Get the Buzzz back!!!

It has been a rough year to be a Colorado kayaker.  I know. I was there back in 2001 or was it 2002?  I'm still trying to block it out of my memory.  Yet, I'm still heartened to see on the Buzz that people got out and crushed it anyway.

So this post is going to be for those of you who may have forgotten, just a touch, about how unbelievable kayaking is.

Remember the first time you stuck the hell out of a scary rapid or big trick?  John Pilson explains the physiology:



Nailing the left boof at Double Trouble gets me every time.

The Buzz is unreal.  Sometimes after a big day on the river, I'll be driving home just jittery with excitement.  I just can't wait to get back on the water.  Rapid lines will day-dream through my head all week.

Motivation can be lacking.  The Green is 3 hours from my house and the closest goods I've got.  But I have never regretted a single day on the river.  I wrote that last sentence on this very blog, years ago and it has held true every river day since (although I don't know if my wife would agree?).  Speaking of my wife, she has notices every week whether I've been kayaking or not.  I am more upbeat, positive and generally excited about all things when boatin' is part of my weekly routine.

What else can I say?  Some people like kayaking.  Joe looooves kayaking!

Enough of that sappy BS.  What you all need is some stoke to get you talking about your winter paddling trips!!!!  How about this shot of the original doublet, as in The Toby, finishing off Staircase on the Horsepasture:

I think you can call this a Grip of Waterfalls

Everyone in the kayaking community is discussing the treatment of our ladies.  Well, here are some photos of ladies laying Treats!

Lil A' slaying you Marginal Monsters

Taken on the class V Horsepasture... does it get any better?  Katie D

Shannon following Toby down the Stairway to Heaven

Some have suggested that I might be able to take the ladies division this year at the Green Race, which is a compete fallacy.  I couldn't beat her if I was in front of a Duo with her steering in the back.

Gravity cravin'

The prettiest Janney getting out of the Drunk Tank

And there you have it.  Some killer chicks from the SE!

'I love kayaking!!!!'

Rainbow Falls

If I'm gonna post photos of kayaking chicas, I better post shots of their husbands golden stroking:

Zac

Now, as you all know by now, any blog post originating in the Southeast must include gratuitous photos of the Grandaddy Green.  Has anyone ever told you that this diamond gemstone runs 300 days/year?  Get out here EVAN STAFFORD!!!!  I'm starting to consider the very real possibility that Evan's nerves have gotten the better of him?

A little 2hunge flow just Left of Death

Our boy Justin caught the plane flight:

That looks like an awkward feeling on the way to a first Triple Crown.  (Justin Merritt)

Parting Shot:

Justin riding the lightening!

Little White and the Colorado Fall Blues

Given the exceptionally dry weather in Colorado this fall and little to no great kayaking opportunities, here is to thinking about the next kayaking trip.  Little White Salmon, March 2012 with Ben Luck and Louis Geltman. Lots of water, lots of wood, lots of sunshine and a whole lot of good paddling.

Nathan & Matthew Klema

Easter Sunday Surf Sessions!

While other people are hunting for colorful eggs and stuffing their faces with candy, myself and a handful of other local paddlers found ourselves slipping into the New River for another amazing day of freestyle and big water. When the levels are right (this weekend was +/-11,000 cfs) the New River Gorge has more quality play spots than most rivers have rapids. Each feature has it's own vibe and feel. Upper Railroad and Ender Waves have potential for HUGE tricks but the eddy service is a workout to say the least. Greyhound is a breeze to get into but can get rowdy once you're in it. Lower Railroad is friendly and a great training feature to perfect just about every move. Other catch-on-the-fly features such as Brain Wave, WMD (wave of mass destruction), Seldom Seen, Frog Rock hole and Harman's cartwheel hole are all in their prime as well.

Ender Waves has some of the most exhausting eddy service on the river

Tom G. reaping the rewards after battling through the stout eddy

Shane G. blunting for world peace


Dan R. feeling the love in Upper Railroad

Shane G. cleaning it up in Upper Railroad

Tom G. getting a face full of foampile

Shane G. Upper Railroad airscrew

Lower Railroad on a beautiful Easter Sunday


All photos by Casey Cunningham

Teaching your friends to paddle....so they don't quit in their first season!

One of the best ways for someone to get into kayaking is to have a friend teach them. Many of the boaters we know never took a lesson from a kayak instructor, they just tagged along with friends. I've taught lot's of my friends to kayak, some who became as addicted to the sport as I am, and others who quit their first season. I learned a lot from those friends. Before I became a kayak instructor and learned how to teach, I had trouble remembering what is was like to be a beginner. So when I took friends out, I thought they would pick things up easier. After years of teaching kayaking professionally, I learned the value of gradual progressions. Start with the most basic concepts and gradually add complexity as they master the basics. Just because I am excited to have another friend get into kayaking, doesn't mean they should start their learning on whitewater. I see this all the time in our playparks and popular rivers. Kayakers think of a particular run as "easy", so it should be no problem for a beginner to paddle, and they take their newbie friend down an "easy" class 3 run and he swims the whole thing. Some people think this is awesome and they become great kayakers, but most quit after the first day. So here are some of the important pieces of advice that I learned the hard way.

1. Always, always get your friend paddling around in a lake or pool to start. Don't start on a river, unless you have a nice BIG pool to use that is basically like paddling in a lake. The first thing they should do is flip over and wet exit. Everyone has a fear of being trapped upside down in the boat before they actually try it, and realize it's no big deal.

2. Teaching someone to roll is not the same as teaching them to kayak. This is one of the most common mistakes I see. A beginner learns to roll, then hits the river and they don't even know how to paddle a kayak. Also, most beginners who learn a pool roll can't combat roll yet anyway. So when they are on the river, it's as if they've never even been in a kayak. their roll is useless and they have no other skills to get them down the river. I teach the roll AFTER I've taught them the other basic strokes, braces, t-rescues, etc. Once they've done all that, they are more comfortable in the boat, and rolling is much easier to learn.

3. We all know how hard it is to get a whitewater kayak to go straight when you are a beginner. Let's face it, these things are designed to turn easily. So I always start by teaching them to balance the boat and sit with the proper posture. Then I start teaching turning and corrective strokes like sweeps and stern draws. Then when you get to the forward stroke, they already know how to correct their direction when they veer off course. I also don't emphasize perfecting the forward stroke as a beginner. I think it develops over time. Think about it. In a whitewater rapid, how far do you generally need to paddle in a straight line? maybe 10-15 feet or less at a time. Whitewater paddling is basically connecting short bursts of forward strokes and turns to link all the moves you need. Rarely does a whitewater kayaker need to paddle in straight line for a long distance in a rapid. Mastering turning and correcting strokes as well as balance and bracing is more important for a beginner than having a beautiful forward stroke. Not that a good forward stroke isn't important, it's just something that they need to work on over their first couple of seasons.
4. Teach the sweep roll. It's easier to learn and more reliable in aerated water.
5. Once your friend is ready to hit the river, choose the river wisely. Class 2 rivers with lot's of eddies are best. Class 2 rivers that are lined with strainers and bushes are not very good. Class 3 rivers are never suitable for the first time on the river. Fast learners may be able to move up to class 3 after a few runs on class 2. The point isn't to make our friends swim, the point is for them to learn how to maneuver on a river so they are safe and have fun. To a newbie, class 2 is a complete adrenaline rush. It may be boring to you, but not to them. Also, it may not be possible, but try to choose a section of river that you are familiar with. That way you know where the good "learning" eddies are. The three main skills that you should focus on for beginners are ferrying across the river, peeling out of eddies, and catching eddies. Those three things are the foundation for most other skills we learn on the river.
6. As your friend progresses, let them lead you down rapids from time to time. So many beginners and intermediates have done nothing but follow everyone else down rivers. They never learn how to read water and choose their own lines. Also, have them scout rapids and use hand signals to explain to you how to run the rapid. This helps build the foundations for scouting and communicating with a group. I've met paddlers who are 5 years into the sport and have never picked their own line down a rapid. That's not cool.
7. Teach your friend about safety from the beginning. Teach them about throw ropes and rescue vests, and how to swim in rapids. This stuff seems simple to us, but it's important for beginners to know about it.
8. Boat selection. Maybe I should have mentioned this earlier, but the proper gear for a beginner is crucial. Usually it's best for beginners to be in river running boat such as a Remix or Mamba or something similar. Creek boats are okay too. Playboats are usually not the best choice unless the novice is super athletic and gung-ho to learn, and they don't mind swimming a bit more. I've had some good luck with students starting in playboats, and also some bad experiences. Make sure the boat is the right size and volume for the person's weight.
9. Once they are pretty comforatable on class 2, get them surfing waves and hitting harder ferries and eddies on class 2. In my opinion, a paddler shouldn't move up a class of whitewater until they can hit EVERY eddy on a river of the class they are currently comfortable on. Just because you can float down a class 3 river without incident doesn't mean you are ready for class 4. You should be able to hit every eddy, surf every wave, and nail every ferry on your favorite class 3 run before moving up to class 4. Same goes for moving from class 2 to 3 or class 4 to 5.

If you follow all of this advice, teaching friends should be easier and safer, and I can guarantee that more of your friends will stick with the sport instead of quitting in their first season. Of course some will probably still quit in the first season, but hey, kayaking isn't for everyone.

-Nick Wigston

Altos de Copalita -- Carnage in Five Acts

Brown Water.
The kayak floated out, but I still couldn’t see Ryan. “Fuck the boat!” I yelled to Matt, who was still in his kayak. He floated in the eddy, alert. I threw my heavy boat on shore and scrambled up through vines and loose dirt and spiders up to a cliff outcropping. I was on the wrong side of the river, but on river left where I had last seen Ryan, there was nothing but sheer granite, and I didn’t see any way to get out of the river over there. I hoped, at least, that I might be able to organize something from this side.
A moment ago, Ryan was chocked up against the river-left wall, upside down. The heavy boil from the steep, narrow rapid buried his kayak, then receded. I tried to pull his boat free as I was flushed down behind him. It didn’t budge. The current swept me downstream. I saw him pop up, swimming, free from the wall. Then he disappeared again.
This was the beginning of our misfortunes on the Altos de Copalita—the first day, the first real rapid. It was late. In this part of Oaxaca in southern Mexico, the pine-oak forests that descend out of the cloudy mountains meet; here, jungle, but becoming a desert coastline in only 40 miles. It had just started to rain, hard and lucent, like at the beginning of a heavy storm. The water was already brown, but hard to tell if it was any browner than when we put on.
I was feeling useless, wrapped in thorny vines, trying to squeeze myself up through a dark crack to get to where I could come up with a plan, when I heard Ryan’s “Yipp”. He had made it up onto the gorge wall on the opposite side of the river. His kayak had gone through the next set of rapids, and we wouldn’t find it until the next day, after Ryan had hiked through the night to catch a ride back to Huatulco.




Eddies.
Eddies are a critical part of Expedition style kayaking. For the next two days, there were very few eddies where one could both get out of his kayak and get out of the gorge to scout or portage. In one such eddy, we found Ryan’s boat, its nose split wide open.
Another was a very small Last-Eddy that Evan and I got lured into. He stood waist deep in the water and held our boats, trying not to get hit by the falling rock I let loose as I climbed up the ravine. The rapid was unrunnable, but for a while we clung to our hopes of escaping the canyon that day. First, Matt lowered me on live bait to check out a river right semi-portage that was hazardous but possibly much quicker than the ravine route. That being no good, we made an intimidating ferry back across to Evan, who held a throw-rope that was small comfort. After two hours of hauling up the ravine, we were cutting beds into the jungle mountainside with hands raw and pulpy from rope-hauling our heavy kayaks. We left ourselves just enough light to find a spring in the ravine, and filled our bellies with water.
That night, in the dark, much was left up to the imagination; the jungle was as loud as the rumble coming up from the river. During the day, I wore a drytop and pants tucked into socks. I spend my days hot, but heat never attacks like ants. Similarly, to sleep, I zipped up tight in my bivy-sac and traded heavy sweat for unmolested skin.

Jungle-Desert.
Henrys 5 Star Accommodations

When we woke up in the jungle, it was late when we broke from the jungle camp—it took a long time to do the little things like make coffee and take shits when vines impede every movement.
On our way back down to the river, we were rested, and in the light the first thing I noticed was the life: there were these amazing spiders, with brilliant colors, and especially brilliant webs, which were gold and iridescent. There were caterpillars that to the naked eye couldn’t have been told from a stick, and some that look like what kids make in art classes, clownishly huge and colorful. There were ants that had a fiery yellow on their backs and behind, and Evan—in a loud panic—had to pull one of those from his neck.
Toward the end of the day, we had another very hard portage. We had been running some heavy but very good whitewater when we got to a rapid in which up, through the jungle, was the only option. There—or at least at that elevation—it wasn’t just that the vegetation was so thick—it was the vines, which grabbed feet and necks and paddles. They made you trip and drop your boat, and some of them had big hard thorns that made you bleed, and some had little ones that left your hands with fifty little prickers that stayed in until they festered and swelled. At the river we ran a big rapid that we wouldn’t have if we could have kept portaging. It was a big hole. Trashing likely, we count on our heavy boats for momentum. “Fire it up, Edog!” I said to Evan, trying to convince myself as well. Matt and I ran out front, together, and we both get hammered—but the good kind of hammered, the getting out of the hole-hammered. Evan did the same.

Gringos Perdidos.

One omitted detail here is that the previous parties to kayak this stretch of the Copalita—at least two—have done it in one, long day, with unloaded boats, and—we think—at much lower water. We had packed for three days just in case, but really were fixing on two. After our third night in the gorge, we had plenty of food, but we were getting late for our pickup, which we hoped Ryan had gotten out to.

Matt Willson trying to get himself and his 90lbs watercraft, back to the water. On one of many hellish portages

Our plan was to call on the satellite phone. This was the kind of trip where plans go to die—the phone didn’t work.
Early the next morning, we emerged from the gorge, and found our friend Ariel bushwacking upriver with a machete and a partner. Ariel was one of a group of river guides from the Rancho Tangolunda that had come out to help Ryan look for us. The Rancho guides work the Alemania stretch of the river just downstream, which was still way too high for commercial trips.
Waiting by the river, I found myself staring at the river and making up forms. Every butterfly turned my head, and I heard voices and yelps coming from the rumble of the river. I pulled ticks and brushed flies to pass the time, and hung out with the group of guides, and Lino, one of the owners of the raft company. We ate tostadas and sardines by the big concrete structure and a big tube that came out of the river bank, with two thick powerlines coming down the hill from above. Lino took Ariel and the others back that night, and left us with our Suburban, to wait for Ryan and company.

Palo Malo.
The next morning, we were sitting in the suburban. Matt looked over at me, his face ballooned from either bee stings, which he had gotten setting safety the second day, or else the mysterious palo malo—the bad tree whose shadow, the locals say, is enough to infect the skin.
Matt said, “I’m going to start it up.”
I said, “OK.”
Matt said, “Just to see, you know.”
The suburban wouldn’t start. The fuel pump was bad, which we didn’t know, but we did have reason to believe we were out of gas. Later that morning, as I was failing at catching fish in the muddy water, two electrical workers showed up in a new white Ford. At the little compound at the top of the hill, where we were buying our food now, Matt borrowed a mangera—a hose, and they let us try to siphon some gas. On the first few sucks, the acrid fumes went straight up the hose to my brain. Mexican Fords have a little grate to keep out siphon hoses. I kept trying, and got a big mouthful of gas, although not enough to get a flow. I coughed and spat, but saved a little face by smiling and saying how sabrosa es la gasolina—how tasty. The electrical workers, who came to the pumping station once a year, thought this was hilarious.
It wasn’t long after the white Ford left that the Ryan, Guara, Gabo, and Burre—the rescue party—came into view at the upstream bend in the river. They had hiked into the bottom of the gorge and had spent two days walking down the river—much like we had only nonstop, no kayaks. Together, we drank all the beer the old lady in the tienda would sell us, and ate them out of their green-corn tortillas, eggs, and sardine cans. In the middle of the night, Lino arrived with a mechanic, who got our gas going in the dark. Ryan drove out the suburban, to meet us the next day at the Alemania-section takeout, where we could get Matt and his swelling skin to a hospital and our team and all our ticks, parasites, and blisters, back together again.


Story By: Henry Munter
Photos By: Evan Ross