Howdy there Israeli Cowboy! I wanted to let you know that I’m glad you got a new toof. I’m sorry you broke your real toof, but if you can’t have your real toof, then the next best thing is a new one. That’s just incredible!!!I’ve been paddling around in this far away land named New Zealand. It’s going to be my home for the next year, while I do some learning at one them Universities down here. I came down a bit early though, so I could ride my kayak off some of the rivers they have in this land. There are some of the most gorgeous rivers I ever did saw down here!!! I’ve paddled some of the ones on the North Island, AND the South Island! I even went up in a helicopter that’s shaped like a dragon-fly. I thought it was kinda funny that a helicopter would be shaped like a dragon-fly, but then I thought…well, a dragon-fly does that whole flying thing rather well, and that’s what they were going for with these helicopter thangers, so why not have it look like one? I’ve been taken some pictures and video the whole time I’ve been down here. I’m going to keep updating my blog with pictures from the summer, you are welcome to look at it over the next wee while, cause some of the photos are kinda purtty at least they were taken in some purtty places!)…

http://downstreammovement.blogspot.com
Talk to you later dude,

Cooper Lambla

Howdy!

I wanted to share this little video my friend Spencer Cooke put together. It is some footage from a couple of weeks ago when Daniel Windham, Spencer and myself went to Triple Falls in Dupont. Unfortunately, during the adventure, I took a bite of my paddle and lost a part of my front tooth. Luckily, the said, “front tooth” lives up to it’s reputation and sticks out a bit further than the rest of my grill. This proved to be very helpful, as it saved the rest of my teeth.

The moral of the story is: 1. Don’t eat your paddle! and 2. Crooked teeth are not all bad after all.

Peace, Love and oh, yeah, if you need a dentist in the Asheville Area look up Landon Poteat. He is a local outdoor dude who’s good friends with many in the AVL kayaking scene and he is a great dentist.

Yonton.

March has turned out to be a wet month here in the Southeast. Last week we were fortunate to enjoy some heavy rains that brought up many of the local rivers near Asheville. Luckily, I was able to sneak out of the office for a little creek time with some of West Asheville’s resident creekers. The Ramsay Prong is a fun and continuous low volume run over in the Smokies. Nik Haase, a good friend of ours and former Astral employee, has been running this section since his earlier days of creek boating. His beta proved to be key as this run has a very fast and continuous nature and scouting every rapid would have made the day much slower. We put on above a footbridge at a nice 6 foot boof, followed by a long runout. Other rapids of mention include “the Ditch” which is certainly the single track section of Ramsey as well as nasty little boulder/tree Zone 3 rapids or so below the bridge (we recommend scouting this one and setting safety). It was an awesome day out there with a great crew of local paddlers. Our crew had 3 runs that day with plenty of action. Check out the RAMSAY GALLERY for some photos of this run.

cheers!

Bryan

Joey gets his boof on, Ramsey Cascades.

Our buddy Hiro loves to spend his downtime on the water. He works at Pearl Trading Company, Japan’s premier supplier of paddlesports gear, and he’s also an accomplished kayaker of many disciplines. One of the newest subcultures of kayaking is the blending of two sports: kayaking and fishing, which I hear is a ton of fun. Hiro is one of the founding fathers of Japanese Kayak Fishing and as you can see by his photo below, he’s just about got it dialed.

Another impressive subculture of kayaking is Squirt Boating. which has also become quite popular in Hiro’s homeland. Each year, squirt boating legend Jim Snyder makes his annual pilgrimage to Japan, accompanied by a “guest of honor.” The growth in popularity of squirt boating all over the world can be attributed to Jim and his amazing boat designs and technique. This year he invited our good friend Paul Bartholic from Asheville to join him on the journey. Paul (aka “Buddha”) was able to snag a video camera for the trip and he captured some pretty cool images of what hanging out in Japan is like. So check out this short video of Jim, Paul, and their friends from Japan. Musical score is compliments of DJ Phidelity.

-Bryan

A sick video of our boyz Jared Sieler and Dave Fusilli going big in South America…

Thank god for LVM. Actually, I don’t know if God had much to do with it. We should probably be more thankful to Daniel DeLavergne, Spencer Cooke and John Grace… Either way, as much as we’d want to be out there paddling with all of our homies whenever it rains, we’re usually here at the Astral office helping our customers and coming out with new designs. Luckily, we have LVM TV to give us recent updates of days of paddling we may have missed. Check out this most recent update starring Astral Divas Robin Betz and Adriene Levknecht. Here’s the link: LVM TV

By the way, I was really digging the music on the update. It’s a band from Raleigh called “A Rooster For The Masses”. Check them out on their Myspace page

Well, I better get back to work now…

Peace,

Yonton

I just wanted to send you a quick update about a waterfall that I was able to run in Alabama last Thursday. Here is the link to the blog post about the drop:

Team Riot Blog - DeSoto Falls

I have really enjoyed working with all of you this past year as an athlete and representative for Astral, and I look forward to another great year in 2008. I hope you’re doing well, and I’ll be in touch!

Sincerely,

Chris Gragtmans

We just received an email from our buddy Pat Keller. He has been working with some images from a recent high water decent of the Raven’s Fork here in NC and here’s what he had to say about it:

situation: top of mike tysons at approx. 24 in (may have dropped down to about 21…but still high as %#@*) only minutes before we discovered the log in the bottom of said rapid… from left: Joe Barkley, Caleb Paquette, Toby McDermott
hope yall likey
pat

hey bryan, so the trip has started well with me getting food poisoning the first night in CD Valles but whilst i was ling in bed the nextday the boys namely jonny meyers and ian mclaren fired but the giant saltos slide!! sorry no pictures but lots of video for the next LVM. with a day of rest and time to contemplate I decided to fired off the first descent of the left side of the Micos putin drop… a 20ft slide strtaight off a 60ft drop into almost complete green water. so after a week here of hanging around the Micos and firing up a couple of the big ones we are know just waiting for Chris Gragtmans and Pat Keller to arrive whilst resting our bodys. the injury count so far is… Jonny Meyers. busted up left elbow possibly out for the whole trip. Ian Mclaren. Cut finger. Lawrance Simpson. Messed up ear from landing funny.

anyway bro peace out nd i´ll check back again soon

lawrance

paddler: Pat Keller runs some Italy action

photo: Timo Koester

see more of Pat’s Italy trip in the Astral Expedition Gallery

So, I know this is pretty outdated, but I had all these photos from my trip up to the worlds. I figured I might as well share them with the world. Besides, this will give people a little bit of an insight into what goes on at kayaking events. And it’s actually a pretty good description of what goes on at any paddling trip and I don’t care what kind or what level paddler you are. The 2007 Freestyle world championships was a super fun event. It was great to meet up with so many old friends and meet so many new friends. I hope you all enjoy this little album.

Peace,

Yonton.