Crystal Punch Bowls

With things getting low I decided to try for the punchbowls from the Crested Butte side, the easy way, especially since my Tacoma is a bit low and only 2WD. We got shut down on the first attempt by snow over the road early on. We went back a few days later and some more defined ruts in the snow (not in the video) made it a bit safer to cross. After hiking in we were met with the thunderstorm/slush/hail storm from hell...it got cold fast and we were pelted with large slush/ice balls mixed with rain and strong wind. After hiding under a tree for a little while things were getting worse, including the lightening. We narrowly escaped the muddy road in my 2WD truck, left my boat in the gorge for a sunny return, and returned the next day for an easy hike in (without a boat) and a beautiful day in the punchbowls. Seems like every trip in there is epic in its own way, making the rewards that much sweeter. So with the journey in mind as the destination in itself check out the video. :-)

Special thanks to Neal, Dalton, Samantha Brunner, and Bryant for fliming, taking pictures, and helping me get it done. good times...

(photo by Bryant Haley)

Idaho Part Duex - In search of da boof

So following our Selway float a few of us decided to sample some of Idaho's finest whitewater. I mean we were in Idaho at the peak of melt with countless options around. Why head back so early? The results of our decision was countless miles of whitewater goodness peppered with a few hot springs, a little dealing, and a lot of camping in the rain. While Idaho has more whitewater than you can shake a stick at, we did find it hard to combine the right amount of water with the right amount of gradient to sample our favorite more "da boof ". We did however find, more than a few times, the combination of a not quite enough gradient with too much water resulting in the dreaded water boof to hole beatdown...Can you say Ice Cream?

Lochsa goodness - Hillary making the best out pipeline

Not sure if this is the "brown" or the "crown" but it made me laugh

Must boof, where are the boofs, show me the boofs or I will destroy you

Hillary finding the right combination of water and gradient on Lolo Creek.
PS. come to this run with a shuttle worked out, it would be a brutal bike shuttle.

da boof!

Stay tuned for part three - Exploring how well do Idaho Rivers hold their water.

New Mexico SUPin

Northern New Mexico is going through the low water blues and I was itching to get on the water.  My girlfriend Rachel and I have been wanting to get a couple SUP (Stand Up Paddle) boards for some time now. So now we had the perfect excuse. We live near a couple rivers and a bunch of lakes and were jonsin to try something new. So we bought a couple SurfTech SUP boards from CKS and hit the Lake right away. I bought the SurfTech 11'6 Soft Top Stand Up Paddle Board and Rach bought the 10'6 version. We also got a couple of the price-point KONA 2-Piece paddle SUP paddles. Sweet! Surf trunks and swimsuit and we hit the road. I'm loving the simplicity. We ended up at Heron lake and had a wonderful day. I'm hooked and going to take it on the river (very mellow section) tomorrow. 

The SurfTech board is very stable and so easy to learn all the basics on. I did a 4 mile lap around the lake in no time and it was very fast and stable. We are going on a month long surf trip this winter and I am excited to see how it performs in the ocean. We will probably upgrade to a fancier Werner paddle before our trip, but for now the Kona's are fine. SUPin is also a super sick workout. Total core exercise. I'm feeling it as we speak. Bonus-our dogs loved cruising around on the boards :)

Surf trunks are drying on the line for another adventure tomorrow. Enjoy the photos. Beers, Atom...

Dalen getting her groove on

Salto getting used to the board

Rach and Dalen

Still figuring out how to stand up

Lazy

Rach heading out

Heading out for my 4 mile loop

So much fun

Bow stall

Our camp

Perfection

Our baby

Dalen riding the nose. She is going to love the ocean waves

Water dog

Rach on her loop

resting

Done for awhile

learning curve

Another bow stall into a faceplant

beauty

Wild turkey on the way home

Canyon Creek Of the Nooksack

Canyon creek of the Nooksack is a small tributary that comes in just below the canyon section of the north fork. It comes from high mountain valley that reaches almost clear to the Canadian border. Although all the runs on the Nooksack nearby are almost all bedrock style, Canyon Creek is much more manky. After a short bushwhack down a steep hill, you will come to the creek, which at this point consists of landslide boulders, creating terribly manky drops. We spent the first little while portaging. After running a few manky rapids we finally came upon some bedrock. The creek got better and better after that besides the loss of my GoPro HD to the river gods.
Jamie Klein on a semi-clean manky drop.
Me coming through the first drop of that good ol' stuff we love-bedrock.

Chris Tretwold airing it out on a sweet boof.

Here is a little video I put together from the day.

Canyon Creek from Fred Norquist on Vimeo.

The nooksack river valley has some really great kayaking and anyone in the Bellingham area should definitely check out the area.

Kootenai Falls. Park, Huck, Play :)

Coming from Wyoming, most of my paddling exploits have taken place on the homefront or in Colorado, but with U.S. Team Trials taking place in Missoula Montana this year I was excited to make the trip up, not only for the event but to do a little paddling along the way. I was able to make a stop in Bozeman and put a lap in on the Gallatin and Upper and Lower Hyalite Creeks with by good buddy Mike Perry http://vimeo.com/13224587 . Also on the schedule was a trip up to the Slave River in the Northwest Territories after Team Trials, so heading a few hours north of Missoula to Kootenai Falls was pretty much on route. I had heard briefly about Kootenai before, but really had no idea what it was all about. From the descriptions I was getting from Leif Anderson on our way to the put in it sounded pretty incredible.

He wasn't lying. After a short half-mile hike in with a nice trail, i walked into one of the most majestic and powerful settings i've ever seen. Kootenai Falls is a river wide waterfall with multiple channels that range from 15 to 25 feet tall. It was running a healthy 13,000 cfs the day we were there. The center ledge is about as clean a drop as they come, as Leif determined with an excellent 20 ft freewheel. As the river approaches the lip it also splits around a small butte that we didn't end up exploring, but which Leif assured me contained another runnable drop on the far side.

A clean 20 footer doesn't sound to horrific by a lot of paddlers' standards, but a swim afterward off of the center ledge would be extremely unpleasant due to a very heavily recirculating hole at the exit of the pool. Another interesting twist that I had never experienced with running a waterfall was in the lead-in. The river begins to channelize 150 to 200 meters upstream with small diagonal ledges running across the length of the river. While the ledges were maybe only a couple inches tall, they made your scout a little more interesting, because of the necessity of knowing which channel you'd need to be in to get to the section of the falls you wanted to run. Heaven forbid you flow one to many channels down, because you wouldn't be able to get back up and that could mean very bad news when you make it to the lip of the falls. But don't let this description deter you from checking it out, it is actually extremely easy to make it into the channel you want and the drop is one of the most fun i've ever ran. And besides if you don't come at least take a look at it you might miss out on one of the best waves in the Western U.S.



Directly downstream from Kootenai Falls, some 300 meters is Superwave, about a 7 foot standing V wave that'll send you sky high all day long, with excellent eddy service. We camped out there the rest of the day, shreding til our hearts were content. It was an awesome way to begin our trip to the Slave and relax before the rediculously long 16 hour drive north to Fort Smith, NWT. If you're ever up in Northwest Montana don't miss out on this incredible stretch of river. Kootenai has some of the most astounding geology i've ever seen on a river that makes for some surreal scenery and sweet whitewater. It instantly become one of my favorite places to paddle.

Tendonitis Tips

Throughout the past three years, I have battled tendonitis in my elbows. It originally began from climbing but paddling causes it to flare up. I have tried numerous different treatments in order to eliminate the pain.

I am currently icing after most paddle sessions and sometimes before bed. I have found that it helps, but icing alone will not cure tendonitis. When the pain gets especially bad, I alternate hot and cold. Using both sides of the sink, 4 minutes in hot water, then 1 minute in cold water repeated 3 times works the best. End with 5 minutes in cold water though. Hot moves nutrients into the area and cold pushes out swelling.

Warming up before paddling seems extremely important. I do arm circles, all types of paddle strokes, and then a few short stretches. I also take it easy during my first few rides while playboating in order to continue warming up. Stretching after paddling and before bed seem to help a little, but not as much as I would think.

Everyone tells me that rest is essential to cure tendonitis, but I don’t know if I agree. When my tendonitis has gotten bad, I have taken 2 weeks off of climbing and paddling. In this time, it doesn’t seem to improve. Maybe 2 weeks isn’t long enough, but I get too anxious and return to these activities. When I come back I take it easy and am careful to do the other treatments I talk about in this article. Then my elbows start to heal a lot faster. My conclusion is that total rest allows the area to seize up and become stiff whereas light use keeps the area loose, increases blood flow, and promotes healing. I’m curious if anyone else has the same feelings.

A massage therapist and chiropractor have done a great job on my elbow. They both provide immediate relief that lasts from 1 week to 2 months depending on how hard I am playing. The only issue with this is that it gets expensive.

At times I have exercised with a Dyna-Flex ball followed by ice every night before bed. I think it works well, but haven’t used it consistently enough to know if it really works. I haven’t tried reverse wrist curls with dumbbells or pronations with a sledge hammer. Those exercises are supposed to help strengthen the muscles as well.

Last year, a friend told me about a magnetic copper bracelet that was apparently supposed to help with tendonitis. She swore by it, but I wore it religiously for months and it didn’t seem to help. It only made my girlfriend make fun of me.

This summer I think I have made a breakthrough. I switched from a fifteen degree offset paddle with a stiff shaft to an AT2 Flexi with no offset. The zero degree offset eliminates the wrist flexion and extension in the control hand (right) that happens with every stroke. The flexible shaft also seems to eliminate a lot of stress on my joints. I am very pleased with my new paddle and my elbows have been thanking me for it.

If you are experiencing tendonitis or any other type of pain, don’t give up searching for options. It has taken me 3 years, but I think I am finally making progress. Be sure to let me know what works or doesn’t work for you. I am always looking for more ways to stay injury free.

Thoughts on Fibark 2010

This post is a little late, but I have thought a lot about Fibark and competing this season and wanted to revisit it because the event was an interesting experience for me.

Every year, competing at Fibark has been disappointing. I usually have about a month of practice in and feel confident, but always seem to come up short. This year, was different. After finishing up my final year of college, I only got in a week of practice, and wasn’t expecting much at the competition.

In prelims I felt I had decent rides and made it to semi finals in the 7th place spot. Once advancing to semi finals, I tried to go big on my first ride which resulted in flushing as opposed to racking up points. My second ride was much more successful and moved me into the fourth position which put me into finals. I have never made finals at Fibark in the past and I was excited to have a chance at winning.

When finals came around, Dustin Urban had a really great first ride which put pressure on me to go big for the win. My low fitness level caused me to tire quickly which resulted in flushes in all of my rides. I took fifth overall but I at least had high scoring rides in finals.

All in all, I am pleased with how well I did at Fibark considering that I did not have the strength and practice that I had in the past. This competition has pushed me to work harder and see that with practice and being in peak condition, I could win. Fibark was my one and only competition of the season, and I am looking forward to coming back next year to compete.

Clip from the Freestyle Circuit

Check out my video!

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Yule Creek

Yule creek has been on the RCRE hit list for years and last weekend we got to fire it up.  First off, Marble CO is off the hook for boating.  The views are incredible and the geology is conducive to making sick waterfalls and slides.  What else do you want folks? 

Marble Colorado. Photo: Dan Piano

Dan and Burger getting ready to fire. Photo: Sarah Hamilton

We got to Yule around 2:00pm and began to assess the situation.   The flow on the Avalanche creek gauge was around 1000.   We had beta on wood in the upper drops so we decided to rope down and fire what has been haunting Brian and me for years; the bottom four.  

Lowering the boats (look closely).  Photo: Sarah Hamilton

Ball Check.  Photo: Dan Piano

Burger & Dan scoping ball to wall check.  Photo: Sarah Hamilton

Note! When you get down to creek level it looks a lot different than it does from up high.  Wall check drops out steep in the beginning and the massage is HUGE!

Dan on Wall Check.  Photo: SH

Burger about to connect with the wall! Photo: SH

Scouting Oriental Massage before the rain comes in.  Photo: SH

Oriental and Happy Ending from the bottom.  We are up in the top left scouting.  Photo:SH

Burger recovering and lining up happy ending.  Photo:SH

Dan on Oriental Massage(dot on top right)....it's freaking HUGE! Photo SH

Dropping in on oriental massage is one of the coolest feelings.  I ended up launching off the first big flake reconnecting and then airing the rest into the pool.  Sorry no vid, the camera was in my boat.

Dan lining up the ending.  Photo: SH

Leaving Marble looking back at the rainbow filled Yule drainage.  Photo: Dan Piano

New plastic finally got broken in.  Photo: Dan Piano

Sarah tearing up the Glenwood wave to finish the day off!  Photo: DP

Check out this short vid i put together.  

Yule Creek from Dan Piano on Vimeo.

Yule and the G-spot all in one day.. Awesome!  

Selway Madness

So somehow after 10 years of submitting for the Idaho three rivers lottery I finally won a permit and for the Selway nonetheless. The Selway is a river trip of the highest caliber. The putin is south of Missula, MT and the takeout is on the otherside of the panhandle near the confluence with the Lochsa River. The river trip itself is about 47 miles long through some spectacular wilderness that also boosts some great whitewater. If you are ever so lucky to have the opportunity to do the Selway I highly recommend it, just know if your launch date is in May or early June expect to deal with some rain and weather but also be prepared to have good water great times.

Typical Selway scene

Idaho is filled with lots of great read and run whitewater. A common question however is to boof or not too boof. Here our group is trying to decide

These two souls did not boof but wished afterwards they had...

If one decides not to boof, purposeful surfing is an acceptable plan B

As is running the meat

But boofing is always best...

Typical Selway camp. Don't forget the bochi ball set.

And don't forget about river time campfires...

PS - If you do find yourself on a Selway trip be sure to thank the rafters (if you have any) for schleping your gear , food, and less desirable by-products. Someone once said river trips are like backpacking but you can bring anything you want. Here's to that and thanks Kurt!