Richard on the far side on Marsh

 
I have a go too…although, I am waiting for the SMALL MOLAN I think!

  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

One of the many small boof drops on the Upper Tawe!

 
Fun slides too.
 

For more photos check out www.worldkayakblogs.com/paula .

Hope to see you all at Pyranha Fest at the Dart in Devon!

Demshitz Stay out of jail tour was a success! Dave Fusilli Nicole Mansfield and I survived a summer traveling from state to state in the Team Pyranha van ( aka “orange bitch” ) visiting Pyranha Dealers events, rodeos, races; we went everywhere! Here is a video from our last stop on the tour in Ouachita Arkansas with Ouachita Outdoor Outfitters.

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This video is a mix of Callagan, Cheakamus, Rogers Creek and the Skookumchuck Rapids.  Some good beats, blunts, and waterfalls, hope you like it.

It has been widely known that changes are planned for the Teesside White Water course in north-eastern England that will drasticaly change the course (hopefully for the better). These works were due to start early in the year and most people have even been under the impression that the course had already shut for the works. However, this is not the case. The course is still alive and kicking and will be until the end of August according to the centre staff!!

In the meantime the course has undergone a few changes including testing some new obstacles similar in idea to the Omni-flot system recently installed at Nottingham so I I went down after work to check it out… 

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I participace two freestyle Eurocup in June.

There weren´t so much people, but it was fun. The playspot in Bratislava – slalom course in Cunovo was sticky and strong, on th other hand hole in Lienz was quickly. I like it.

 

In Lienz I went from qualification from 3.-4. place to semifinale and from the same place to finals.

Unfortunately I was 5.

I´m gong to last eurocup to Netherlands in September.

 

I was in many paddling events in this spring.

We had first Czech competition from CNAWR rodeo tour. It was nice competition in small town with good playspot. I was scond in qualification and unfortunately five in finals.

 

Other weekend I was in Youngsters camp, where we teached children some skills from freestyle.

Nice weekend I spent in Graz, where was good competition and noble wave. I can try new tricks.

 

 

Dave Fusilli throwin up the air brown at the Reno River Fest.

Demshitz is here in Buena Vista Colorado for Paddle Fest! We have been non-stop from Cheat fest WV to Reno River fest NV and into Californ-i-A ! Check out some of the photos and videos from the trip so far.

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Hi,

We had qualification for Worldchampionship in Thun 2009. I done it. And I will go there.

We had two small competitions in Platling. There was the wave on rght side and the hole on left side.

So I´m looking forward to Thun.

 

Pennsylvania has been getting hit pretty regularly for the past few weeks with “winter mix,”  a lovely little combination of snow, sleet, and rain.  The upside of that is we’ve had pretty good water for the past month or so.  I’ve been shooting a good bit of footage, and finally got around to putting it together.  My “Winter Mix” is a combination of creeking in the Delaware Water Gap and playboating on the Susquehanna at Holtwood and Chickies Hole.  It’s been cold, but it’s Pennsylvania winter paddling at it’s finest.

Winter Mix video on ChasingRain.com

It’s the time of year when things are turning colder and not much is running in this part of the world.  Still, I got motivated a few times to head out to Scudders, the best play spot in New Jersey.  Here’s a little video on Chasing Rain.

Last week, the Clemson University Whitewater Club hosted an LVM 27 premiere at Fike Recreation Building. Following dinner and the movie, Pyranha Kayaks hosted a demo and pool rodeo. Casey and I headed down to Clemson Friday evening from Franklin with a pile of boats to join the festivities. We were met with a good turnout of folks at the premiere who blew off homework and other responsibilities to join us in the pool for a bit of fun.

Most of the time we spent in the pool was for folks to spend trying the different boats we had available but the highlight of the evening was the pool rodeo we held at the end of the night. The judges decided to keep things simple by having two classes: Funniest Trick and Coolest Trick. There were no rules, as long as your ride involved a kayak and was the best thing you could come up with in the pool. Some amazing feats of skill and daring were displayed but winners had to be chosen.
Mac, mid-airscrew off the diving board at the Clemson demo
After much deliberation by the judges, it was decided that Todd Henry had performed the Funniest Trick – a bouncing seal launch to faceplant off the high diving board. Mac McGee did the Coolest Trick, an airscrew off the low diving board. Our winners walked away with Pyranha shirts, stickers, and other swag, but we brought enough that everyone who attended got something.
Mac stoked on his new Pyranha shirt
Handing out prizes to the winners
Thanks to Brian and Dave at Pyranha Kayaks for hooking us up with boats and swag for the event, to Penstock Productions for the video, to the Clemson Whitewater Club for organizing and promoting the event and getting food, and to Clemson University for hosting the event. We hope to be back!

Other news in the drought-ridden southeastern US is a recent rain event. After said rain, the aforementioned wonderboy Mac from Clemson met up with me at the Cullasaja River near Highlands, NC to fire off the seldom-run Bricklayer Falls. I’ve heard about this drop and seen the circulating photos of Pat Keller or Joe Barkley running it years ago but never knew exactly where it was. FOUND IT! And…now I understand why this drop isn’t run very often. It’s a nasty 30 foot drop with a sloping entrance, tricky landing, and a terrible cave at the bottom. Mac and I loaded up our Burns, ran the falls at first light the morning after the rain, at a perfect level, and found perfect lines. Here are the goods, as well as a few other shots from that day.
Mac taking one last look while I head for my boat
Me rolling over the lip
Mac givin’ er
And the man behind the lense – fellow Pyranha paddler and brother, Casey Jones

Now, all that there’s left to do is wait in anticipation of the Green Race this weekend and try to control my nerves heading into this event. I’m picking up my new Karnali in a day or two and can’t wait! The weather is chilly now (we just had our first snow of the year last night!) but weather forecasts for Saturday are looking to be perfect for racing. More to follow after the race!

Good lines out there.

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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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 saw the second round of the Plastic Fantastic Alpkit Kayak Series held at the Tryweryn in North Wales. The event included a freestyle on the NRA wave followed by a Boto X down Bala Mill Falls as well as the usual party on the saturday night (including sumo!!).

Me lining up a blunt on the NRA Wave in the Rev M: Photo by Jo Meares

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Me Mcnastying the rev in the muncher.

So last weekend everyone, headed down to the teeside whitewater course to compete in the youth freestyle…… (more…)

Mariann Saether, Tyler Curtis and myself were holding a freestyle camp for kids under 18 this weekend. Grettefoss near Kongsberg in Norway was a perfect place to hold such an event. A fantastic time for us, roasting in the warm sunshine (unsual at this latitude!!!) and tones of improvement from the young crowd; this is a good start for the tallented paddlers. Check out: www.youngboaters.com

Sunshine Left – Photo by Dave Deggendorf

The last two weeks I have spent on my brief summer break. Nursing school at SCC goes year-round, with short breaks during the spring/summer, summer/fall, and fall/spring semesters. My class schedules usually keep me extremely busy, so I resolved to spend as much of this break paddling as I physically could. As you’ll see, I certainly got my money’s worth!

The southeastern class V creeking staple, the Green Narrows, was the only water available for the first week of my break. I usually paddle every week while school is in session, whether it’s at the Green or on natural flow somewhere. I decided to go spend a few days in Saluda tangling with a big monkey, and got four days in a row on the Green. The only photos I managed to get during this break are from these few days at the Green, so enjoy.

Six in the Green River Eddy!

Gorilla

Gorilla a few days prior

Groove Tube

The next day, Chris Harjes and I headed down to Folly Beach and the Isle of Palms to do a bit of surfing. We heard there was a swell on its way toward shore and decided to go for a brief change of scenery. I brought along my 420 in case conditions were less than ideal for my beginner surfing skills, which turned out to be a good thing! Harjes and I spent two days at a friend’s house and had 5 or 6 good surf sessions. I managed to get several good rides but the wind changed and I started having a hard time paddling out, so I switched to the 420 for the remainder of the trip. The waves were nice and I got some good aerial rides. After our second morning session, we headed up to Sumter to watch Chris’s cousin graduate from nursing school, then headed on to Asheville.

No sooner had I unpacked my stuff from the beach, had Chris called again about another road trip. I missed his call and he left me a long, detailed message about his idea for pulling this trip off, complete with what he thought would be good and what the water levels already were. The next morning I was on my way back to Harjes’s and soon we were on 26 N toward whitewater. 15 minutes outside Asheville, Eli Smith called and said he wanted to go with us, so we turned around and picked him up. At this point, it was almost mid-day, and we were going to be super late to do any sort of paddling. As we drove we called everyone we could think of and eventually got Bryan Kirk’s number. He was about to board a plane in Reno after finishing the rodeo there, but he gave us Brian Jenning’s number, whom we met when we arrived in Fayetteville later that afternoon.

When Brian finished in a meeting, we met up and headed to Mill Creek for some high-water action. The level was around 2 feet, which is apparently on the high side of good for that run, though YMMV. We made a couple of laps and were joined by David Hughes on our second. Sorry, no photos from our trip, as we were burning daylight and wanted to get as much paddling in as possible. However, here are a few to enjoy, courtesy of the AW page for Mill Creek.

John Warner, Mill Creek Falls, Courtesy of American Whitewater

Powderhouse Falls, Mill Creek -Courtesy of American Whitewater

The next morning, we discovered that the Dries of the New were in, so we went kayaking there. The Put-In Waves weren’t in, but we got some incredible playboating anyway. Too bad my playboating skills have gotten rusty! No photos from that trip either..sorry.

Since the day was still young, Eli, the Bryans, and I decided to go run the Gauley. Before reading more, check out the gauge height for May 13th (the day we paddled it).

We got to the put-in for the Upper and found water squirting out of the tubes..about 15,000 cfs worth. The ground shook. It took us around 20 minutes to work up the nerve to put on, and when we did, it was on. I could not recognize any rapids, only where the big ones are supposed to be at normal levels, from rocks on the bank, etc. The smaller rapids usually lasted around 100 yards and had 8-10′ wavetrains, waveholes, or holes I wouldn’t want to surf.

Pillow, Lost Paddle, and Iron Ring were horrifically big and the noise in the rapids was deafening. I remember paddling hard into Pillow, vaguely making out the top of Pillow Rock, and cresting a breaking 10 foot wave that stopped me…just before a 25′+ wave caused by VW Rock collapsed on me and ripped a hand off my paddle. I got absolutely chundered by that wave but rolled up and got away from a terrible looking 8′ pourover 1/4 mile downstream. The freeze-frame image of that house-sized wave about to crash down on me still sends chills down my spine!

Lost Paddle and Iron Ring were also huge but they went well. The line in Lost Paddle was pretty much the same as it always is, except we had to scramble to get left of the submerged Mail Slot. Sweet’s Falls was a hole about 8 or 10 feet tall, and Postage Due rock had about 2 feet of water going over it, creating a horrible hole. The quote of the day came from Bryan Kirk: “It’s kind of like an IQ-test, and we failed.”

We paddled on down to Wood’s Ferry, surfing huge green glassy waves, pulling aerial tricks, and took out 16 miles downstream of the dam, 2 1/2 hours later.

I don’t think I’ll paddle big water like that too often, as I don’t like being in the middle of a huge rapid with no eddy options or any way to to get help in the event of something going wrong. Lots of stuff relying on luck in those situations.

Here are some photos of a quick session at the NOC wave in my new Rev M-Long.
Photos by Casey Jones

Good lines out there
Chan

So the UK’s competition season kicked off with the washburn challenge, people across the UK came down to compete against the UK’S best boto x paddlers and freestylers. >

Rev looking smooth on the entry move. (more…)

Hi all!

We are frantically packing to leave for the West today, but have stuck a quick report that Andria wrote about last week up on our website.

Go to www.RiverGypsies.com for the full report.

Andria styling Wonder Falls
Photo by Leland

This weekend was the Reno River Festival. Team Pyranha was there in full force to do some Freestyle and Boatercross, and get some creeking and partying in between it all.

Dave looping the Rev in Reno

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