sorry if I’ve spelt it wrong)
1st place Josh Wedgwood (now this is quite amazing when you realize young Josh is only 14! Very well done) I’m not sure if there were any prices!…….. But great win!

Overall what a top weekend how Sammy got the sun to shine I will never know but a top event well done Pyranha cheers Sammy! Again again

Well quite a lot of events took place this weekend, Personally I along with Graham and the other guys from RunandJump Clothing headed to Scotland for the Etive River Race. We arrived by the banks of the Etive at 5 in the morning after a night of driving that just never seamed to end! But after a bit of sleep we awoke the Friday morning to find the Etive pretty dam low! Never mind we thought this is Scotland and there is always something to paddle, with the race in mind we started on the Etive, I’d only ever paddled it once before and had walked most of it then! So took the opportunity to learn the lines and paddle all the drops. After a few runs down we turned our attentions to the small tribs that flow into the river further down stream, although low they provided us with some great sport and a good long walk! Friday as we were just falling asleep it started to rain…….it continued…………….for a long time………………a very long time. The next morning it was still raining and the river had risen over night by quite a lot! So much in fact that the section of the river the race was going to be held on was just too big to run a commercial competition on, so we moved up river to the next section, normally this section is bump and scrape at best, but not today! With the rain still falling the section was now a good grade 3 with good wave trains and hole’s dotted along its length. The format for the race was nice and simple! 50 teams, two in each team, both set off when the last man crosses the finish the clock stops. Pyranha, in the sponsored category to be fair did pretty well with 3 Everest’s and a Burn in the top 4 positions. Me and Graham came first Chris Evans and Pete Catterall came a very close second, Shep and his mate came 3rd a really good well organized race. Once down the main the course Me and Milton set our eyes on the section the race was supposed to be held on, with the water now super high this section turned into a right old mission, but was super cool. The rocky lines of the day before had been replaced by big powerful drops it was great and made the long drive well worth the effort. After the run we all headed back to the Ice Factor in Kinlochleven for prize giving and wee dram of whiskey!

(The river on Saturday!)

Wining teams:
Open: Simon Grant & Calum Hogg, A Bowl Full of Fun,
Sponsored: Graham Milton & Pete Scutt, Run and Jump Clothing Team 3, Pyranha
16-18: Jonathan Hiam & Adam Cox, Psychotic Badgers,

Thank you to David for brining me up a boat! cheers to Pyranha for the said Everest!

Finally, the Sickline Extreme Kayak World Championships have taken place in the Oetz Valley in Austria during the last four days. Unlike last year, when the race had to be cancelled due to high water, the waterlevel was all right this time and pretty constant as well.

The starterfield consisted of around 130 paddlers (5 women) from around the world, both incredible whitewater specialists and world class slalom paddlers. The programm around the event was as amazing as last year - lots of good food, video night, photo contests…

After some really exciting races, it was Thilo Schmitt from Germany who took home the title in the end, followed by Kiwi Sam Sutton and Italy’s Michelle Ramazza. I was able to qualify for the final (best 25) and eventually came 11th, so I unfortunately closely missed my goal to be under the top 10 paddlers. A couple of smaller mistakes in both final runs summed up to this result.

For more information on this really well organized event visit www.adidas-sickline.com. Photos, result lists, daily reports and a little video about the race are available there.

Here are a couple of pictures of myself racing:

Cody Howard and Corey Boux paddling through the Tanzilla Slot on The Stikine.

 The One.  The Stikine.

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In just a couple of weeks (Oct. 17-19) the world will once again descend Old Forge, New York for the Moose River Festival.  Team Pyranha is doing some cool stuff, so come check it out. 

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To follow on from Dave’s post here’s some more photos…

 

Dave taking it easy on the slides following the ‘mans’ line!

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Ben White hucks with Style on the Morriston

This weekend saw over three hundred people from all over the country, and beyond, head to Fort William in Scotland for the West West Paddle Fest, the event that signals the end of summer and the start of another whitewater season in the UK. As with previous years, the folk at the SCA and the big group of volunteers put on a fantastic event, with scheduled dam releases on the Garry and Morriston and a super hero themed party that brought out costumes ranging from sublime to ridiculous to obscene. (more…)

Hello people,

This is my opening post on the Pyranha team blog, the first of many I hope!

I guess it’s worth starting out by saying a little bit about my background and how I keep myself busy…

I spend my life travelling and exploring with my kayak, and over the last few years I have been devoting a lot of time towards establishing my own coaching company (Love it Live it) as a means to sustain a lifestyle of adventuring around the world.

I recently went on a creeking expedition to Japan. The aim of the trip? To scope out a new and exciting destination for Love it Live it and to experience kayaking in a different and crazy country. I knew very little about the country and especially about the kayaking, but with steep mountains, snow and rainfall I figured there must be white water!

From my experience, trips like this are filled with quirky adventure and interesting experiences but considerably less regular good quality kayaking than a normal trip. Japan was no exception.

A quick snapshot of things that you might encounter in Japan…

The truly bizare…

the incredible contrasts of old and new…

… and the stunning scenery…

There are all manner of missions, mishaps and dodgy concrete boating that I could rant about, but if you work hard enough, eventually you will get what you are after. The first time in the trip when we struck gold was the Yamonashi Canyon.

Two of our group had canyoned the Yamonashi River several years earlier, but as far as we know it had only been done once before in kayaks. Their tales of smooth granite slides, big drops and crystal clear water were more than enough to inspire us to make it happen.

It took three and a half hours of driving, and as we drove up the valley to find the Yamonashi canyon the scenery got progressively more impressive.

We then had to hike a further two hours with our kayaks up the steep gorge of the Yamonashi River.

We were mildly disturbed by this sign half way along the walk…

It made us wonder what the scary looking animal with no head is and what they are saying to warn us about it!

All this effort and we had no real idea what we would find… would the water levels be wrong? Would the river still be as it was a few years ago?
We finally arrived at a truly stunning canyon, with turquoise water, smooth rock and a lot of gradient! We wolfed down our lunch (take away sushi!), got all the gear sorted and we were off… it was exciting to have found what I came to Japan to look for.

The highlight of the run was this double drop…

We ran the top one and after some debating, we decided that the big one was no go… there was a super tight 8 metre slot into a funny looking kicker that opened out into a 12 metre fall. The only person to do this before landed on his head, not good from 20 metres up!

Half of the crew who didn’t fancy kayaking the river had brought full canyoning gear and this is where they came into their own. This is a BIG drop with an awkward slot at the top and they did it on their backside! Sweet!

Kanami dropping into the slot at the top of the big one…

After a little bit of debating the bizarreness of willingly choosing to ‘swim’ a waterfall that we weren’t prepared to kayak, we thought sod it, and slid into it too! It was amazing fun and far better than any of the elaborate abseil or climbing options that we were considering too get down this drop.

The big downer of the day was Cusho landing one of the drops on a high brace and dislocating his shoulder. The following rescue from the steep sided gorge was difficult and concerning, a sharp reminder of the added consequence of being well into the wilderness.

Fortunately, with a combined work experience of about 60 years of rafting and kayak guiding, the group worked together well and competently to resolve the situation. We helped him put his own shoulder back in and get Cusho safely up the near vertical gorge to the path where a couple of people went with him to the hospital. Sean then live baited Cusho’s boat and paddles from behind the waterfall.

With the situation under control and with a depleted number we carried on down tonnes more super smooth drops and slides…

We then hit a tight section of the gorge; a portage where we had to make a 7 metre jump with our boats to get around an ugly looking slot drop and then this sweet slider to finish a truly amazing river!

A few hours hike back, and a brutal drive home… we ended the day fully exhausted but satisfied and happy that we had all shared something special that day.

The nature of these trips is that you don’t always get what you want, you have no real idea about most of the rivers you paddle and you have no guide book. You go through disappointments and difficulties, challenging logistics and language barriers, but sooner or later you get rewarded with a special day, made all the better by all the things you had to do to get there.
I was grateful to share this experience with these awesome people!

Thanks to Sean Kinsella and Kanami Anderson for the awesome photos!

Happy Paddling, Sam

This is a short video from the Eternity hole in NC. I’m now back in NC helping the crew down in the Pyranha warehouse keepin it clean. The next big move is Gauley fest, come check us out over at the Pyranha both.

Isaac Ludwig boofing a drop on the Pusuno in Ecuador. (more…)

 Adam Goshorn - by Charlie Mix

Alabama rivers were awakened in the middle of the dry season as the remains of Tropical Storm ‘Fay’ brought much needed rain to the region.

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Left side of “Paralyzer” Lake Creek photo: Schwiggles.com
After an epic high water summer in Colorado, the water is finally running low. But, there has still been plenty to do… (more…)

This weekend was the 1st annual Nantahala Outdoor Center/Dagger Freestyle Shootout held at the new NOC store wave.
Looping in the NOC Store wave (more…)

We have just spent the last week exploring the Spiti valley in Northern India. There was some excellent white water on the Spiti itself and on three of the tributaries we explored.

The valley is a real must if you are heading to Northern India to do the classics.

Photos by Patrick Clissold and Tom Laws 

Whats going on gang. Hope everybody has been enjoying the 08 season. its been a wicked one over here in norway, the land of big waterfalls, beautiful girls and expensive beers. For the past few months i have been based out of sjoa, living the glorious life as raftguide/riverbum ones again.

maxi on the Ulla waterfalls

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We were joined for a week this summer by a group of friends for some of our favorite Washington runs. Here are a couple of pictures from the Cooper - you can check out the full report from Fall in the Wall and Cooper at www.RiverGypsies.com.

Andria at Norm’s Retreat.

Me at Wall of Voodoo.
Doug Benton Photo.

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For the last week and a half myself and Kevin Burkhead have been traveling the west coast, like Santa Clause during Christmas delivering fresh new kayaks to our west side dealers. Thus far we have brought smiles to the faces of our people in San Fransico, Bend OR, Hood River OR, Portland OR, Seattle and Belingham WA. Now with all this work being done it was of coarse essential for Kevin and Myself to have a little fun. (more…)