After a great visit to ZOAR and the Deerfield River I headed for the US Nation’s Capital of Washington DC and home of Potomac Paddlesports. With the recent rains in the east from the continually approaching Hurricanes the river level was fantastic. The local playspot called S-bend provided a few hours of playboating entertainment.

After my visit in Potomac I headed for the US National Whitewater Center in Charlotte N.C. This engineered whitewater course is something else! It has 2 channels to provide playboating, slalom, and creek race training, not to mention zip lines, mountain biking, and rafting.

I enjoyed a great paddle session with Manager Pablo McCandless, who showed me the facility.

Thanks for the visits.

I am still on the road and there will be more up dates to come..

Tyler Curtis

www.riverplay.ca

The first weekend of Sept. played host to the Ottawa River Festival. With hundreds of kayakers gathered on the Ottawa for the warm water and perfect water levels it was the perfect weekend to host a Freestyle Competition.

All classes had a good number of participants as it was the last days for the OKS Keener Program as well as some of the Kayak Academy’s were present.

The local boys definitely showcased the talent required to throw down some of the biggest and best tricks on the Garb Wave while some of the foreign paddlers had the benefit of a ton of free time to train and learn the feature.

All in all, the event was as good as it gets for producing a freestyle frenzy and epic long weekend of shit talk, big rides, and sunshine.

Here are a few images of my rides in the event.

Enjoy.

Labor Day weekend marks the beginning of the Fall boating season in New England. There’s boating all summer, but as the leaves start to change and ‘peeping’ season begins in earnest, the rain starts to actually bring rivers up for more than a few hours at a time. I’ve been to the Labor Day Beaver/Raquette releases for a few years now, and they’re always a blast. This year, we rallied up Friday night straight to Colton. After a healthy breakfast at the local diner, we spent all day lapping the Raquette, the Northeast’s summertime classic.

Me, boofing the flake on Colton…it hurts a bit, but it’s just so fun. Photo Brian Seitz.

Some of the spring flooding changed Colton Falls a bit, making it a slightly harder rapid (the eddy in the middle is more challenging to catch than it used to be), but no worries, you can surf out of the hole at the bottom of the slide.

Boofing the horseshoe above the slide. Photo Brian. Nothing like man-boating class V…don’t flip over.

After 4 (or 6, for some of us) laps, we headed over to The Finish Line, a bar (the bar) in Colton that had a sign out front reading, “Welcome Kayakers.” They’d put together a great pulled-pork buffet for about $7/person, the town really supports kayakers on the river and is doing their best to be friendly – I hope everyone who goes up there for summer releases next year spends some time/money in town. On Saturday, we rallied down to the Moshier section of the Beaver. I wasn’t feeling the put-in slide this year, but Christian, Tripp, Morgan, and James all were.

Christian Woodard firing a huge boof off the top of the rapid…About half the rapid, maybe less, is visible in this photo. Photo Morgan Boyles.

James Duesenberry about halfway down. Photo Morgan.

Lines were mostly good and everyone was stoked to be at the bottom. The rest of the Moshier section is basically fun class IV. Two waterfalls, a lot of flatwater, some class III, and a really fun continuous rapid at the takeout called Moshier Falls. This is always a circus on Labor Day Sunday – people getting worked everywhere, about 50-100 folks on shore either watching, scouting, portaging, or hiking back up to run it again. I ran six laps on the first waterfall of the run and five on Moshier Falls…they’re great rapids.

Picture perfect on the first waterfall on the Moshier. From last year. Afterwards, we headed over to the Eagle section where I snapped a few photos.

Geoff Calhoun handpaddling drop #3 on the Eagle.

Anonymous paddler entering the same rapid.

Anyway, looking forward to a great paddling fall in New England (not that Summer wasn’t good). I’ve been out a bit since Irene – a lot of the classics have changed dramatically, and most good rivers are still suffering from “You can’t get there from here” issues. Roads are slowly reopening though, and I’m excited to paddle our ‘new’ old rivers. I already ran the Big Branch last week – no pictures, as I was in a rush to get off the river and get back to work quickly – it’s completely different. An entirely new river. Still awesome though. I’ll check back later this fall with some pictures of the new rivers up here.

Here’s a short and sweet highlight of the Devils Extreme Race, the Open European Championship in extreme kayaking. The race was held below the Lipno dam on the Vltava River, on a section called the Devil’s Streams in the Czech Republic. Enjoy!

The fifth annual Devils Extreme Race, Open European Championship in extreme kayaking, this past weekend was held under the Lipno dam on the Vltava river, on a section called the Devil’s Streams. The race attended over a hundred competitors and this year we had a lot of foreigners. Last year’s World champion Sam Sutton (New Zealand), Daniel Klotzner (Italy) and Mike Dawson (New Zealand). Devil’s Extreme Race started in Loučovice on a big ramp, There was a few different races on the program. Most of them happened at Loučovice rapid, but the final race and team race was through the toughest rapids on Devil Streams section. In the main race, that took place on Saturday and was declared as an open European championship in extreme kayaking, 1st place Mike Dawson (NZL), 2nd place Viktor Legat, for bronze finished Italian Klotzner Daniel. “The race was sick. I know this river well by now, as I’ve come here for last three years but its harder and harder with all these strong kayakers that raced today.” Impressions after the race described by Dawson. The main race progressed qualifications in the form of extreme slalom (touch the banner), then sprint for 4 minutes and top 10 from that raced through the whole section. The quickest athletes had time around 14 minutes. Women’s category was reigned by Anna Hübner, silver Luis Jull and the third freom Czech Republic, Katerina Migdauová. On Saturday, the events included the extreme slalom and sprint, then the main race. On Sunday the race continued with a kayak-cross and team race. Great parties with bands and Czech beer gave a great atmosphere to the whole race.

Results:

European Championships in extreme kayaking: Men K1: 1 Mike Dawson (New Zealand) 2 Viktor Lagat (CR) 3 Daniel Klotzner (Italy) K1 women: 1 Anne Hübner (Germany) 2 Louise Jull (New Zealand) 3 Catherine Migdauová (CR) K1 Juniors: 1 Jan Havelka (CR) 2 James Vondrasek (CR) 3 Martin Hlavacek (CR) C1: 1 Arthur Beier (CR)

Devils Streams section is located in between Loučovice and Vyssi Brod, It is one of the toughest natural sections in the Czech Republic. When the water is below normal flow of about 2 m³ / s you cant run it. it flows much higher, about 20 to 30 m³ / s but only once a year. It is for this reason, the Devil’s Race Extreme Race so popular.

For more information, visit www.devilsextremerace.com