Sleeping Beauty

New Mexico has been hit by a late Spring cold spell. Lots of new snow in the mountains. All the creeks started dropping, so everybody dusted off their playboats and hit the local feature called "Sleeping Beauty". It is awesome when the flows are 550cfs to 900cfs. This was at about 650cfs. Photos by Atom....

Alan Cammack was tearing it up all day

Alan

Alan

Alan

Alan

Alan

Allan had his baby out on the river bank for the first time. Cool to see the new generation getting an early intro to the kayaking lifestyle.

Marsha Ready getting ready for el loop

Tim Kelton

Ed Lucero getting his first ever loops

Ed h2o-ing

Brett hale getting a work out in the Mega Rocker

Tim

Sudden Great White Shark attack

Tim

Tim


On a side note, up north in Colorado, CKS is getting ready for there annual Paddle Fest May 18th-20th.
Colorado Kayak Supply is bringing together the largest and most well renowned manufacturers, top pro kayakers and leading instructors for a weekend of on water boating, education, entertainment, environmental education and instruction. Join a pro kayaker for a freestyle clinic, take a guided tour on the river, participate in a 'how to' clinic, show off your skills in a fun kayak competition in the new river park or relax and watch live music and videos.
Paddlefest 07, the Kick Off to Paddling is sure to be a hit as this year's event will take place on the legendary Arkansas River. Colorado Kayak Supply in Buena Vista will be the 'Event Headquarters' for most of the activities. CKS will also host a gear swap and storewide sale throughout the weekend. Gear up for Paddlefest '07!
For more info

Click it

Hope to see ya all there. Adios, Atom...

Meet the CKS Squad Part 3: Nicole Mansfield

This is Part 3 of a Series of posts that introduces the members of the 2007 CKS Squad. Included in each section is the squad member's Bio and a brief photographic Trip Report of their Top 3 days on the river during the 2006 season.

Today we are meeting Nicole and getting a glimpse into her top 3 days of the 2006 season: Crested Butte, Colorado (OBJ), The Big South, CO and Playboating in the Arkansas Valley.

Nicole was exposed to these great runs when she moved to CO from Buffalo, NY for the 2006 river season to work at CKS and huck some gnar. Speaking of Hucking the Gnar, check out her cool Huck and Boof stickers here: http://www.coloradokayak.com/Store/Stickers

Nicoles words:

Arkansas Valley Play-Photo courtesy of the HZG Inc. foundation.
"I can’t nail down the particular day this photo was taken, but it represents an entire summer of fun on the Arkansas River. You really can’t beat a river that in a small road accessible area hosts numerous sections for all paddling abilities whose characteristics change as the season progresses AND has several amazing play spots in both Salida and Buena Vista. I moved to Salida thinking playboating was dumb, but ended it with a Jackson Happy Thruster and memories of too many play sessions to bother counting."

After work playboating in Salida, CO

Oh’ Be Joyful- Photo by Chris Larsen
"I had not even started working yet at CKS, but my boss had called, and there I was traveling with some people I just met to an amazing day of creeking on the Slate, Daisy, and Oh’ Be Joyful Rivers. Nothing beats being surrounded by snow covered peaks on a sunny day, eating leftover pizza and running short runs packed with waterfalls, slides, and a limited number of beatdown holes. I discovered that when local boaters say you are running something on ‘the high side of good,’ you are in for a thrill."

Nicole on a high water OBJ run....her first creek in CO!

Big South – Photo by Mike Holliday
"Maybe you think being sandwiched between two guys in a two person tent is what any girl would dream of. But when neither are slight of size and the other who forgot his sleeping bag is not kept warm enough by the ‘Hello Kitty’ fleece provided so the sleeping bag is unzipped to share, the night is sure to keep you chilly and uncomfortably wedged. With or without a sufficient night of sleep, morning came, the Big South was running, and Chris Menges made us river sandwiches individually wrapped in plastic to stay dry! There is no wonder why the Big South is considered a Colorado classic. The river’s continuous whitewater is characterized by bigger scout worthy drops filled in with exciting boogie water. It’s a long day, so dress warmly, bring food, and when you find an easy boof near the end of the river, remember it might be easy, but you still need to think about boofing rather than what you would love to eat at the take out or else your boat might acquire another war wound."

Nicole 'chillin' on the Big South

Nicole in New Zealand....Winter 06 / 07. Photo by Larry.

Check out Nicole's full Bio by clicking this link: http://www.coloradokayak.com/Nicole-Mansfield?sc=17

Nicole at home in New York....she runs the s#*t back East too!

Meet the CKS Squad Part 2: Evan J Stafford

This is Part 2 of a Series of posts that introduces the members of the 2007 CKS Squad. Included in each section is the squad member's Bio and a brief photographic Trip Report of their Top 3 days on the river during the 2006 season.

Today we are meeting Evan J Stafford and getting a glimpse into his top 3 runs of the 2006 season: Yule Creek, Colorado, The Rio Brazos, New Mexico and The Black Boxes of the San Rafael, Utah.

Evan 'livin the canyon life. Cataract. Photo: Moab Arlo


YULE CREEK, CO

A beautifully rainy day on Yule Creek was definitely a highlight from 2006. This is drop #3, Oriental Message. It's really fucking big. The idea is to cross from a drop-in at the top on river-right, through a hourglass ridge that tries to hurl you air-born, over to the river left and splash into the pool at least 80 ft. below. I crossed over maybe a little bit too early and ended up cruising right over the lip of the ridge with a minor skip but then drying out on the left side of the slide at about mach 10. About 2/3 of the way down I hit a second lip and disconnected with the rock only to come skipping into the pool 30 ft downhill. Yauser! This creek is steep and it's sweet. It is a serious honor to be a member of the Yule Alumni Association. Photo by Kyle McCutchen.

RIO BRAZOS, NEW MEXICO

The Rio Brazos is a wild and wooly, 2-day adventure in Northern New Mexico. Described in CRCII as the Southern Rocky Mountain creek boaters Shangri-la, it really is a spiritual place. Brazos dos Saltos, end of day 1. Photo by Chris Morrison.

BLACK BOXES OF THE SAN RAFAEL

The Black Boxes of the San Rafael is the premier slot canyon trip in the southwest. Generally two days of warm muddy water, intimate sandstone canyon walls, and mostly boxed in class IV+ whitewater. If the San Rafael is running over 800 cfs, drop everything and go there. It is one of a kind. This shot is of the paddle out from a long one day mission in June of 2006. The sunset went into a deep pink desert glow that was nothing short of moving. Photo by me.

EVAN'S Profile:

Name: Evan J. Stafford

Birthdate: May 27, 1979

Hometown: Denver, Bronco Country

Currently Resides in: Fort Collins

Work: Play

Years Paddling: Seven

Top 3 Rivers: Big South Cache la Poudre, Christopher Creek AZ, Bull Lake Creek WY

The Perfect Vacation is: a beach with swell, snow capped peaks on the horizon and steep creeks and waterfalls on the to-do list - basically West Coast South Island NZ.
Hobbies other than kayaking: Skateboarding, Snowboarding, Surfing, Climbing, Rapping, Writing, Photo-graphing and Hot Spring-ing.

Favorite website: The Range Life

Recent playlist on my MP3 player: Anthony B, Damian Marley, Dezarie, Midnite, Talib Kweli, De la Soul, Jurassic 5, J Dilla.

Best day of paddling ever: Christopher Creek AZ. The stars aligned. First D. Boofs, waterfalls and more bedrock boofs. What else?

Sponsors: Liquid Logic Kayaks, Lendal Paddles, Guayaki Yerba Mate, CKS.

See more of me at: http://www.coloradokayaking.com/, www.therangelife.blogspot.com, www.coloradokayak.blogspot.com, www.coloradokayak.com

Words:It is the responsibility of each of us, as paddlers, to protect the watersheds which bring us so much happiness. For many, including myself, kayaking is the fusion of sport and temple. Let's keep our place of worship clean."You'll never miss your water, until you well runs dry…"

Evan Stafford's top 5 Gear Picks:

clickable links

1. LiquidLogic Jefe

2. Snapdragon Armortex Skirt w/implosion bar

3. Waterproof Ipod Case

4. IR Union Suit

5. Whitewater of the Southern Rockies Guidebook

Spring has hit

Spring is in the air. On Saturday march 10th, I met seven Colorado boaters for a run on the Upper Box in New Mexico. It was flowing around 500 cfs and it felt like Spring, the wind was blowing and we were all coming off the couch. Time to shake the rust. It was a great warm up run for start of the season. I took a few shots for ya all. Sorry about the haphazard quality but all I had was my point and shoot and it was cold.
The crew was Evan, Mike, Pete, Leigf?, Trevor, Junior, Randy and myself.

Driving from my casa to the putin

COLD

Gonna try out the new Mega Rocker

Rocks at Hell Hole

Scouting Hell Hole

Pete getting the boof on

In the eddy

Leigf? Hell Hole

Pleasure Plunge

Pleasure Plunge

Looking at Big Arsenic

Evan running the hero line, nasty sieves river right if ya mess up

The run out

Dotcom all happy

Randy about to go near the sieves

Got the last chance pull out eddy

Dry land

Leigf running the left side of Big A

Buried

Photo taken after having a heart attack during the hike out

It was a awesome day. I will post a review of the Mega Rocker soon.
PS, the hike out is way better than the paddle out.
Adios, Atom...

KiwiKayaking

Well, helicopters are expensive and we were broker than we thought, so the big NZ south island creeking mish became more of a working, hiking, and attempting to get some boating in adventure. My camera broke, so I will spare you fuzzy images of mountains, etc. But, here are a couple of pics kayak related I thought to share with ya'll.



Lawrance putting in below the Fox Glacier on the West Coast where we were stationed cafe working. The river steepened after this, providing some excitement and frozen fingers.




Caught in traffic New Zealand style.






Lawrance & myself running the "crux" rapid on our attempt of running the classic Hollyford River in Fiordland on the lower lower end of good. Actually we are probably the only ones to ever bother running the river this low & tedious, but sometimes you just need to get wet.






Keas!! The only alpine parrot found in the world, keas are fearless and cheeky, scavenging food and tearing about cars and kayaks. We thought it was pretty sweet to have 5 rumaging around our car until I realized one kea was eating the backband for the Huka I am hoping to sell soon.

Even though I have only done less than a dozen rivers, after reading the guidebook in it's entirety and exploring the country for half a year, I would most def reccomend EVERYONE to gather a crew, get some money, and go kayaking in NZ. This place is choice! And word from the wise, If Lawrance says he'll take you kayaking, he makes an excellent guide, but make sure he isn't over $3000 in debt when he tells you this.

Cheers bro
Lawrance & Nicole

2007 Rocker Review

(unwrapping my new Rocker in Costa Rica. photo by Brad Sutton)

Several Weeks ago I picked up my new 2007 Rocker and drove it back to Memphis just in time to fly with it to Costa Rica! Meeting up with team members Ben Stookesberry, Brad Sutton, and Mario Vargas I got to put the Rocker through some serious testing in a lot of different situations. Here's what I've found:

My Stats:
height: 5'8"
weight: 150 lbs
feet: size 8.5
waist: 29"
inseam: 30"

Outfitting:
When I hopped into the first 07 production Rocker, I found fitting in instantly easier than years before. This is something I didn't think would be possible. The new elastic cord holds the footbraces in place great! so cutting down the footbraces is no longer a science. It's quick and easy and the foam won't fall out. This made the footbrace outfitting super easy to setup. In the 2006 Rocker I used 10 shims to even feel like I had hip pads... this made keeping the shims together, even when glued, a bit of a problem. So for 2007 the hip pads come with a pocket for holding shims. I was a bit skeptical about them because I didn't think I would be able to fit enough shims into each pocket to fit. I was wrong. The shims fit in great, I only needed 6, and the hip pads felt a lot more stable. The newly redesigned backband feels a bit more comfortable... I was particularly impressed with the use of the O- rings instead of small biners. The O- rings allow a lot more force to be safety applied to the backband... not to mention, WAY more wear & tear resistant.

(putting the 2007 Rocker through some serious testing. photo by Brad Sutton)

River Running Performance:
My first day in Costa Rica using the Rocker was in the upper gorge of the Pozo Azul. I immediately noticed that the new Rocker floats WAY higher and will go over just about anything. It boofs like a charm but is easy to control... not an easy combination. The first couple of rapids were pretty technical boulder gardens and the Rocker worked like a charm. The first waterfall we came to posed an interesting challenge. It was high enough that boofing may have hurt a bit, but a shallow rock blocked the lip. Two rock shelves converged onto the line and defined where we had to make it off the lip. So We decided to drive fast over the shallow rock for a boof and drop over the lip into a soft vertical landing. Normally, I would have been concerned about making it over the rock at the lip... I think most boats would have bottomed out on it, but the rocker floated over it so well that I didn't loose any speed going off the lip... I didn't even notice that rock shelf! Trying to compensate for my extra speed, I pitched a bit off the lip... but found the Rocker super easy to correct in mid-freefall. I simply tucked a little faster, bring the bow back up and tucked with a perfect pencil. The entry was smooth and the transition was smoother. I scooped out nicely underwater into forward speed and a GREAT, upright resurface. The resurfacing capabilities of the Rocker are AMAZING! All that just to say: The waterfalls capabilties of the Rocker have definitely improved! This boat is a waterfall machine! Hole punching was a breeze. When the Rio Patria juiced up with an extra 2 feet of water from overnight rains, the holes beefed up to say the least. A few times I found myself wondering if I could make the gap across the hole, but I found that the new Rocker just keeps going...straight through. It went over and under holes with ease, fully loaded down with 3 nights of expediiton gear. and when all else failed or all hell broke loose, it punched through HUGE holes and boils and seams without being thrown off line.

Big Water Performance:
Typically, a full on creeker isn't what you want in a big water environment. Playboats and other lower volume boats are nice for slicing under holes that are too big to boof over or punch through... going deep is many times a good thing. At first thought, the high volume Rocker wouldn't seem to handle stout flows very well. But after heavy rains on the Rio Patria brought the river up an extra 2 feet I got to put the Rocker through it's paces again, fully loaded with expedition gear and camra stuff, in a tight, technical, FULL-on environment where the moves really mattered and the water was really BIG. Amazingly enough, the Rocker handled it great, staying on line through huge holes and tremendous boils while floating right over everything that would normally throw a boat off line. Occasionally I found myself with momentum in the wrong direction where fast correction was needed to avoid a bad boulder choke or huge sieve. With the stakes set high in a must make environment, the Rocker adjusted pretty quickly with it's own momentum and I had no problems changing or correcting my line. When the already high volume of the Rio Patria finally met with the big flowin' Rio Sucio, the tight big water creeking gave way to BIG waves and munchy holes, just high volume, wide open big water. The Rocker handled the waves and holes great, punching through hole after hole with little notice... But the downstream speed of the Rocker didn't prevent it from being maneuverable, it still handled with ease. At times, HUGE boulders were just too close together or large holes were just too stacked and melting a steep, turbulent seam was the only way through the chaotic, chundering water. The Rocker stayed incredibly stable in those seams, maintaining it's forward speed like it didn't even notice. This was a very pleasant suprise. A few times for sure I thought I was about to get worked like you wouldn't believe, but instead I barely took a stroke and didn't get my head wet, and this was with a fully loaded boat!

Expedition Performance:
The backband drops down with ease and no matter how tired I was from the day, getting out my gear was never a problem! I simply popped down the backband and pulled whatever I needed out of the stern. Loading my stern was just as easy! The bow is super accessible now, with the hinged footbraces allowing easy reach for your sandles or other gear. The Rocker is actually very light for a creeker so when it was loaded down with my overnight gear, rescue kit, and camra, it was very managable on hikes and portages... except when I couldn't even carry myself, but that wasn't the Rocker's fault ;-) When fully loaded, the Rocker floated me high and paddled just as well as it did without the gear. It tracked well with great forward momentum, but turned just as well for fast corrections in tricky spots where timing and details mattered. On my trip to Costa Rica, I was on two multi-day trips in a row, 3 days each with only one night inbetween....all class V and better. Those two trips lead me through tight, bouldery rapids similar to Upper Big Creek in NC, a locked in canyon with class V and V+ rapids stacked one after the other with little escape, through the shallow manky section of the upper part of the Rio Patria, and through the BIG water brawl of the post-rain lower Patria and Sucio. What I found was that no matter what environment I was in, the Rocker pulled me through and outperformed any boat I have ever paddled, even while fully loaded. It was nice to focus on the rapids and adventure without having to worry about the boat.

Safety:
The Rio Patria gave me the opportunity to fully test the piton system. With rock flakes hidden behind waves and holes, sudden impacts were almost impossible to avoid. The good news is that my body never had to deal with the blow. The footbracing is the best I've tried at absorbing shock, preventing the ankle injuries common to kayakers. The outfitting is solid so you never have to worry about it failing at a bad time. The cockpit is large and the Rocker is stable so exiting with one or no hands free was never a problem. Most importantly, the Rocker is super easy to roll even in crazy boils and big water while fully loaded down with expedition gear.

I absolutely love this boat and stand behind it 300% as a high quality full on Creeker. I knew the new Rocker would be good throughout the design process, but it took this trip to show me how good it really is. I think Jackson Kayak has finally come through on a FULL-on HIGH quality creeker for the mid-sized paddler. Jackson Kayak has truly gone above and beyond on this one. This boat is going to rock the season!

Boyd :-)