Check out this video from Astral team paddlers Aniol Serrasolses and Lachie Carracher as they hit Veracruz State, Mexico.

Mexico from Lachie Carracher on Vimeo.

My season in BC started very slowly working lots on the Clearwater River and not getting much paddling in for myself. As the season finished I teamed up French ripper Jules Domine and a small crew, and that all changed.

Adrian Kiernan, Antoine Dupuis, Jules, and myself were cutting laps on the upper gorges of the Clearwater when the legendary Homathko River just dropped in at the high side of good. After a day of manic packing, finding all the equipment needed, and checking and re-checking levels, we were in the car and on our way north to Tatlayoko Lake.

Tatlayoko lake is the start point for the 4 day source to sea descent of the Homathko River. This river has it all for the class 5 kayaker. 4 days of sick whitewater, amazing scenery, we were blessed with great weather, I even managed to spot 4 grizzly bears!

This amazing section of river has a very narrow window of what is runnable and the previous two descents had to be evacuated for one reason or another. The trip ends in the Wilderness Homathko camp, from here you have a float plan land on a inlet of the pacific ocean and shuttle you back to your vehicle at Tatlayoko lake.

Enjoy the photos from one of the top 5 multi days:

photo: Adrian Kiernan

After this years Moose Fest, which had plenty of water demshitz headed further east into Vermont. We where able to get on four new rivers on this trip! It’s always good to get some new runs! Moose Fest, demshitz cookout, Boquet creek, Middlebury Gorge, and the Green river in Vermont.

Wellerbrucke section on Oetztaler Ache is probably the best section to run in Central Europe in late September. Check out some sick blue angel head cam footage of Jakub Nemec, Isaac Levinson, & Mira Kodada

After such an amazing summer of hopping all over the US, I have come full circle to my winter home of Chattanooga TN. The spring started off with competitions on the east in Connecticut and North Carolina, then rallying the RV all the way to Reno and back to Colorado for the summer Circuit. After Teva Mountain Games I traveled to Germany to compete in Worlds which was a huge highlight of the year. After jumping off the plane and going to the OBX for a quick surf vacation, I traveled to Iowa to sell smoothies for a road biking tour and then headed out to the OR show in Utah to check out the new products for 2012. As soon as the show ended, it was back to Salida, CO to finish up season on the Arkansas river. When the water started to run out in Colorado the Gauley was calling with warm weather and good friends. The Gauley is an awesome place for relaxing and getting to paddle world class whitewater.

To kick off our time at the Gauley, we hit the New River Gorge at 6 ft and 9ft. At 6ft, upper and Lower Railroad had great potential to throw wave moves and it was a great level to run the whole river and catch a ton of waves on the fly. Although 6ft was a great level, 9ft was better. Listening to local beta, we heard that the play was not the best, but we hit the jackpot when we arrived at Greyhound bus wave. The wave was big, glassy, and surgy and allowed for any big wave tricks. The river left side of the wave formed a monster hole, but the shape of the wave kept paddlers from getting kicked into the meat. Getting the opportunity to paddle the New was a great way to warm up for our month in West Virginia.

The Thursday before Gauley fest, we got the chance to compete in the first ever SUP event on the New River Gorge. It consisted of an attainment race up river about a mile above Fayette station and back to the beach, as well as a 3 mile downriver race to Teays landing. Paddling down Fayette station was defiantly the most exciting part of the race because I got to work on my whitewater swimming with about 20 other people swimming at the same time. It was awesome to paddle with so many people that are excited about SUP on the river. Look for a bigger and better event there next year. Check out the video of the race SUP WAZOO.

The Gauley River is a magnet for all of our friends from around the US and is a great time for us to paddle big water with good friends. With extra water releases this year, I was able to get in a bit more training than I have in previous years. I playboated for 6 about hours each day working every playspot until I was exhausted. One highlight of Gauley Fest weekend is the Upper Gauley Animal River Race. This year I had the opportunity to paddle my “new” dancer and had the chance to get in multiple practice runs in the week before. The race starts at the put-in and continues about 9 miles down to sweets fall, where racers looked both exhausted and happy to finish the grueling race. My dancer treated me well through both the big rapids and the long flat water stretches. This was another great way for me to broaden my paddling skills and I look forward to being even fasted next year.

2011 has been a great year in kayaking and I am excited to see what 2012 holds. I have been able to push my boundaries as a kayaker and broaden my horizons in the outdoor industry. Now that I am in Chattanooga, Tn, there will be plenty of paddling left in 2011, but I have my sights set high for 2012.

This past weekend, about 30 Vermont boaters convened for an AW sponsored FERC-relicensing flow study on the Green River in VT. The Green had been off paddler radars until the last couple years when Ryan McCall (et. al) happened to find it running one day when the power company that owns the dam was running a capacity test. After a bit more investigation, it turned out the dam was coming up for relicensing, so local boaters and the Vermont Paddlers’ Club contacted AW and the power company and arranged for a weekend of releases to assess flows.

If it’s not 40 degrees and raining, it’s not paddling in Vermont. We wouldn’t be enjoying it quite as much if the sun was out, either. Photo Morgan Boyles.

Turns out it’s a really great class IV run with a handful of fun class Vs. 3 miles long, two 10′ boofs and a plethora of smaller but just as fun ones. We had 4 different release levels, all of which were very boatable.

Me, happily paddling away from the biggest dam-release hole in Vermont (not that we have many). Photo Boyles.

The highest release was definitely the most fun, but a number of paddlers opted out of that one due to the greater “availability of powerful hydraulics.” I’m not quite sure what the right answer is, but the AW flow study survey asks how one feels about that. I think my answer was “Acceptable” across the board, although they were definitely more available at higher water.

Christian Woodard contemplating the availability of powerful hydraulics on the Green River.

It’s in a beautiful, roadless gorge tucked into Northern Vermont (unfortunately pretty far from anywhere that isn’t Vermont…and far from a lot of Vermont). At 3 miles, it’s one of the longer runs in the state (I know, make fun of us all you want), and having it as a dam release will make it a reliable option when there isn’t necessarily other paddling to be had. Scheduled releases are probably a couple years out, but the power company releases water for generation regularly and has agreed to let paddlers know when that happens, which is great.

Christian hanging out below the Pothole Gorge rapid.

Thanks again to Ryan, Bill Hildreth, the Vermont Paddlers’ Club, Kevin Colburn from AW, and all the volunteers that helped out with the day. The Vermont paddling community owes all of you gratitude. Maybe someday there’ll be a Green River Festival in the summer when everything else is dry.

Brad Croteau flying through the boof rapid.

 “Andrew” Billy Wagner on the best 2′ boof in the world. He’s actually still going up from the launch pad in this picture.

Post by Nick Gottlieb

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.

Here at Astral we love some kayak films, especially those put together by our team athletes. Recently we had a chance to watch the new Shasta Boyz Film ‘Slippery When Wet’ and can attest that its one of the top kayak films of the year! Over the past few months we have featured the trailers right here on Astral Currently, which feature many of our team paddlers across the globe. In addition the soundtrack is really dope and just some flat our amazing scenery and great boating. They Shasta Boys also took part in some relief efforts over in Japan in the wake of the earthquake and tsunami. All we can say is that we are really proud of these guys for all their energy and amazing talents. Here’s a few words from Shon Bollock of SBP about the film…

“Life has been hectic in the SBP world lately. After finishing a master copy of Slippery When Wet in late July, I was barley able to get DVDs August 4th before flying to the Outdoor Retailer show on August 5th. After the epic whirl wind of making some great connections and a wicked bender with the boyz, I rallied back to Mt. Shasta to start getting ready to move down to Santa Cruz for school. Slippery When Wet has been a culmination of the past 2 years of paddling and filming for the collective athletes involved with this film. The production time was almost 6 months longer than my last project Wet Dreams and it has gotten a great response from the paddling community. If you haven’t seen all the trailers for some reason then you can check all 7 here. Pick up a copy of the wetness here and stay posted for a tour dates on shastaboyz.com.”

Here is an edit of how the WWGP looked for me. It was one of the best experiences in my paddling career yet and is a giant step in the progression of whitewater kayaking. Thanks to everyone who made it happen and for my sponsors who supplied my gear that stood up to the test.

Tyler Curtis

Whitewater Grand Prix Edit from TylerCurtis on Vimeo.