Kayaking superstar Rudy Rampage takes on a step by step instructional to one of the basic skills in whitewater kayaking: “The Wet Exit.”

words and photos by Bryan Owen

video by Jakub Nemec

On the way back from Outdoor Retailer Yonton and I had the chance to run one of the most impressive river canyons in the world - The Black Canyon of the Gunnison. We had a kick ass crew consisting of canyon vet Capt’n Milo Wynne, our Rockies Rep Brent Toepper, Asheville homeboy turned Boulder bike guru Daniel Windham, and Astral team paddler Jakub Nemec. Its been about 5 years since I’ve been back in the “M-BOX” and it was so sweet to get back in there with such a great posse!

Milo knows this river all too well and I think he said it was his 46th run…it was only my 16th and it was awesome to be back in there with my good friend who showed us all the clean lines.  The Black is notorious for nasty rocks, poison ivy, extensive safety, pteradactyls… (well maybe not those)…and good old fashioned portaging. If you are not down with “river viewing” as we like to call it this may not be your can of Foster’s. There IS some really sweet boating to be had, but there’s no doubt about it - you gotta work for that shit.

Here’s Jakub firing up the first big rapid, DAYWRECKER:

I think Yonton really liked this run. The dude is one of the best boaters that I know but kinda dislikes portaging. He did awesome and styled a lot of rapids, like this one called LOWER INTESTINE:

After these couple of Black classics you get to BALL CRUSHER, here’s Daniel Windham not letting the libations hold him down (Daniel had a heavy boat that day)…

We rallied all those rapids and then some more, after a nice 18′ WATERFALL you get to what we like to call THE PORTAGE…I really don’t know how to sum it up…its pretty brutal - BUT, keep in mind when things get tough down there you need to simply look around and remember where you are. Not many have seen “the guts of the earth” from your perspective.  Check out Brent and Yonton in the midst of river viewing at its finest:

So we carried down to the cave camp, which for many crews marks the end of Day 1. Here we had a great chance to reflect on the day and slept in the cave with the sounds of the canyon singing its amazing song (thank Jah those ring tail cats let us sleep).

We woke up on Day 2 and utilized our fishing permits to enjoy some time having, what Milo liked to refer to as, “a Dumb off”…the trout were hitting like crazy. Check out this hog that Daniel pulled (then released to probably eat the next kayak that he saw)

After breakfast and the fishing tourney we packed up and hit the river.

To start Day 2 you have to execute a rather tricky portage on river-left, then scurry back to the right over various methods. Then there’s a big ole rapid called NEW GENERATION once you get back to river-right.  Jakub decided to give her a go, and had an awesome line. This is a portage for most and I cant believe how easy he made it look…I would seriously scout and protect this drop if anyone contemplates running it. Its really difficult with no margin for error!

We kept a good pace down to the GREAT FALLS portage…down here Brent and I made it to a happy little spot below the falls and contemplated canyon life awaiting on the crew - it was good to chill with BT who has been in the industry for years, representing the best companies out there and being an overall great ambassador to Colorado kayaking (check out Off the Deep End)….

So down here the river braids out and goes off multiple cascades and falls…none of which look all that nice. Again our boy Jakub fired up a seldom run line on the Falls, here he is styling it:

From here its some extended boogie down to Chukar Trail, the takeout. Once you get there enjoy the 1 mile race to the top of the false summit hill. Milo made it first with the rest of us not too far behind (I think)…we enjoyed a quick lunch sesh, then loaded up and hit the road. What a great trip with the crew. Here’s a little video that Jakub put together. Enjoy!

PS - The poison Ivy is really bad down there this year.  Our crew had a few nasty bouts with it - my worst in about 10 years.  Make sure to take precautions if you are allergic (or not if you like pain and suffering - which is probably why you want to run the Black anyways right?)

submitted by Justin Padgett of Landmark Learning

This technique is used when you must enter the water quickly. Assess and choose an unobstructed route from no higher than your knee height in the direction you want to travel in the river. Bend your Knees, Arch your back to stick out your chest, cross your arms  across your neck and face with palms rolled forward, Jump out over the water to in an attempt to make a modified belly flop - landing on your abdomen and chest - take a stroke and you’re off. 

Tip: the goal here is to stay close to the surface of the water (avoid jumping up) so that you can maintain eye contact on your target (direction of travel or victim).

submitted by Todd Wells.

Photos by: Jason Cohen, Link Jackson, and Brendan Wells.

Yet again Astral has designed and developed a steezy limited edition Greenjacket: the Samurai LE3. Here are some photos of the LE3 being put to use on Idaho’s North Fork Payette and South Fork Clearwater with the World Class Kayak Academy.

Idaho Whitewater Samurai

Seth Stoenner leading WCKA down the NF Payette

Eric Parker gettin after it!!

The Idaho Posse

For the full story on these rivers check out http://toddwellswhitewater.blogspot.com/2010/05/wcka-idaho.html

submitted by Phil Curry

Tori McClure is the author of A Pearl in the Storm: How I Found my Heart in the Middle of the Ocean. This book accounts her solo trans-Atlantic voyage and has also been described as “a look inside the soul of a person driven to discover what makes us all tick” (Cary Knapp, Coastal Illustrated Magazine).

Below Tori is pictured during a stop at Southeast Adventure wearing the V-Eight featuring Airescape breathable technology (patent pending).  Michael and crew say that Tori absolutely loves the V-Eight and we are glad that its her PFD of choice for her next voyage.

Astral Homegrown from 7 Finger media on Vimeo.

video courtesy of Gareth Tate, 7 Finger Media:

PADDLERS;
Bryan Owen, Keith Sprinkle, Gareth Tate, Adriene Levknecht, Chris Baer, Dustin Marquart, Evan Garcia, Adam Bixby, Steven Hughes, Gabriel Latini, Arlyn Agababian, Nik Hasse, Lee Timmons, Keith Sprinkle, Yonton Mehler, Drew Duval, Bishop, Billy Jones.

VIDEO CONTRIBUTORS;
Adam Bixby, Jacub Nemec, Evan Garcia, Gareth Tate, Laura Farrall, Nik Hasse, Taylor Fearrington, Bob Bailey.

*all footage shot within 60 miles of Asheville, NC.

MUSIC;
Glitch Mob - “Starve The Ego, Feed The Soul”

-2010 7 Finger media-

Video courtesy of Blaine Patrick

text by Bryan Owen

A few cold and snowy weekends ago I had the opportunity to paddle the Overflow Creek for the first time with a group of friends from Asheville. Its an incredible creek run with some really cool drops, and as we quickly learned its not a run to let your guard down as almost every drop has some type of hazard.  We rallied down past Singley’s Falls to an inconspicuous drop called “Twilight” that has a pretty nasty cave on the right.  Coming off the drop I was kicked right into the cave and for minutes battled to get the hell out of there. Thanks to my bros Will Lyons and James Kodaras for helping me out, and props to AW’s Jeff Paine for a really daring paddle recovery.  There’s some good footage of Astral rescue jackets in action too,  chekkit out:

Asheville Goes to Overflow from Blaine Patrick on Vimeo.

paddlers: Mark Miller, John Shannon, Billy Murphy, Toby MacDermott, Will Lyons, James Kodaras, Jeff Paine, Billy Jones, and Blaine Patrick

Keep it safe out there!

Bryan

The sun has finally started to break here in Pucon, Chile, which has led to warm temperatures and high water on the snow fed rivers such as the Puesco, and had allowed some of the rain fed rivers like the Nevados and Coilaco to start to drop a little. Pucon, Chile, is a class V kayakers paradise offering big clean drops to manky boulder strewn river beds that require your A-game. It also offers a relatively warm region to boat in during the northern hemispheres winter months. Pucon has had relatively dry summers (the northern hemisphere’s winter) for the last few years and well that’s changed this year. With over 12 feet of rain already this summer the rivers have been quite high. However last week the weather decided to dry out a bit and the sun has been shining.

With a  group of Demshitz and Kayak Pucon employees we headed out to the Nevados early in the first week of December. After a class V shuttle up a steep dirt road we made our way down to the river through cow pastures passing some calves on the trail to the water. A quick warm up leads right to large horizon line that is created by an awkward boof into a large boiling eddy that feeds into fast smooth slide with a kicker that will send you airborne at the bottom if you are not careful. If you aren’t feeling it at this point you may want to consider walking out. After another little chunky rapid you eddy out on river left to see your next horizon line. Dropping into low angle left to right slide (making sure you don’t get pushed right) you come to the lip of Wall Falls, a 20 footer that lands with the river making an immediate left hand turn ten feet from the lip. Make sure to eddy out here and look back up stream to watch your buddies drop in to this amazing gorge. At this point there is not much turning back. You are in the heart of the first gorge which isn’t very long but has some nasty holes that need to be punched with the final hole having a great boof of the right side (you don’t want to fall in on the left side of this one). After a few class III rapids you come to an eddy where you can scout the mandatory 20 foot TDUB crack drop. From here you have a the perfect auto boof into a recirculating eddy where you can get out and portage the Epicocity portage rapid or if the level is low enough you can make the ferry and run the rapid. Shortly after the portage rapid there is anther portage rapid which has a very awkward hard to catch small eddy on river right. Downstream you have Dulce Amore which is the best boof on the river coming left to right and boofing off the right wall into an aerated pocket feeding to the next manky rapid. Boof the coffee tongue (those of you not familiar with Rodrigo’s directions a coffee tongue is a rock boof) to avoid the disgusting pocket hole backed up by an undercut wall on the right and very little room to recover before the next manky little rapid. If you can catch the eddy on the left after the coffee tongue boof the left channel is open avoiding the manky rapid. A few more little rapids and then make sure to catch the eddy on the left before the next horizon line which is the rarely run Demshitz drop which has still been too high to run this year.

After a stout day on the Nevados we went in search of an easier more mellow day. The Desahue is supposed to be similar to the Little White, pushy water with clean drops and big holes with a clean 30 footer (the Ojos). However once we got to the upper put in Nate Garcia admitted that the level was higher then he had ever seen. Higher then the day in which their group had two swimmers and lost two boats about a month prior. With a marginal rapid just above the mandatory portage Muerte we decided to drive down and hike into the portage trail on river left to see what that would show us. Upon getting back to river level at the put in below the portage there wasn’t an eddy in site and every rock was underwater. Okay, we decided the our best option would be to just head down to the take out and hike up the last four or five drops and route the 30 footer at the take out a few times. What we were treated to was some very fun ledge drops with some stout holes. I missed timed my boof stroke of the second drop and had to fight my way out of the backwash of the hole just in time to see a paddle being thrown through the air towards the next drop. John apparently had hit the hole and lost his paddle hand rolled up and Nate had tossed him his paddle just as he was about to go over the lip of the next drop, a perfect left to right fading boof off a diagonal at the lip. Chris wasn’t so lucky as he tried to plug her deep and came up missing a third of his paddle. Impressively he rolled up with one blade and made the hard ferry with one blade back to river left where our vehicle was and opted on shooting photos for the rest of the day. The Ojos had a rolling reconnecting entrance that you tried to punch through the seam at the lip in order not to get taken deep at the bottom. As a tourist attraction there were plenty of trails and stairways that made multiple runs quite easy. Although it wasn’t that easy to break through the seam coming off lip to get your boof stroke, the landing was very aerated and quite soft. We all had some really nice lines and some that went over vertical. One blown skirt in the landing and another broken paddle by Andy but all smiles.

The next day we headed back out to the Puesco. This time to run the whole thing upper and lower sections. Shortly after putting on right before the biggest rapid of the run Tres Troncos I got to test out the flotation and swimability of my Green Jacket (thank you again for such a great pfd Astral). The upper Puesco at medium flows is high high water West Prong, the common description of the upper Puesco rapids was “just get ready for fight club”. No eddies, 1,000 boofs, holes that you want nothing to do with on a river you do not want to swim on (I consider myself very lucky for where I did swim), and don’t expect to see anything as you will have water in your eyes the whole time. Find someone who knows the upper to follow and don’t expect to be able to follow their lines exactly. The Puesco is a hard run to portage rapids although most rapids can be scouted there are plenty of undercuts, sieves, and wood to make for a very stressful day. Needless to say I felt some relief when we made it to the lower that I still had a good recollection of. After the awesome wave boof to punch the two holes down the left (my favorite rapid of the lower Puseco) I ended up splatting the left wall and getting cartwheeled in a hole. I rolled up with a grin on my face happy to be out of the hole and in the eddy until Nate informed me that  I was now missing a blade on my paddle. The rest of our run went with out incident and paddling out the boogie water we were treated to some of the best views in the area. After such an intense run it’s nice to be able to unwind and float while taking such natural grandeur that surround us in the Puesco valley. It was also pretty easy for us to get a shuttle back up to the car by hitching a ride with the local road construction crews. The Puesco pass in the process of being paved all the way from Pucon to the Argentina boarder.

Another day on the Nevados then we after receiving news two days ago of the expected passing of my grandfather we thought the best way to celebrate his life and all the teachings I learned from him was to grab a bottle of wine, do a bit of exploring and park and huck the salto Coilaco. With some marginal directions we were on our way out of town and winding through dirt roads littered fields that all looked the same. Our directions were not those from the guide book. Ours were, take the road after the puente de Coilaco and park along a field and jump the fence and walk to the falls. Well the hole road was fields from one bridge to  the next which only left about five kilometers of field to search. Upon receiving word from a local at the bus stop there was a cascada just up the road from where we stopped to talk to him drove up to a 30 foot water fall coming out of a very tight log filled mini gorge that we later found out to be the un-run mini gorge of the Alto Coilaco. Back to our original plan scour the fields along the road until we found the falls. It was worth it though. The salto Coilaco is a perfect 30 footer with a nice eddy right above the lip that led to a left stroke down the tongue and tuck into the deep pool at the bottom. As a southeastern boater now we have very few waterfalls to practice on so I took full advantage hiking up and running her eight times that day. I couldn’t have thought of a better way to celebrate the day, running a beautiful waterfall many many times and sharing some good red wine with some good friends.

I’m feeling the 240 feet of vertical that I dropped yesterday and I think our whole group is in agreement a day of rest is in order. Boats need to be repaired, bodies need some rest, and updates and contact with home always feels good. We are continuing to have fun down here in Chile, everyone who has thought about making the trip, it is well worth it. Thank you again to Astral for providing such great safety gear for all of us out here that find the need to push ourselves.

Ciao-

Adam Bixby

This is Christina Russell reporting from frozen Oregon. Yep…we’re still frozen. I’m back in Bend from a spat of moving my things in to my new floating boat-house on the Colombia River…boy was it cold up there. The damp cold gets to me! It was -22 degrees last night and the rivers in Bend have frozen over. Today, the high was 8 degrees and with it being so cold, I spent my day INSIDE, snuggled up in a fleece blanket….with a fantastic cup of blueberry tea. These past few days of cold weather have reminded me that when we paddle, we need to always dress for a swim. And right now, a swim could mean death if you are dressed inappropriately. Last winter, I had an icky swim on the Green Truss. I believe I posted photos of the incident but I thought I would take a moment to relive it and go over the things I learned from it: My swim occurred on a day when the air temperature wasn’t over freezing. The White Salmon had swollen to an unknown level (we can only guess the flow), and the rocks on the bank were covered in Verglass. At the put-in, I considered the conditions I knew existed and wore thermals, fleece pants and a fleece jacket, two pairs of socks, and a fleece vest under my drysuit. I felt prepared and felt super solid on the run…at least until my swim. ha ha. Funny but not. Anyways, my swim occurred at the base of the waterfall called Big Brother. A fun 25 footer with a cave on the bottom river right. I stuck my line and as I was paddling away from the drop, I flipped on a boil….bummer. I got pinned on the outcropping next to the cave and missed my roll. I ended up swimming in the cave at a flow that (we were told) no one runs the drop at. What can we take away from my swim?

a. Always dress for a swim

b. Paddle with people that are also dressed for a swim- its your safety as well as theirs

c. STAY CALM. I was in the water for over five minutes and despite being dressed well, the cold definitely got to me. I couldn’t feel my hands or my legs and I was terrified that I wouldn’t be able to swim if I let go of the throw rope

d. Make sure everyone in your group has a throwbag

e. ALWAYS CARRY A KNIFE

f. Know when it’s a smart things to hike out- After my swim, I lost my lifter pad (which means I paddle like crap without it) and I had absolutely no energy. I opted to hike out and wait for the crew to finish the run. I’m not proud of the whole thing but it definitely was humbling. This was the second time I seriously thought I might die. It’s taking me a while to get back to where I was mentally but I’m getting there. I learned a lot and will be more prepared when I swim next…we are always in between swims.

Stay safe out there and DRESS WARM!

Merry Christmas,

Christina Russell

Our friend Chris Morelli is an up and coming paddler from the Northeast and works at Mountainman Outdoor Supply. He put together this important safety reminder to always carry a rope. Chris uses the Greenjacket with an integrated throwbag for easy access during rescue situations.