Well ... it's here ... the last day of 2010.
This year had its shares of ups and downs.
I managed to paddle nine new river this year which is six more than expected.
Three of them were in Canada:
Petawawa River - Upper Section, Algonquin Park, Ontario
Petawawa River - Town Section, Petawawa, Ontario
Kipawa River, Laniel Quebec
Six of them in the USA:
Big Laurel Creek, NC
Wilson Creek - Section B, NC
North Branch Potomac, MD,WV
Cheat River Narrows, WV
Middle Ocoee, TN
Upper Yough, MD
I know of some friends that have had their first children come into their life in 2010 and hope to meet them for the first time soon.
I have had some amazing roadtrips ... most for paddling ... some just for the hell of it just to shoot photos of friends and nature. I don't even want to know how much mileage I put on the car just to go some where on a whim ... driving long distances to be with great friends is just art of my life. I just get in the car and go.
Being a Canadian ... I view roasdtrips in terms of hours ... where my US counterparts are always thinking of just mileage and they think driving 50 miles to go somewhere is far. Alot of my US friends always tell me I am crazy when I show up somewhere to go paddling after making a 11 or 14 hour drive but hey ... I already know that.
I met a whole pile of new friends this year. It's amazing the hospitality there is within all my paddling friends. I could probably do a coast to coast roadtrip thru the USA and have a place to stay everynight. And they all know they have a place to stay if they are in my neck of the woods.
So here are my tentative paddling plans for 2011 as far as road trips go as I had to re-jig some stuff in order to fit it into my work schedule:
1. ALF - leaving Canada noon thursday 10-Mar-2011 and hope to paddle something easy on friday 11th afternoon in NC as it will be the first time in my boat since Gauleyfest.
Possibly paddling in NC on the saturday 12th as well. Will be in TN sunday 13th through friday 18th.
Hope to maybe hit up the Warrior Locust Fork slalom race in AL if it is on the 19th.
After that I will be heading back to Canada with a couple of stops along the way to do some photography stuff.
2. Week of Rivers - NC, TN, AL, where ever the hell I end up
Leaving Canada noon thursday 30-Jun and hope to start paddling mid afternoon somewhere in NC on the friday.
Not sure what the whole plan is but will figure out hopefully with paddling friends once the date gets closer.
3. Lost Tribe Weekend last weekend in July
My plan is to leave noon on 28th July and meet Matt Thomas around 3pm Eastern on the friday for a run down the Middle Ocoee before heading off to the Lost Tribe Weekend. My birthday is on the sunday and I get to spend it paddling on the river with my friends.
I will be around for another 5 days before heading back to Canada on friday 5th August
4. Gauleyfest ... need I say more ... I will be paddling with the Beyers like always because they love me or need someone to show the others where not to go.
There will most likely be a couple of Lower Yough weekends in there as well but those are weekend trips that are under 7 hours each way.
So hopefully people with be able to come out and play with me in 2011!
Friday, December 31, 2010
Friday, December 3, 2010
R.I.P Mother
03-Dec-2010
Well today was a sad day in our family.
My mother passed away after a dealing with a series of strokes since september combined with being diagnosed with cancer a couple weeks back.
Her condition worsened alot over the past week and it is probably a good thing that she passed on now then prolonging the pain and suffering.
There will be no funeral service as her wishes were to be cremated.
Everyone in the familiy is doing fine.
Well today was a sad day in our family.
My mother passed away after a dealing with a series of strokes since september combined with being diagnosed with cancer a couple weeks back.
Her condition worsened alot over the past week and it is probably a good thing that she passed on now then prolonging the pain and suffering.
There will be no funeral service as her wishes were to be cremated.
Everyone in the familiy is doing fine.
Saturday, November 27, 2010
Shit happens ...
I knew my camera was having issues and her death was imminent.
But why the hell did it have to happen during a photoshoot with my friend Anastasia.
It happened about an hour or so into the shoot and all I heard was click ... camera totally locked up.
So we stopped shooting and looked at stuff we had already shot on the computer.
I made a quick call to Henrys Camera to let them know my camera died as was coming back.
Luckily for me I had extended warranty and third time is a charm as I am getting a camera replacement. Not totally free as I am going to upgrade to the recently released Pentax K5 by paying the difference in price after the warranty exchange price.
We did manage to get the camera goign again to shoot some more photos until it died again and this time for good.
Hope to get the new K5 next week.
I spent today upgrading my photoshop computer to CS5 ... glad for school discounts .... 265 bucks is better then 1000 bucks.
I think I will be visiting Chapters to get a book for the new features.
But why the hell did it have to happen during a photoshoot with my friend Anastasia.
It happened about an hour or so into the shoot and all I heard was click ... camera totally locked up.
So we stopped shooting and looked at stuff we had already shot on the computer.
I made a quick call to Henrys Camera to let them know my camera died as was coming back.
Luckily for me I had extended warranty and third time is a charm as I am getting a camera replacement. Not totally free as I am going to upgrade to the recently released Pentax K5 by paying the difference in price after the warranty exchange price.
We did manage to get the camera goign again to shoot some more photos until it died again and this time for good.
Hope to get the new K5 next week.
I spent today upgrading my photoshop computer to CS5 ... glad for school discounts .... 265 bucks is better then 1000 bucks.
I think I will be visiting Chapters to get a book for the new features.
Tuesday, November 23, 2010
Life in the slow lane
I have been taking it easy the last month catching up on some stuff around the house.
As a computer geek you tend to collect computer parts over the years. I ended up purging two full closets worth of parts plus other stuff including old paddling magazines.
I have been trying to plan out my first spring paddling roadtrip for 2011. The plans are slowy coming together.
Other than that I have been busy doing some fun studio photo shoots with some of my friends. I am always looking for more people to shoot as I have alot of time to kill between now and mid-march.
Thats all I have to write about.
Until next time be safe out there!
As a computer geek you tend to collect computer parts over the years. I ended up purging two full closets worth of parts plus other stuff including old paddling magazines.
I have been trying to plan out my first spring paddling roadtrip for 2011. The plans are slowy coming together.
Other than that I have been busy doing some fun studio photo shoots with some of my friends. I am always looking for more people to shoot as I have alot of time to kill between now and mid-march.
Thats all I have to write about.
Until next time be safe out there!
Monday, October 11, 2010
Thanksgiving
Not alot has been happening since I did my last paddling trip.
Work has been crazy busy and I have been doing some puttering around the house.
Went and visited the Rents for the weekend over in the Ottawa Valley for Thanksgiving dinner.
Felt kind of strange driving that way with no boat on the car. I went through the highway 60 corridor through Algonquin park and was dissapointed that the colours were done and there we not many leaves left on the trees at all.
The weather was nice and sunny for the entire time.
I spent part of saturday up on my dads roof cleaning out the gutters and installing some leaf guards. Tip ... don't assume your father has read or found the instructions for the gutter guard. They were stuck in the bottom of the box and Ihad to rip the stuff out and re-install right side up.
After that we replaced the belts, a spring, and made some minor re-adjustments to the snow blower.
I did manage to shoot some of the fall colours around my dads place. The leaves were pretty much non-existence as all the heavy winds during the week had blown them off the trees
Sunday dinner was great ... had lots of ham, turkey, stuffing, sweet potato, and lots of other goodies with a nice glass of Jost Comtessa White Wine.
Left early this morning and made the 380km drive back home to my place before the road got crazy with all the cottagers heading back to Toronto.
Work has been crazy busy and I have been doing some puttering around the house.
Went and visited the Rents for the weekend over in the Ottawa Valley for Thanksgiving dinner.
Felt kind of strange driving that way with no boat on the car. I went through the highway 60 corridor through Algonquin park and was dissapointed that the colours were done and there we not many leaves left on the trees at all.
The weather was nice and sunny for the entire time.
I spent part of saturday up on my dads roof cleaning out the gutters and installing some leaf guards. Tip ... don't assume your father has read or found the instructions for the gutter guard. They were stuck in the bottom of the box and Ihad to rip the stuff out and re-install right side up.
After that we replaced the belts, a spring, and made some minor re-adjustments to the snow blower.
I did manage to shoot some of the fall colours around my dads place. The leaves were pretty much non-existence as all the heavy winds during the week had blown them off the trees
Sunday dinner was great ... had lots of ham, turkey, stuffing, sweet potato, and lots of other goodies with a nice glass of Jost Comtessa White Wine.
Left early this morning and made the 380km drive back home to my place before the road got crazy with all the cottagers heading back to Toronto.
Tuesday, September 21, 2010
Lower Yough and Gauleyfest or bust
It is hard to believe that I just finished my last USA paddling roadtrip for the 2010 paddling season.
I had an amazing last few days with old friends plus meeting some new ones.
It all started last thursday when I left work at noon l and head south for my third Gauleyfest. The only differences this time around is that I would be staying and paddling with my friends from Charleston, WV on satirday and sunday. I also had made plans to paddle the Upper Yough river near Friendsville, MD for the first time. I was kind of nervous with running it but I had been practicing on my technical river running skills all season with that being my ultimate challenge at the end of the year.
I made a few phone calls to some of the boys to nail down the plan for friday. I even managed to convince Mick not to go squirt boating and come paddle with us through a triple dog dare. As I was driving through the toll booth going from NY to PA I hear a beep beep beep coming from the lane beside me. It turned out to be my friend Brandon and his girlfriend Laine and they were also headed to Gauleyfest. I pulled over to find out what their paddling plans were before they continured on. I was also curious as what the odds of the three of us meeting there so I posed the question to my statistical analysis friend Chris from FL with the following:
"Two separate vehicles
One leaving Ottawa
One leaving Toronto
Occupants do not know each other is heading to gauleyfest
Both vehicles end up in side by side lanes at the same time exiting the toll booth from new York state to Pennsyvania"
His response was:
"Odds are exactly 1:893,597"
I made a stop in Erie, PA for some snacks and gas. Soon it started to rain so hard you could not see. I phoned Brandon to see where he was and asked where they were going to be sleeping. Since they were not quite sure and the weather was going to be crap at least until the next day I offered to let them stay with me at a friends cabin for the night and come paddling with us the next day. Since they were way ahead of me I told them to find the Walmart at exit 78of the I79 and wait for me. After getting some groceries and other stuff we continued the journey to Paul's place and made dinner and watched a movie while it continued to pour outside.
Friday:
We left the friday morning and headed down to Friendsville, MD to meet up with Joe and Tony. Mick was still in transit and would just meet us at the put in. It was kind of cool to see more and more people I knew showing up in the parking lot at the put in even though they were paddling in different groups. This would be my 300th river trip in my boat since I got here in late August 2006. Joe and Tony were going down in a shredder while Mick and I were doing the open boat thing. Brandon and Laine would be in their kayaks. I waited for Mick to show up while the others paddled down to Wait Rock.
Mick finally showed and the two of us met up with the others.I also opted to wear my brand new elbow pads that my buddy Ryan bought for me.I was still kind of nervous but was ready for it as this river had been on my bucket list for two years. The river description is here http://www.americanwhitewater.org/content/River_detail_id_753#tab-rapids
A common saying from me thoughout the day to Mick was "your shitting me you want me to run that how".
I know I was out of my boat a couple of times. I know I hit a fuck you rock in some insignificant part of the river and went over but was quickly back in my boat. My only major one was swimming half of Bastard while still hold onto my boat and paddle. I also ended up having each end of my boat get stuck on two rocks at the same time. I had to standup and get out of my boat and pull it down off the rocks into the eddy behind them. Before getting back into it I used it as a long pole and swung it over to Mick to get him from his side of the river over to my eddy so he could finish swimming accross to the other side of the river to get his boat.
My last out of boat experience happend when I went over a big rock and fell off the backside into the water. So here I am hip deep in water with paddlers going by me. Mick asked me if I was ok and gave him the thumbs up.He paddled further down river and disappeared behind a boulder the size of a couple SUV's. Joe had apparently asked Mick where I was and he basically told him I was in the middle of the river trying to figure out how to get in my boat. Joe's repsonse was I am getting the video camera out. After about 5 minutes I figured out the line I needed to run the rest of the rapid without using any outfitting as I knew my chances of me hopping into my boat and getting the thigh straps off would be slim to none. I managed to get back into my boat by pretending it was a bobsled and doing the 1-2-3 go jump in quick and just start paddling. I made it the rest of the way down to where Mick and Joe were.
I must say this was a full on intense run. My skills were definititely put to the test. I had some amazing dry lines on some technical drops. I have only done on or two drops in my life and today there would be lots. Things that do stand out in my mind are:
Charlies Choice - I believe we ran the right side.
Triple Drop - ran most of it fairly dry
National Falls ran it on the left side fairly dry.
Gun Barrel and Henzerling - dry and clean.
Meat Cleaver - ran the right lineover the right pointy rock clean and dry
Cheeseburger Falls - this was probably the second scariest thing I have run in my life.Esepecially when your in a eddy up above it face up river and you cant spin your boat around. I had to put my paddle down and push of the rock I was beside with both hands and grab my paddle quick before running the perfect line totally backwards. I rememberd to throw my body weight up river so I would not end up doing and ender. I ran it toally clean and dry but had to get off the river for a few minutes as my heart was pounding and I definitely had one of those oh shit looks on my face.
We were startting to run out of water big time as the river was dropping and the bubble was now in front of us. Some of us elected to walk Fuck Up Falls as there was not a great line with the water being lower.
Double Pencil Sharpener - ran it clean and dry
Soon we were booking it down river quickly as we did not want to end up walking our boats off. We managed to get tot he takeout just before 6pm which is extremely late and it was the lowest that Mick had ever paddled out on in all his time running the river. I am glad I had the elbow pads on as they were all nice and scratched up. I will also wear pants next time instead of short to avoid get scrapes in my shins. We recovered the vehicles from the putin. I was just about to leave Friendsville when Joe forced me to stay for sausages he was doing up on the bbq. How could I say no :)
I managed to finally get to my friends place in Charleston fairly close to midnight and was totally wiped and was soon in bed.
Saturday:
Don, Jo, Jeff and I were up before 8am. We had to shift the boats around so we could just drop my car off at the takeout and not have to worry about wasting time there. Today would be my third Lower Gauley River run and the description is here http://www.americanwhitewater.org/content/River_detail_id_2379#tab-rapids
The plan was to meet up with some paddlers from VI, NC, and SC as we were going to run the river together. Todays run would feel more like a class 1 float through to me compared to the Upper Yough from the day before. My car ended up being the store everyone dry gear bags in it for the day vehicle as the others were going to the putin. Tip for next year .... park beside the woulds so you dont get boxed in at the end of the day.
Soon we were at the putin heading down river to Koontz's Flume. Most of the other open boats decides to take the left hand dry line and avoid Five Boat Hole. I decided to go into the hole ... only problem was a kayaker decided to get in there before me and I had to drop in sideways in order not to kill him. I also had to put my paddle down for a seconds to grab his kayak with both hands for the Hand of God move as I had pushed him over. I then pushed him out of the hole with my hands before grabbing my paddle and had to side and back surf the hole for a while before realizing I was not getting out of the hole. I then had to swim to shore with my boat and then get back into it. I did get lots of whooo hoos and whistles while I was in the hole.
My buddy David told me some kayakers had some concerned looks on their faces when I was heading over to the hole to begin with. He then had to explain to them that I really meant to go there and play in it unlike the southern boaters who stay away from them like the plague.
The rest of the river was super fun. I kept pushing myself taking different lines from the others in the group. I would always ask Don if there was anything that would kill me and if not I would just pick a fun line for me which was not necessarily a line the others would do. My second and last swim of the day came at Lower Mash when I was trying to take the Hero line from left to right across the huge hole to make the right hand eddy only to get spanked. I had been thinking all day what I would do at Pure Screaming Hell. My plans were to run it full on and punch it and was wall lined up to make my run when I realized I was sluggish with more water in my boat then I though I had. I then changed plans literally at the last minute and clipped the left 1/3 of the hole and continued on.
It was a super great day in the sunshine paddling with Jo, Don, Jeff, David, Gilley, Alex, Kevin, and Leah. The only thing that sucked was my car getting boxed in on all sides by other vehicles and we had to wait forever to be able to go and get the other vehicles. After a quick bite to eat ... some of us headed over to the main festival site to check out the pending shitshow that always comes with too many people and toooo much beer. I was suprised at how many other Canadians I ran into down there as well as my US friends.
Jo, Don, Jeff and I managed to get back to their place sometime after midnight and we were all pretty much exhausted and went straight to bed.
Sunday:
Today would be my fourth trip down the New River Gorge http://www.americanwhitewater.org/content/River_detail_id_2418#tab-rapids
It was the same paddling group as the day before except for Kevin and Jeff. It was pretty much a repeat of the day before .... lots of sunshine and great paddling. I did have a couple of swims while trying to make some different more interesting lines to only get nailed by a FU rock at the bottom of some of them.
We all met at Pies and Pints for dinner. This place makes amazing pizza with very bizzare and interesting ingredients. Well worth the stop which was followed up by ice cream at DQ before heading back to Charleston where had time to watch the Canoe Movie I had brought with me.
Monday:
This would be the day I dreaded the most. It is a eleven hour non stop drive back to my place. I did it it 13.5 hours as I made a few stops along the way which included shopping, having a nap with my blanky and pillow on the grass and under a tree at some rest stop in PA, booze shopping at the duty free, and a visit to a uncle of mine in ST. Kits. Like I posted on my Facebook status ... "I am friggin tired, beat up, scraped up, and sore ... but wtf ... it was Gauleyfest and it was worth it!"
This was my 62nd day in the USA for the year.
I paddled 30 miles or 50km this past weekend with only a few scrapes and bumps. Anytime you don't have to go to the hospital at the end of a river trip is a good trip in my books ... but .... on a sad note:
Two people died while rafting on the Upper Gauley during the weekend. A girl in her mid-20's came out of a commercial raft and ended up getting stuck in a undercut at 9am sunday. They managed to recover her body at 4pm that afternoon as they had to drop the river level. Another person died today. I had thought about running the Upper Gauley this year but decided against it I as I personally thought I needed another year of technical creeking river running under my belt. There is still lots of time to get that one off my list.
We all know as paddlers that their are inherent risks within our sport but unfortunately the same can't be said for the causal rafter who may just think of it as a fun day out and not fully realize the consequences. We all paddle with friends and keep an eye out for each other and trust each other with our lives.
Be S.A.F.E out there!!!!!
I had an amazing last few days with old friends plus meeting some new ones.
It all started last thursday when I left work at noon l and head south for my third Gauleyfest. The only differences this time around is that I would be staying and paddling with my friends from Charleston, WV on satirday and sunday. I also had made plans to paddle the Upper Yough river near Friendsville, MD for the first time. I was kind of nervous with running it but I had been practicing on my technical river running skills all season with that being my ultimate challenge at the end of the year.
I made a few phone calls to some of the boys to nail down the plan for friday. I even managed to convince Mick not to go squirt boating and come paddle with us through a triple dog dare. As I was driving through the toll booth going from NY to PA I hear a beep beep beep coming from the lane beside me. It turned out to be my friend Brandon and his girlfriend Laine and they were also headed to Gauleyfest. I pulled over to find out what their paddling plans were before they continured on. I was also curious as what the odds of the three of us meeting there so I posed the question to my statistical analysis friend Chris from FL with the following:
"Two separate vehicles
One leaving Ottawa
One leaving Toronto
Occupants do not know each other is heading to gauleyfest
Both vehicles end up in side by side lanes at the same time exiting the toll booth from new York state to Pennsyvania"
His response was:
"Odds are exactly 1:893,597"
I made a stop in Erie, PA for some snacks and gas. Soon it started to rain so hard you could not see. I phoned Brandon to see where he was and asked where they were going to be sleeping. Since they were not quite sure and the weather was going to be crap at least until the next day I offered to let them stay with me at a friends cabin for the night and come paddling with us the next day. Since they were way ahead of me I told them to find the Walmart at exit 78of the I79 and wait for me. After getting some groceries and other stuff we continued the journey to Paul's place and made dinner and watched a movie while it continued to pour outside.
Friday:
We left the friday morning and headed down to Friendsville, MD to meet up with Joe and Tony. Mick was still in transit and would just meet us at the put in. It was kind of cool to see more and more people I knew showing up in the parking lot at the put in even though they were paddling in different groups. This would be my 300th river trip in my boat since I got here in late August 2006. Joe and Tony were going down in a shredder while Mick and I were doing the open boat thing. Brandon and Laine would be in their kayaks. I waited for Mick to show up while the others paddled down to Wait Rock.
Mick finally showed and the two of us met up with the others.I also opted to wear my brand new elbow pads that my buddy Ryan bought for me.I was still kind of nervous but was ready for it as this river had been on my bucket list for two years. The river description is here http://www.americanwhitewater.org/content/River_detail_id_753#tab-rapids
A common saying from me thoughout the day to Mick was "your shitting me you want me to run that how".
I know I was out of my boat a couple of times. I know I hit a fuck you rock in some insignificant part of the river and went over but was quickly back in my boat. My only major one was swimming half of Bastard while still hold onto my boat and paddle. I also ended up having each end of my boat get stuck on two rocks at the same time. I had to standup and get out of my boat and pull it down off the rocks into the eddy behind them. Before getting back into it I used it as a long pole and swung it over to Mick to get him from his side of the river over to my eddy so he could finish swimming accross to the other side of the river to get his boat.
My last out of boat experience happend when I went over a big rock and fell off the backside into the water. So here I am hip deep in water with paddlers going by me. Mick asked me if I was ok and gave him the thumbs up.He paddled further down river and disappeared behind a boulder the size of a couple SUV's. Joe had apparently asked Mick where I was and he basically told him I was in the middle of the river trying to figure out how to get in my boat. Joe's repsonse was I am getting the video camera out. After about 5 minutes I figured out the line I needed to run the rest of the rapid without using any outfitting as I knew my chances of me hopping into my boat and getting the thigh straps off would be slim to none. I managed to get back into my boat by pretending it was a bobsled and doing the 1-2-3 go jump in quick and just start paddling. I made it the rest of the way down to where Mick and Joe were.
I must say this was a full on intense run. My skills were definititely put to the test. I had some amazing dry lines on some technical drops. I have only done on or two drops in my life and today there would be lots. Things that do stand out in my mind are:
Charlies Choice - I believe we ran the right side.
Triple Drop - ran most of it fairly dry
National Falls ran it on the left side fairly dry.
Gun Barrel and Henzerling - dry and clean.
Meat Cleaver - ran the right lineover the right pointy rock clean and dry
Cheeseburger Falls - this was probably the second scariest thing I have run in my life.Esepecially when your in a eddy up above it face up river and you cant spin your boat around. I had to put my paddle down and push of the rock I was beside with both hands and grab my paddle quick before running the perfect line totally backwards. I rememberd to throw my body weight up river so I would not end up doing and ender. I ran it toally clean and dry but had to get off the river for a few minutes as my heart was pounding and I definitely had one of those oh shit looks on my face.
We were startting to run out of water big time as the river was dropping and the bubble was now in front of us. Some of us elected to walk Fuck Up Falls as there was not a great line with the water being lower.
Double Pencil Sharpener - ran it clean and dry
Soon we were booking it down river quickly as we did not want to end up walking our boats off. We managed to get tot he takeout just before 6pm which is extremely late and it was the lowest that Mick had ever paddled out on in all his time running the river. I am glad I had the elbow pads on as they were all nice and scratched up. I will also wear pants next time instead of short to avoid get scrapes in my shins. We recovered the vehicles from the putin. I was just about to leave Friendsville when Joe forced me to stay for sausages he was doing up on the bbq. How could I say no :)
I managed to finally get to my friends place in Charleston fairly close to midnight and was totally wiped and was soon in bed.
Saturday:
Don, Jo, Jeff and I were up before 8am. We had to shift the boats around so we could just drop my car off at the takeout and not have to worry about wasting time there. Today would be my third Lower Gauley River run and the description is here http://www.americanwhitewater.org/content/River_detail_id_2379#tab-rapids
The plan was to meet up with some paddlers from VI, NC, and SC as we were going to run the river together. Todays run would feel more like a class 1 float through to me compared to the Upper Yough from the day before. My car ended up being the store everyone dry gear bags in it for the day vehicle as the others were going to the putin. Tip for next year .... park beside the woulds so you dont get boxed in at the end of the day.
Soon we were at the putin heading down river to Koontz's Flume. Most of the other open boats decides to take the left hand dry line and avoid Five Boat Hole. I decided to go into the hole ... only problem was a kayaker decided to get in there before me and I had to drop in sideways in order not to kill him. I also had to put my paddle down for a seconds to grab his kayak with both hands for the Hand of God move as I had pushed him over. I then pushed him out of the hole with my hands before grabbing my paddle and had to side and back surf the hole for a while before realizing I was not getting out of the hole. I then had to swim to shore with my boat and then get back into it. I did get lots of whooo hoos and whistles while I was in the hole.
My buddy David told me some kayakers had some concerned looks on their faces when I was heading over to the hole to begin with. He then had to explain to them that I really meant to go there and play in it unlike the southern boaters who stay away from them like the plague.
The rest of the river was super fun. I kept pushing myself taking different lines from the others in the group. I would always ask Don if there was anything that would kill me and if not I would just pick a fun line for me which was not necessarily a line the others would do. My second and last swim of the day came at Lower Mash when I was trying to take the Hero line from left to right across the huge hole to make the right hand eddy only to get spanked. I had been thinking all day what I would do at Pure Screaming Hell. My plans were to run it full on and punch it and was wall lined up to make my run when I realized I was sluggish with more water in my boat then I though I had. I then changed plans literally at the last minute and clipped the left 1/3 of the hole and continued on.
It was a super great day in the sunshine paddling with Jo, Don, Jeff, David, Gilley, Alex, Kevin, and Leah. The only thing that sucked was my car getting boxed in on all sides by other vehicles and we had to wait forever to be able to go and get the other vehicles. After a quick bite to eat ... some of us headed over to the main festival site to check out the pending shitshow that always comes with too many people and toooo much beer. I was suprised at how many other Canadians I ran into down there as well as my US friends.
Jo, Don, Jeff and I managed to get back to their place sometime after midnight and we were all pretty much exhausted and went straight to bed.
Sunday:
Today would be my fourth trip down the New River Gorge http://www.americanwhitewater.org/content/River_detail_id_2418#tab-rapids
It was the same paddling group as the day before except for Kevin and Jeff. It was pretty much a repeat of the day before .... lots of sunshine and great paddling. I did have a couple of swims while trying to make some different more interesting lines to only get nailed by a FU rock at the bottom of some of them.
We all met at Pies and Pints for dinner. This place makes amazing pizza with very bizzare and interesting ingredients. Well worth the stop which was followed up by ice cream at DQ before heading back to Charleston where had time to watch the Canoe Movie I had brought with me.
Monday:
This would be the day I dreaded the most. It is a eleven hour non stop drive back to my place. I did it it 13.5 hours as I made a few stops along the way which included shopping, having a nap with my blanky and pillow on the grass and under a tree at some rest stop in PA, booze shopping at the duty free, and a visit to a uncle of mine in ST. Kits. Like I posted on my Facebook status ... "I am friggin tired, beat up, scraped up, and sore ... but wtf ... it was Gauleyfest and it was worth it!"
This was my 62nd day in the USA for the year.
I paddled 30 miles or 50km this past weekend with only a few scrapes and bumps. Anytime you don't have to go to the hospital at the end of a river trip is a good trip in my books ... but .... on a sad note:
Two people died while rafting on the Upper Gauley during the weekend. A girl in her mid-20's came out of a commercial raft and ended up getting stuck in a undercut at 9am sunday. They managed to recover her body at 4pm that afternoon as they had to drop the river level. Another person died today. I had thought about running the Upper Gauley this year but decided against it I as I personally thought I needed another year of technical creeking river running under my belt. There is still lots of time to get that one off my list.
We all know as paddlers that their are inherent risks within our sport but unfortunately the same can't be said for the causal rafter who may just think of it as a fun day out and not fully realize the consequences. We all paddle with friends and keep an eye out for each other and trust each other with our lives.
Be S.A.F.E out there!!!!!
Tuesday, September 14, 2010
Ottawa Valley - Gatineau River - Gull Open Canoe Slalom Race
This will be a short blurb.
I managed to get out with some friends and do a run down the Main Channel of the Ottawa River a couple weekends back followed by a fun day on the Gatineau River. Our group of four did not see any other paddlers on the Gatineau that day. It was nice to have it all to ourselves.
I spent last weekend at the Gull Open Canoe Slalom race. It was the 30th year for the event. I ran the river from below the dam. I was happy with my run in the top section as this was the second time I had ever ran it in my life and had less water in my boat.
I spent the rest of the time trying to shoot photos of the race plus partaking in the evening festivities. My camera still has a scratch in the sensor but seems tobe ok in busy background shots. I can no longer do any sunrise, sunset, or sky shots. I am still trying to figure out what to do with the camera as it is a 1000 dollar repair or buy a new camera or wear it out and hope to get a new one under warranty. Only time will tell.
I did one one race run out of my two on the sunday. I did not do any practice runs on the course. I came third last which is way better then my previous year of being last. I even managed to make it though all the gates but I did get 120 seconds in time penalties for touching gates. I was probably the second last person to go down and had a big cheering squad on the side of the river. I was quite happy with my run considering I am moving a 85 pound 14 foot boat around and the other racers are in boats thay probably weigh have as much as mine.
I am spending the next two days getting ready for the next item on the PRO circuit which happens to be Gauleyfest. I hope to get my first ever Upper Yough run in on friday and then the standard Lower Gauley saturday follwed be the New River Gorge sunday.
This will be my last paddling trip to the USA for this year.
I managed to get out with some friends and do a run down the Main Channel of the Ottawa River a couple weekends back followed by a fun day on the Gatineau River. Our group of four did not see any other paddlers on the Gatineau that day. It was nice to have it all to ourselves.
I spent last weekend at the Gull Open Canoe Slalom race. It was the 30th year for the event. I ran the river from below the dam. I was happy with my run in the top section as this was the second time I had ever ran it in my life and had less water in my boat.
I spent the rest of the time trying to shoot photos of the race plus partaking in the evening festivities. My camera still has a scratch in the sensor but seems tobe ok in busy background shots. I can no longer do any sunrise, sunset, or sky shots. I am still trying to figure out what to do with the camera as it is a 1000 dollar repair or buy a new camera or wear it out and hope to get a new one under warranty. Only time will tell.
I did one one race run out of my two on the sunday. I did not do any practice runs on the course. I came third last which is way better then my previous year of being last. I even managed to make it though all the gates but I did get 120 seconds in time penalties for touching gates. I was probably the second last person to go down and had a big cheering squad on the side of the river. I was quite happy with my run considering I am moving a 85 pound 14 foot boat around and the other racers are in boats thay probably weigh have as much as mine.
I am spending the next two days getting ready for the next item on the PRO circuit which happens to be Gauleyfest. I hope to get my first ever Upper Yough run in on friday and then the standard Lower Gauley saturday follwed be the New River Gorge sunday.
This will be my last paddling trip to the USA for this year.
Tuesday, August 31, 2010
Two weeks of bad luck
The last couple of weeks have been quite unlucky. I am now on round two of how things go wrong in sets of three.
To sum it up:
1. scratched my camera sensor while trying to clean it so my camera is pretty much screwed for some style of shots. . TIP: don't ever do this.
2. photoshop computer did not want to boot at all .... took a day to get it going.
3. water leak under kitchen counter due to connector on water filter ... took a couple hours to fix it and cleanup the mess.
4. the pool pump stoped working while vaccuming the pool in order to get it closed for the season. Luckily my neighbour had a spare I could borrow to finish the job. Managed to fix it a dew days later by taking it appart.
5. the car starts acting up to the point of being barely driveable but at least makes it to the Ford dealer .... 920 dollars ... mass airflow gizmo, heater core hoses and pipe, vacuum line, radiator and heater core flush ... car is good to go.
I de-stressed the night I found out how much the car was going to cost me ... I took it out on the two blue spruce trees that formerly occupied a really crappy spot in the back yard.
On the flip side ... my summer stuff is now put away for the winter and yard work is getting pretty much done ... which means I am free in October to go paddling.
I am going to head over to the Ottawa Valley to visit friends and go paddling for a few days ... can't wait to get back in my boat again as it has been too long.
To sum it up:
1. scratched my camera sensor while trying to clean it so my camera is pretty much screwed for some style of shots. . TIP: don't ever do this.
2. photoshop computer did not want to boot at all .... took a day to get it going.
3. water leak under kitchen counter due to connector on water filter ... took a couple hours to fix it and cleanup the mess.
4. the pool pump stoped working while vaccuming the pool in order to get it closed for the season. Luckily my neighbour had a spare I could borrow to finish the job. Managed to fix it a dew days later by taking it appart.
5. the car starts acting up to the point of being barely driveable but at least makes it to the Ford dealer .... 920 dollars ... mass airflow gizmo, heater core hoses and pipe, vacuum line, radiator and heater core flush ... car is good to go.
I de-stressed the night I found out how much the car was going to cost me ... I took it out on the two blue spruce trees that formerly occupied a really crappy spot in the back yard.
On the flip side ... my summer stuff is now put away for the winter and yard work is getting pretty much done ... which means I am free in October to go paddling.
I am going to head over to the Ottawa Valley to visit friends and go paddling for a few days ... can't wait to get back in my boat again as it has been too long.
Friday, August 13, 2010
Roadtrip to Gull and Ottawa River and to USA
Well alot has happened since my last update.
I spent alot of time out in the front yard weeding the gardens and cutting back the overgrown crap. Man thats alot of work.
I also managed to get a outdoor photoshoot with my friend Amanda. We had spent some time in the studio back at the beginning of the year and were trying to get together for another shoot. But as life has it our schedules never agreed to much until I received an early morning msn message asking what I was up to for the day. It was definitely fun and challenging shoot out side having to compensate for extra light and stuff but she was very happy with the results.
I spent the rest of my time after that getting stuff ready for my next nine day roadtrip which would take me over to the Gull River, Ottawa Valley and another trip into the USA.
Saturday 31-July
The day had come to begin my trip. It would also be my 45th birthday. I headed over to the Gull River in Minden Ontario for the 2010 National Slalom Races for C1, C2, K1. I spent the day shooting photos of my friends that were competing.
Photos are here http://www.flickr.com/photos/cmnypny/sets/72157624636451258/
After that I headed over to the Sierra Designs factory outlet sale in Foymount, Ontario for some shopping before they closed their doors forever. I am going to miss that place as it was classic stop on my way to or from the Ottawa river.I then headed over to Esprit to have dinner with my friends before finally getting to the Rents place just before midnight. I was suprised to see a card and coconut tarts on the counter complete with a candle to boot!
Sunday 01-August
I spent the day paddling the Middle Channel of the Ottawa River with seven other open boaters and some kayakers. The weather was great.
Photos are here http://www.flickr.com/photos/cmnypny/sets/72157624703532334/
I even had a chance to have my boat used in a River Rescue course being taught by Jim at Esprit. It was cool to see people going into a hole to get my boat time and time again.
Photos are here http://www.flickr.com/photos/cmnypny/sets/72157624507196227/
After that it was time for a quick shower before heading off to Brad and Kim's place for an excellent pulled pork bbq dinner. There were close to 60 people there.
Monday 02-Aug
I spent the day with the Rents as they hd just came back from a weekend away. My step-mommy made the ribs i brought with me for dinner with all the fixins. I even managed to vacuum out the shit-mobile before re-packing my stuff to continue my roadtrip.
Tuesday 03-Aug
I left the Rents place at the crack of dawn as i had a long drive ahead of me. I did not realize there were two different border crossings to the USA just south of Ottawa. I ended up crossing at this little craphole of a crossing at Ogdensburg. Even though I used my Nexus card ... I had the US Customs guy from hell. I don't know how many times he asked me if i had booze and tobacco with me. He then wanted to search my trunk of my car. He had fun trying to squeeze himself into trunk to take a look as it would not fully open with my canoe on the roof.
My goal for the day was to stop at Ricketts Glen state park in PA for some photography. There is about 22 waterfalls there that are supposedly gorgeous to shoot. As luck would have it was raining when I was getting close and the forecast was thunderstorms for the day and next morning. I then decided to continue my journey to the ASCI park in MD instead. After a 13.50 hour drive I finally made it to the place. I phoned one of my friends to find out where most people were camping. I managed to get my tent set up in the campground before midnight.
Wednesday to Sunday
I headed over to ASCI to see what the scoop was for the ACA Slalom races as i was there to shoot photos of the race and paddle in between. This would be my third trip to ASCI this year alone. It is a great facility to work on technical paddling skills. It was great to see old friends and meet new ones. I spent some quality time on the river paddling hard trying to catch all the eddys i could plus surfing where ever possible. I had dinner that evening with the Beyers before heading back to the campground.
The next four days were pretty much a repeat of shoot photos, paddling, dinner, occasional drinks with friends.
Photos are in the process of being upload here http://www.flickr.com/photos/cmnypny/collections/72157624581437893/ ... There will be four albulms there by the time I am done.
Soon it was time for the 800km or 500 mile drive back home. Things were going well until I hit the border. The customs officer told me i could not bring a canoe through the nexus lane and to go through the regular lane on my next trip. She spent about four minutes explaining it to me instead of the normal ten second have a nice day. (I looked at the US / Canadian Nexus site when I got home and there is no exclusion of any vehicle type or what you can and cannot drive through the Nexus lane).
The next couple days was spent getting caught up at work and another trip to the Ford dealer to get new rotors on the car.
I spent alot of time out in the front yard weeding the gardens and cutting back the overgrown crap. Man thats alot of work.
I also managed to get a outdoor photoshoot with my friend Amanda. We had spent some time in the studio back at the beginning of the year and were trying to get together for another shoot. But as life has it our schedules never agreed to much until I received an early morning msn message asking what I was up to for the day. It was definitely fun and challenging shoot out side having to compensate for extra light and stuff but she was very happy with the results.
I spent the rest of my time after that getting stuff ready for my next nine day roadtrip which would take me over to the Gull River, Ottawa Valley and another trip into the USA.
Saturday 31-July
The day had come to begin my trip. It would also be my 45th birthday. I headed over to the Gull River in Minden Ontario for the 2010 National Slalom Races for C1, C2, K1. I spent the day shooting photos of my friends that were competing.
Photos are here http://www.flickr.com/photos/cmnypny/sets/72157624636451258/
After that I headed over to the Sierra Designs factory outlet sale in Foymount, Ontario for some shopping before they closed their doors forever. I am going to miss that place as it was classic stop on my way to or from the Ottawa river.I then headed over to Esprit to have dinner with my friends before finally getting to the Rents place just before midnight. I was suprised to see a card and coconut tarts on the counter complete with a candle to boot!
Sunday 01-August
I spent the day paddling the Middle Channel of the Ottawa River with seven other open boaters and some kayakers. The weather was great.
Photos are here http://www.flickr.com/photos/cmnypny/sets/72157624703532334/
I even had a chance to have my boat used in a River Rescue course being taught by Jim at Esprit. It was cool to see people going into a hole to get my boat time and time again.
Photos are here http://www.flickr.com/photos/cmnypny/sets/72157624507196227/
After that it was time for a quick shower before heading off to Brad and Kim's place for an excellent pulled pork bbq dinner. There were close to 60 people there.
Monday 02-Aug
I spent the day with the Rents as they hd just came back from a weekend away. My step-mommy made the ribs i brought with me for dinner with all the fixins. I even managed to vacuum out the shit-mobile before re-packing my stuff to continue my roadtrip.
Tuesday 03-Aug
I left the Rents place at the crack of dawn as i had a long drive ahead of me. I did not realize there were two different border crossings to the USA just south of Ottawa. I ended up crossing at this little craphole of a crossing at Ogdensburg. Even though I used my Nexus card ... I had the US Customs guy from hell. I don't know how many times he asked me if i had booze and tobacco with me. He then wanted to search my trunk of my car. He had fun trying to squeeze himself into trunk to take a look as it would not fully open with my canoe on the roof.
My goal for the day was to stop at Ricketts Glen state park in PA for some photography. There is about 22 waterfalls there that are supposedly gorgeous to shoot. As luck would have it was raining when I was getting close and the forecast was thunderstorms for the day and next morning. I then decided to continue my journey to the ASCI park in MD instead. After a 13.50 hour drive I finally made it to the place. I phoned one of my friends to find out where most people were camping. I managed to get my tent set up in the campground before midnight.
Wednesday to Sunday
I headed over to ASCI to see what the scoop was for the ACA Slalom races as i was there to shoot photos of the race and paddle in between. This would be my third trip to ASCI this year alone. It is a great facility to work on technical paddling skills. It was great to see old friends and meet new ones. I spent some quality time on the river paddling hard trying to catch all the eddys i could plus surfing where ever possible. I had dinner that evening with the Beyers before heading back to the campground.
The next four days were pretty much a repeat of shoot photos, paddling, dinner, occasional drinks with friends.
Photos are in the process of being upload here http://www.flickr.com/photos/cmnypny/collections/72157624581437893/ ... There will be four albulms there by the time I am done.
Soon it was time for the 800km or 500 mile drive back home. Things were going well until I hit the border. The customs officer told me i could not bring a canoe through the nexus lane and to go through the regular lane on my next trip. She spent about four minutes explaining it to me instead of the normal ten second have a nice day. (I looked at the US / Canadian Nexus site when I got home and there is no exclusion of any vehicle type or what you can and cannot drive through the Nexus lane).
The next couple days was spent getting caught up at work and another trip to the Ford dealer to get new rotors on the car.
Wednesday, July 21, 2010
Another USA roadtrip to Lower Yough and ASCI whitewater park
I decided literally last minute late thursday night to head down south to paddle with my USA friends on the Lower Yough for Tandemonium.
I headed down to Paul Cline's cabin friday after work. Spent the evening watching the last two thirds of the first Iron Man movie. And since I could not sleep I decided to watch the part that I missed before falling asleep on the couch.
I left early saturday morning as I had to meet the Jo and Don Beyer at the putin. I wanted to get there early to get my boat sorted out and then run shuttle. There were lots of friends there plus I managed to meet a few more on the river.
It was definitely entertaining day on the river with all the antics. I shot close to 500 photos that day. They are here http://www.flickr.com/photos/cmnypny/sets/72157624410839139/
There was lots of fun to be had at Cucumber and Swimmers. Jo, Don, and I headed down river after spending a while at Swimmers as it was get past dinner time.
The three of us headed over to the local BBQ just outside Ohiopyle and the food was great as always.
After that it was a short drive to the Tall Oaks campsite for night. Breakfast the next morning was the standard paddler affair. After that we headed off to ASCI in MD.
I had a blast running the park 5 or 6 times with no swimms running the features. Had a few swims when I was playing in one of the holes trying to surf my boat.
Soon it was time to make the long the drive back home in 9.5 hours. Had to make a few stops including a 20 minute power snooze close to home. Even managed to watch a really cool mesmerizing lightening show for the last 45 minute drive home until it started to rain so hard I could not see out the side windows. Luckily I always travel with my boat on the drivers side of the car to block the sun and rain while drivings.
I can't wait until my next trip down in a couple weeks for ACA Nationals.
Wednesday, July 7, 2010
Canada Day Long Weekend in the Ottawa Valley
I spent last weekend in the Ottawa Valley.
It all started out last wednesday by making the drive from home over to Esprit's base camp in Davidson, QC. I had a great dinner with Jim and the gang followed by watching The Canoe Movie that I had brought with me. It was also great to see Gonzo aka Martin as I had not seen him since last august. After that I made the drive over to my dads place where I would be staying the rest of the weekend.
Thursday was 1st July aka Canada Day. I did not feel like paddling that day so I headed down to the local park to check out the celebrations. I shot some photos of the Petawawa River Rats. They had their complete fleet of kayaks for the general public to use out in the swimming area. There were little kids all the way to adults waiting in line for their turn.
There were lots of other thing going on for entertainment. I was only there for a couple hours as I was not feeling the greatest. I even missed the fireworks.
Friday was a workday for me. Luckily I have a job where I can do it remotely. I was able to heat over and hit the Ottawa River for a run down the Main Channel. I had to do it solo but saw lots of friends along the way. I had a great run through McCoys. I had my driest run ever by running the extreme right hand line at Phil's Hole. Hardly any water in my boat.
I spent some time shooting photos of friends at Push Button and they are here http://www.flickr.com/photos/cmnypny/sets/72157624294767295/ and here http://www.flickr.com/photos/cmnypny/sets/72157624296534945/
After that I took relatively conservative lines for the rest of the river as I was on my own. After getting a ride up to get my car from the putin I decided to stay at River Run for the night as paddling would be starting early saturday. Plus who would want to miss the antics of the GKC and KWP being there as well. Lets just say it was a total shitshow around the fire and through the night.
Saturday was definitely an early day that started at 6:30 for me. I ran my boat and gear up to the top putin and had breakfast. After shuttle was set Brad and I headed back up to the putin. I did not have a great run through McCoys. I tried the same line as the day before but ended up bouncing off the wall and got pushed into rightside Phils. I quickly self rescued and swam with my boat into the first eddy. Brad was very surprised that I could swim that fast with one arm while towing my boat with the other.
We paddled down to Baby Face. I got out to shoot photos. Brad had the wave to himself for a good 30 minutes before Dave showed up and then another 15 minutes until Wayne showed up. It was a beauty of a day with the sun shining.
Soon Brad and I headed down to the dam to meet the gang from Esprit. Brad's wife Kim and her son Jamie were rafting with Esprit fo the day. Brad and i were going to paddle down with them and I was going to shoot photos. It was a great run down the middle channel before stopping for lunch. The Esprit gang were great as they allowed some of our fellow paddlers to shuttle back up with them. They added two open boats and five kayaks on the top of the bus along with all the rafts. You cannot beat that for hospitality.
The run down the main channel was fun. I had a dry run through Garb and Push Button. Brad said I style it through the Normans. I ended up having my second swim of the day when I droped into Kahuna sideways at Coliseum. It was a very tiring swim with my boat as the eddy had alot of current pushing different ways. My run through Center Slot was fine.
Here are some photos I took of other boaters http://www.flickr.com/photos/cmnypny/sets/72157624295550679/ and http://www.flickr.com/photos/cmnypny/sets/72157624420473782/
Soon the day was over. I still was not feeling well so I decide to pack up my tent and gear. I gave Brad a ride back up to the top to get his truck and then I made the drive back home to the Barrie area.
Sunday was pretty much spent indoors napping and putting my stuff away. I also made up some DVD to mail the 459 photos to Esprit that I took of their raft trip down the river.
It all started out last wednesday by making the drive from home over to Esprit's base camp in Davidson, QC. I had a great dinner with Jim and the gang followed by watching The Canoe Movie that I had brought with me. It was also great to see Gonzo aka Martin as I had not seen him since last august. After that I made the drive over to my dads place where I would be staying the rest of the weekend.
Thursday was 1st July aka Canada Day. I did not feel like paddling that day so I headed down to the local park to check out the celebrations. I shot some photos of the Petawawa River Rats. They had their complete fleet of kayaks for the general public to use out in the swimming area. There were little kids all the way to adults waiting in line for their turn.
There were lots of other thing going on for entertainment. I was only there for a couple hours as I was not feeling the greatest. I even missed the fireworks.
Friday was a workday for me. Luckily I have a job where I can do it remotely. I was able to heat over and hit the Ottawa River for a run down the Main Channel. I had to do it solo but saw lots of friends along the way. I had a great run through McCoys. I had my driest run ever by running the extreme right hand line at Phil's Hole. Hardly any water in my boat.
I spent some time shooting photos of friends at Push Button and they are here http://www.flickr.com/photos/cmnypny/sets/72157624294767295/ and here http://www.flickr.com/photos/cmnypny/sets/72157624296534945/
After that I took relatively conservative lines for the rest of the river as I was on my own. After getting a ride up to get my car from the putin I decided to stay at River Run for the night as paddling would be starting early saturday. Plus who would want to miss the antics of the GKC and KWP being there as well. Lets just say it was a total shitshow around the fire and through the night.
Saturday was definitely an early day that started at 6:30 for me. I ran my boat and gear up to the top putin and had breakfast. After shuttle was set Brad and I headed back up to the putin. I did not have a great run through McCoys. I tried the same line as the day before but ended up bouncing off the wall and got pushed into rightside Phils. I quickly self rescued and swam with my boat into the first eddy. Brad was very surprised that I could swim that fast with one arm while towing my boat with the other.
We paddled down to Baby Face. I got out to shoot photos. Brad had the wave to himself for a good 30 minutes before Dave showed up and then another 15 minutes until Wayne showed up. It was a beauty of a day with the sun shining.
Soon Brad and I headed down to the dam to meet the gang from Esprit. Brad's wife Kim and her son Jamie were rafting with Esprit fo the day. Brad and i were going to paddle down with them and I was going to shoot photos. It was a great run down the middle channel before stopping for lunch. The Esprit gang were great as they allowed some of our fellow paddlers to shuttle back up with them. They added two open boats and five kayaks on the top of the bus along with all the rafts. You cannot beat that for hospitality.
The run down the main channel was fun. I had a dry run through Garb and Push Button. Brad said I style it through the Normans. I ended up having my second swim of the day when I droped into Kahuna sideways at Coliseum. It was a very tiring swim with my boat as the eddy had alot of current pushing different ways. My run through Center Slot was fine.
Here are some photos I took of other boaters http://www.flickr.com/photos/cmnypny/sets/72157624295550679/ and http://www.flickr.com/photos/cmnypny/sets/72157624420473782/
Soon the day was over. I still was not feeling well so I decide to pack up my tent and gear. I gave Brad a ride back up to the top to get his truck and then I made the drive back home to the Barrie area.
Sunday was pretty much spent indoors napping and putting my stuff away. I also made up some DVD to mail the 459 photos to Esprit that I took of their raft trip down the river.
Tuesday, June 29, 2010
Another USA roatrip to paddle the Ocoee
Life has been busy the last couple of weeks.
In between doing some photoshoots for some new friends of mine for their modeling portfolios I managed to squeeze in five and a half day trip down to the USA for some fun paddling.
I left work just after noon on friday 18-Jun and arrived at my friends Pam and Pat in West Virginia around 8:30. I spent some time catching up with Pat and the renovations he was doing around the house. I wish I had his skills with some of the stuff he has been doing. We had a very late BBQ dinner before I headed off to bed.
I left early saturday morning as I had a long drive to the NOC near Bryson City, North Carolina. I got there about 2pm where I met up with Alex in the putin parking lot. He was glad I was there as one of the newbies he was paddling with lost a paddle. I ended up lending him my spare paddle for the day.
I geared up quickly and caught up to them on the river. I thought it was kind of bizarre considerin was about 32C outside plust humidity and people were putting on drysuits. It was until I started paddling into the fog I realized the was was beer can cold. You could put a case of beer in the river and it would be chilled and ready in 10 minutes.
The six of us had a great run down the river. The newbies did verry well considering two of them had not been in moving water too much. I ran the drop at the falls or hole before you get tot the slalom course twice. I want to catch the eddy behind the big boulder just beside the hole. I almost caught it the first time and did it the second time. It was a rush for sure as I slipp stream through the hole on the right angle to make the eddy. After that I ran the slalom course and did really well.
After packing up my geat I made the just over two hour drive to the Ocoee River area in south eastern TN. I finally found the Ocoee River Rats campground and hooked up with some of my Alabama friends for the night. I spent some time catching up with them before crashing for the night.
I was up early sunday morning. It was great to have a shower followed by a great breakfast with my friends. After that I said my goodbyes and headed over to the putin for the Middle Ocoee early as I was not sure where it was. It is a fairly easy shuttle to do my hitch hiking. I picked up a butt boater and gave him a ride to the putin. This would be a personal first decsent of this river. It is one of those classic souther rivers that has been on my list for a long time.
I only had to wait about 30 minutes before my friend Kimberly showed up from NC. Soon the TN boys were there. Kim and I setup our own shuttle as we were running the entire river. The TN boys were to wimpy to paddle that far.
The Ocoee is a beautiful river. It is quite busy with rafts but a fun fun. I never had any swims running any of the features. I did swim a couple times when I went back to play in the holes which consisted of some fun side and back surfs. I ran what I thought were all the technical lines as the rafts and the other rec boaters were taking the easy way down the river.
My best move of the day had to be at Cats Pajamas. It was a pour over into a hole that look straight forward. I waited for the squirt boater to finish before I did my run. The only problem was that it was a deep hole. I did a mystery move with the first six feet of my boat into the hole. I was pretty much vertical and the front part of my boat was gone. I ended up doing a whole bunch of low braces and back sweeps and managed to recover. Kim and the squirt boater thought I was a goner for sure but I came out with a big smile on my face.
Hell Hole was a blast. After getting the high sign I started my run and a butt boater decided to try and play chicken with me as he thought I was a raft only to be yelled at that I was a open boat. He got out of the way real quick. I crested the top part of the huge wave and Kim said it looked like I surfed it for a bit before dropping of the backside into the hole where I filled up. I had to run Power House very carefully. After that it was a short paddle to the takeout where Kim packed up and headed back to Asheville, NC for the night.
Whe caught up with her husband Karl and went out for Thai food followed by icecream for desert. I had never really been downtown Ashville before in the summer and in daylight. All my trips through there had always been in March and total darkness. It is a beautiful city.
Monday would be a non boating day and a leisurely drive to Charleston, WV to stay at my friends Don's place for the night. We had a great dinner together with his kids but unfortunately his wife Jo was out of town on business.
Tuesday would be a run down the New River Gorge. It was the third time I had run the river and definitely the highest I had ever paddled it. I had lots of fun on the river. My most memorable moment would be running Lower Keenies. Last time I caught the eddy behind the huge rock half way down on river right. This I would not be able to because of the high water. I boat scouted the run while the others got out and looked at it from shore. The run at this level reminded me of the Normans on the Ottawa River. It was a total blast.
Soon we were done. It was great to paddle again with Don, Jeff, and David plus meet Kevin, Kevin, and Amber. It is always a great experience on my paddling trips in the USA to see my old friends and meet new ones. I cannot believe how many people I have met over the years plus the people that know me that I have never met in person yet. It is great meeting those people when they go your the guy that did blah blah or this and that.
After goodbye were said I made the two and a half hour drive back to Pam and Pat's place for the night.
Wednesday was a leisure drive back to Canada with a stop at the duty free for some booze.
In between doing some photoshoots for some new friends of mine for their modeling portfolios I managed to squeeze in five and a half day trip down to the USA for some fun paddling.
I left work just after noon on friday 18-Jun and arrived at my friends Pam and Pat in West Virginia around 8:30. I spent some time catching up with Pat and the renovations he was doing around the house. I wish I had his skills with some of the stuff he has been doing. We had a very late BBQ dinner before I headed off to bed.
I left early saturday morning as I had a long drive to the NOC near Bryson City, North Carolina. I got there about 2pm where I met up with Alex in the putin parking lot. He was glad I was there as one of the newbies he was paddling with lost a paddle. I ended up lending him my spare paddle for the day.
I geared up quickly and caught up to them on the river. I thought it was kind of bizarre considerin was about 32C outside plust humidity and people were putting on drysuits. It was until I started paddling into the fog I realized the was was beer can cold. You could put a case of beer in the river and it would be chilled and ready in 10 minutes.
The six of us had a great run down the river. The newbies did verry well considering two of them had not been in moving water too much. I ran the drop at the falls or hole before you get tot the slalom course twice. I want to catch the eddy behind the big boulder just beside the hole. I almost caught it the first time and did it the second time. It was a rush for sure as I slipp stream through the hole on the right angle to make the eddy. After that I ran the slalom course and did really well.
After packing up my geat I made the just over two hour drive to the Ocoee River area in south eastern TN. I finally found the Ocoee River Rats campground and hooked up with some of my Alabama friends for the night. I spent some time catching up with them before crashing for the night.
I was up early sunday morning. It was great to have a shower followed by a great breakfast with my friends. After that I said my goodbyes and headed over to the putin for the Middle Ocoee early as I was not sure where it was. It is a fairly easy shuttle to do my hitch hiking. I picked up a butt boater and gave him a ride to the putin. This would be a personal first decsent of this river. It is one of those classic souther rivers that has been on my list for a long time.
I only had to wait about 30 minutes before my friend Kimberly showed up from NC. Soon the TN boys were there. Kim and I setup our own shuttle as we were running the entire river. The TN boys were to wimpy to paddle that far.
The Ocoee is a beautiful river. It is quite busy with rafts but a fun fun. I never had any swims running any of the features. I did swim a couple times when I went back to play in the holes which consisted of some fun side and back surfs. I ran what I thought were all the technical lines as the rafts and the other rec boaters were taking the easy way down the river.
My best move of the day had to be at Cats Pajamas. It was a pour over into a hole that look straight forward. I waited for the squirt boater to finish before I did my run. The only problem was that it was a deep hole. I did a mystery move with the first six feet of my boat into the hole. I was pretty much vertical and the front part of my boat was gone. I ended up doing a whole bunch of low braces and back sweeps and managed to recover. Kim and the squirt boater thought I was a goner for sure but I came out with a big smile on my face.
Hell Hole was a blast. After getting the high sign I started my run and a butt boater decided to try and play chicken with me as he thought I was a raft only to be yelled at that I was a open boat. He got out of the way real quick. I crested the top part of the huge wave and Kim said it looked like I surfed it for a bit before dropping of the backside into the hole where I filled up. I had to run Power House very carefully. After that it was a short paddle to the takeout where Kim packed up and headed back to Asheville, NC for the night.
Whe caught up with her husband Karl and went out for Thai food followed by icecream for desert. I had never really been downtown Ashville before in the summer and in daylight. All my trips through there had always been in March and total darkness. It is a beautiful city.
Monday would be a non boating day and a leisurely drive to Charleston, WV to stay at my friends Don's place for the night. We had a great dinner together with his kids but unfortunately his wife Jo was out of town on business.
Tuesday would be a run down the New River Gorge. It was the third time I had run the river and definitely the highest I had ever paddled it. I had lots of fun on the river. My most memorable moment would be running Lower Keenies. Last time I caught the eddy behind the huge rock half way down on river right. This I would not be able to because of the high water. I boat scouted the run while the others got out and looked at it from shore. The run at this level reminded me of the Normans on the Ottawa River. It was a total blast.
Soon we were done. It was great to paddle again with Don, Jeff, and David plus meet Kevin, Kevin, and Amber. It is always a great experience on my paddling trips in the USA to see my old friends and meet new ones. I cannot believe how many people I have met over the years plus the people that know me that I have never met in person yet. It is great meeting those people when they go your the guy that did blah blah or this and that.
After goodbye were said I made the two and a half hour drive back to Pam and Pat's place for the night.
Wednesday was a leisure drive back to Canada with a stop at the duty free for some booze.
Monday, June 7, 2010
Ottawa River - First paddle of the 2010 season
I had a great time paddling both channels of the Ottawa river for the last saturday. This would be my first time for the 2010 paddling season. It would also be the lowest I had paddled the river in the last three years with the gauge being at -1.25.
I met up at the putin with some of the Petawawa River Rats. After shuttling and gearing up we hit the river and headed over to McCoy's.
I hopped out to shoot photos of the gang and spent some time scouting the extreme right hand sneak line at Phil's Hole. There isn't much wiggle room for error when paddling a barge like mine. A slight mis-calculation would take me into rightside phil's which is not a very nice place to be. I ran the line fine and fairly dry for the most part. I ended up having an out of boat experience when I was not exactly setup on for centre Horshoe. I ended up in rightside which is a so so place to be but life was good.
I tried three times to side surf Babyface. Almost had it a couple times but at least i came off without swimming. Soon it was time to head down river. I wanted to paddle both channels but most people were only paddling only one channel and would be finished by noon. My dilema was soon solved when I ran into Jim and his merry bunch from Esprit. He offered his services to shuttling me back up top with them after they finished lunch. Sweet life was definitely getting better.
I met up at Iron Ring with the Rats before we spent some playtime at S-Bend. I was happy to catch the top right eddy at Butterlfly. I even managed to get a half decent front, side, and back surf in leftside Butterly before spending some time in the water. I almost recovered but I need to cool off anyway.
Soon we were at the big roar of Garvins. I carried my boat around at Elevator Shaft and setup to shoot the Esprit gang running the Dragons Tongue. I spent some time looking for a line. One of these days i want to run the tongue. Jim's only comment was don't follow our line ... just make sure you drop off the left side!
Upper No-Name was a breeze. I eddy hopped down the right side of Lower No-Name and was really happy when i caught the eddy just below Vampire. It is a half-circle indentation in the rocks that my boat just barely fits into. I first caught it a few years back when Neil and i were there. After that I jet ferried over to the Esprit lunch spot where my baby ended up as snug as a bug with the rafts on top of the bus.
After lunch we head off to the main channel. I ran the entire main without getting my shirt wet and I ran everything. I ran into Paul Mason just above Garb plus saw some other friends at Push Button and the takeout. I headed over to River Run and the Tours to say hi to some of my friends that i have not seen since the fall.
It was another great day on the river.
I met up at the putin with some of the Petawawa River Rats. After shuttling and gearing up we hit the river and headed over to McCoy's.
I hopped out to shoot photos of the gang and spent some time scouting the extreme right hand sneak line at Phil's Hole. There isn't much wiggle room for error when paddling a barge like mine. A slight mis-calculation would take me into rightside phil's which is not a very nice place to be. I ran the line fine and fairly dry for the most part. I ended up having an out of boat experience when I was not exactly setup on for centre Horshoe. I ended up in rightside which is a so so place to be but life was good.
I tried three times to side surf Babyface. Almost had it a couple times but at least i came off without swimming. Soon it was time to head down river. I wanted to paddle both channels but most people were only paddling only one channel and would be finished by noon. My dilema was soon solved when I ran into Jim and his merry bunch from Esprit. He offered his services to shuttling me back up top with them after they finished lunch. Sweet life was definitely getting better.
I met up at Iron Ring with the Rats before we spent some playtime at S-Bend. I was happy to catch the top right eddy at Butterlfly. I even managed to get a half decent front, side, and back surf in leftside Butterly before spending some time in the water. I almost recovered but I need to cool off anyway.
Soon we were at the big roar of Garvins. I carried my boat around at Elevator Shaft and setup to shoot the Esprit gang running the Dragons Tongue. I spent some time looking for a line. One of these days i want to run the tongue. Jim's only comment was don't follow our line ... just make sure you drop off the left side!
Upper No-Name was a breeze. I eddy hopped down the right side of Lower No-Name and was really happy when i caught the eddy just below Vampire. It is a half-circle indentation in the rocks that my boat just barely fits into. I first caught it a few years back when Neil and i were there. After that I jet ferried over to the Esprit lunch spot where my baby ended up as snug as a bug with the rafts on top of the bus.
After lunch we head off to the main channel. I ran the entire main without getting my shirt wet and I ran everything. I ran into Paul Mason just above Garb plus saw some other friends at Push Button and the takeout. I headed over to River Run and the Tours to say hi to some of my friends that i have not seen since the fall.
It was another great day on the river.
Friday, May 28, 2010
May 24 Weekend Paddling Roadtrip to the USA
Last weekend I headed down to the USA for another paddling roadtrip with Ryan and Wil from North Bay. We were going down for the North Branch of the Potomac River festival in West Virginia. The boys picked me up at my place late thursday afternoon with the N.O.P.E van nd boat trailer.
After a couple stops for food and gas we made it just outside of Pittsburgh for the night at 02:30 AM on friday. The boys grabbed a room while I slept in the van. We would soon be on the road again after hooking up with Leah and Wayne who were also staying at the same hotel.
We met up with our USA counterparts plus a couple more Canadians in Ohiopyle at the Lower Yough putin. Everyone geared up and hit the water. It was great to finally be able to not have to wear a drysuit for a change as the weather was great, water a hell of a lot warmer than back home, and no bugs.
After a quick run down the loop section we headed over to PS Composites near Friendsville, MD for a tour before heading off to run the 8km section of the Cheat River Narrows section. The weather was great and still holding for a beautiful day on the river. I managed to have an excellent front, back, and side surf in a small hole just below where the squirt boaters were playing.
After dinner at some pizza hut we headed off to what was supposedly a 30 minute drive to the campground but turned into almost an hour. You just cant make a 1983 Chevy van towing a boat trailer go that fast on the steep up and down curves in the hills of WV.
We arrived at the campground just in time to avoid being locked out. Soon tents were up and drinks were semi-flowing around the campfire.
Saturday would be a early day. We heading into Westernport for breakfast before heading off to the putin for the NBP. The skies were overcast and rain was in the forecast but we did not care as we were only going to get wet anyway. The three of us headed down river from the main group as we did not want to slow anyone down for any reason. We managed to hookup with another group of PA boaters.
One of the boaters recognized me and sad "Are you the Canadian". I replied "yes one of them". He then said "Are you the one in the Phil's hole video on youtube". I replied "yep that be me". After introductions were made ... I had an amazing surf time in the small hole at the normal lunch spot. The highlight of this group was a guy paddling that was 83 years old. He took up kayaking when he was 75ish.
We had a great day running the river with this group. It turns out they are planning a Lower Yough weekend in the summer during one of my planned trips. Looks like we will be hooking up and paddling together.
Soon it was time for dinner followed by a campfire and drinks.
Sunday came way too early. The plan was to pull the pin early and head over to the ASCI white water park in McHenry, MD for the day before making the trip back home. We got there and the water was not running yet. Ryan and Will checked out the park to see what would be lurking under the water later on once they turned the pumps on.
At first they only had two pumps on. I ran the first drop and was re-circualate around the big eddy a few times before I was able to get out of it and head down river. The boys decided they were just going to play on the back half of the park. I had never really thought about putting my battery in for my pumps until I was full of water as I had not had it in for the other paddling we had already done.
After I finished my first run. I wend back to the car to get my battery. Sometime during this time they cranked on another pump. The water was just a rocking which now made it even more difficult but fun to navigate the river. I did have a two out of boat experiences when some of my fellow heckler paddler friends showed up just to see what was going on but not paddle.
After a few more succesful runs it was time to leave as we had a long drive ahead of us. We left the park at 4:30 and got to my place at 2:30 monday morning. The boys headed back to North Bay after sleeping in for a bit.
Yes it was a long drive but we had lots of fun paddling in four different places.
After a couple stops for food and gas we made it just outside of Pittsburgh for the night at 02:30 AM on friday. The boys grabbed a room while I slept in the van. We would soon be on the road again after hooking up with Leah and Wayne who were also staying at the same hotel.
We met up with our USA counterparts plus a couple more Canadians in Ohiopyle at the Lower Yough putin. Everyone geared up and hit the water. It was great to finally be able to not have to wear a drysuit for a change as the weather was great, water a hell of a lot warmer than back home, and no bugs.
After a quick run down the loop section we headed over to PS Composites near Friendsville, MD for a tour before heading off to run the 8km section of the Cheat River Narrows section. The weather was great and still holding for a beautiful day on the river. I managed to have an excellent front, back, and side surf in a small hole just below where the squirt boaters were playing.
After dinner at some pizza hut we headed off to what was supposedly a 30 minute drive to the campground but turned into almost an hour. You just cant make a 1983 Chevy van towing a boat trailer go that fast on the steep up and down curves in the hills of WV.
We arrived at the campground just in time to avoid being locked out. Soon tents were up and drinks were semi-flowing around the campfire.
Saturday would be a early day. We heading into Westernport for breakfast before heading off to the putin for the NBP. The skies were overcast and rain was in the forecast but we did not care as we were only going to get wet anyway. The three of us headed down river from the main group as we did not want to slow anyone down for any reason. We managed to hookup with another group of PA boaters.
One of the boaters recognized me and sad "Are you the Canadian". I replied "yes one of them". He then said "Are you the one in the Phil's hole video on youtube". I replied "yep that be me". After introductions were made ... I had an amazing surf time in the small hole at the normal lunch spot. The highlight of this group was a guy paddling that was 83 years old. He took up kayaking when he was 75ish.
We had a great day running the river with this group. It turns out they are planning a Lower Yough weekend in the summer during one of my planned trips. Looks like we will be hooking up and paddling together.
Soon it was time for dinner followed by a campfire and drinks.
Sunday came way too early. The plan was to pull the pin early and head over to the ASCI white water park in McHenry, MD for the day before making the trip back home. We got there and the water was not running yet. Ryan and Will checked out the park to see what would be lurking under the water later on once they turned the pumps on.
At first they only had two pumps on. I ran the first drop and was re-circualate around the big eddy a few times before I was able to get out of it and head down river. The boys decided they were just going to play on the back half of the park. I had never really thought about putting my battery in for my pumps until I was full of water as I had not had it in for the other paddling we had already done.
After I finished my first run. I wend back to the car to get my battery. Sometime during this time they cranked on another pump. The water was just a rocking which now made it even more difficult but fun to navigate the river. I did have a two out of boat experiences when some of my fellow heckler paddler friends showed up just to see what was going on but not paddle.
After a few more succesful runs it was time to leave as we had a long drive ahead of us. We left the park at 4:30 and got to my place at 2:30 monday morning. The boys headed back to North Bay after sleeping in for a bit.
Yes it was a long drive but we had lots of fun paddling in four different places.
Kipawa River
The last couple of weekends have been quite eventful.
I drove up to North Bay two weekends ago to go paddling with friends on the Kipawa River near Laniel, Quebec. It was definitely a full day on the river. We were on by 11ish and and off by 7ish.
I had never paddled the river before. It was a nice hot sunny day with a low flow of 17 on the gauge but I did not care. Drysuits were definitely in order for the water was cold and the blackflies we in full swing.
I had two minor out of boat experiences ... one at the beginning of the day on Rock and Roll and the other and the end of the day at Hollywood. The river is absolutely gorgeous. The only downside to the whole day was the two mandatory portages. One around Grand Chute and the other around Pete's Dragon. I would have been better off throwing my boat in the river and watch it hopefully make the run nice and clean versus the Class VIII portage. They were both brutal. Luckily I had from the other in the group.
I would like to go back and paddle the river at rally levels of 120 but we will see if that time ever comes.
I drove up to North Bay two weekends ago to go paddling with friends on the Kipawa River near Laniel, Quebec. It was definitely a full day on the river. We were on by 11ish and and off by 7ish.
I had never paddled the river before. It was a nice hot sunny day with a low flow of 17 on the gauge but I did not care. Drysuits were definitely in order for the water was cold and the blackflies we in full swing.
I had two minor out of boat experiences ... one at the beginning of the day on Rock and Roll and the other and the end of the day at Hollywood. The river is absolutely gorgeous. The only downside to the whole day was the two mandatory portages. One around Grand Chute and the other around Pete's Dragon. I would have been better off throwing my boat in the river and watch it hopefully make the run nice and clean versus the Class VIII portage. They were both brutal. Luckily I had from the other in the group.
I would like to go back and paddle the river at rally levels of 120 but we will see if that time ever comes.
Tuesday, May 4, 2010
Hell or High Water 2010 - Petawawa Ontario
Well after a month of trying to re-adjust of being home and back to work after my 28 day road trip ... it was time to think about paddling some where.
And this somewhere would be the Petawawa River. It is pretty amazing that I swam in the Lovers and Catwalk section for many summers as a military brat but never ever paddled it in my canoe.
The time had come and what could be more safer and fun but to do it during a festival.
I headed off to my dads place after work on the thursday. I stopped off at the river to check the level and get some info from Phil. After that I stopped at Brad's to borrow a cart for my boat before finally getting to the folks place.
Friday:
I worked from his place friday and headed off to the river around 3pm to help set up. Phil and Cody were gracious to lead me down the river. I had no issues at Railroad but ended up having an out of boat experience at Lovers. I almost made it but not quite enough. After a quick self recovery we took out at the Catwalk. I was so happy with my run as it was now my first personal decent of the section of the river.
I met up in the park with a bunch of old friends to catch up on life.
Saturday:
Today would be race day and I headed over early to help set up. This would be my day of sever stupidity. I would eventually have to make TWO trips back to my dads ... first to get my drysuit and booties ... the second to get my pfd and helmet. I must say I was a total idiot.
It was great to see more of my friends. Especially Jen as i had not seen where in over a year due to her travelling with her job. It was nice to have her back in country safe and sound.
I did a practice run on the river and it went very well. I did not care about my time. It was more of making it down the river blue sky up. I made it through lovers no problem at all and was very very happy. I spent about an hour shooting photos of the practice runs. The weather and lighting were not that great for doing so but hey it would not be a festival without crappy weather.
I headed back up to the top for timed race run. As l uck would have it I ended up side surfing the last hole at the bottom of railroad for a very long time. I was told by many people later who were standing on the bridge that they were worried that I was stuck under my boat when I was actually still in my boat. I was forced to bail when i came out of my outfitting.
I had a laugh when a rescue kayaker said let go of your boat as we were swimming together ... I went ... uh ... NO. I Swam the boat to shore ... emptied her out and go back in. Soon I was at Lovers ... I took the same line as before and totally aced it by going completely left of the rooster tail. It was an awesome but tiring run by the time I got to the Catwalk finish line. I think I did it in under 11 minutes including my out of boat experience.
Later that night we all went to the Yacht Club on the Base for dinner and awards ceremony.
Photos are here http://www.flickr.com/photos/cmnypny/sets/72157623893866513/
Sunday:
Today would be an interesting day. It would be my personal first decent of the Upper Petawawa River in Algonquin Park. I was a bit nervous to say the least.
I manage to hook up with three other open boaters I have paddle with in the past. It would have been five of us in total but Jamie got hurt the day before and could not make it.
After doing all the shuttle logistics we put on the river and enjoyed a leisurely warm up paddle to the first set of rapids. Soon there was us and about thirty kayakers on the river. I managed to run my first ever drop in my life. I think it was about a six footer. I ran it clean with the proper angle and lean back. It was a bit nerver racking as I was not sure about how far back to lean but I nailed it. I have hapy to see that alot of people I new watched me run it.
There was another sketchy drop on river right at the next set. I did not even attempt to think about running that one. I took the left channel and end up having a swim. I ended up with having to much lean going through the hole sideways. I tried my best to slowly move my weight over to the other side and almost made it. Johno said i looked like one of those fainting goats trying to get my boat to lean the other way in slo-motion.
After that the river was pretty much full on. I ran the rest of the solid class 4's fine with some interesting lines to say the least. It did not take the four of us long to scout each set. It got to the point that we head to depart from the group of kayakers as they were taking way to long to over analyze the runs only to end up psyching themselves out not to run them.
I ended up running the drop at the last class 5 fine but did not realize there was more crap further down below about 100 metres away and ended up going over the equivalent of Leftside Horsehoe on the Ottawa and then having a short swim.
After what would be a long bumpy swim on a stupid "F_ck You" rock we were at the takeout.
All I can say is that is was a fricking awesome experience and I want to run that section of river again. Thanks to Dave, Matt, and Johno for an excellent day.
I must apologize to Jen for bailing and not paddling with her tah day. Sorry ... next time!
Photos are here. Not that many due to all the rain.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/cmnypny/sets/72157624018869150/
And this somewhere would be the Petawawa River. It is pretty amazing that I swam in the Lovers and Catwalk section for many summers as a military brat but never ever paddled it in my canoe.
The time had come and what could be more safer and fun but to do it during a festival.
I headed off to my dads place after work on the thursday. I stopped off at the river to check the level and get some info from Phil. After that I stopped at Brad's to borrow a cart for my boat before finally getting to the folks place.
Friday:
I worked from his place friday and headed off to the river around 3pm to help set up. Phil and Cody were gracious to lead me down the river. I had no issues at Railroad but ended up having an out of boat experience at Lovers. I almost made it but not quite enough. After a quick self recovery we took out at the Catwalk. I was so happy with my run as it was now my first personal decent of the section of the river.
I met up in the park with a bunch of old friends to catch up on life.
Saturday:
Today would be race day and I headed over early to help set up. This would be my day of sever stupidity. I would eventually have to make TWO trips back to my dads ... first to get my drysuit and booties ... the second to get my pfd and helmet. I must say I was a total idiot.
It was great to see more of my friends. Especially Jen as i had not seen where in over a year due to her travelling with her job. It was nice to have her back in country safe and sound.
I did a practice run on the river and it went very well. I did not care about my time. It was more of making it down the river blue sky up. I made it through lovers no problem at all and was very very happy. I spent about an hour shooting photos of the practice runs. The weather and lighting were not that great for doing so but hey it would not be a festival without crappy weather.
I headed back up to the top for timed race run. As l uck would have it I ended up side surfing the last hole at the bottom of railroad for a very long time. I was told by many people later who were standing on the bridge that they were worried that I was stuck under my boat when I was actually still in my boat. I was forced to bail when i came out of my outfitting.
I had a laugh when a rescue kayaker said let go of your boat as we were swimming together ... I went ... uh ... NO. I Swam the boat to shore ... emptied her out and go back in. Soon I was at Lovers ... I took the same line as before and totally aced it by going completely left of the rooster tail. It was an awesome but tiring run by the time I got to the Catwalk finish line. I think I did it in under 11 minutes including my out of boat experience.
Later that night we all went to the Yacht Club on the Base for dinner and awards ceremony.
Photos are here http://www.flickr.com/photos/cmnypny/sets/72157623893866513/
Sunday:
Today would be an interesting day. It would be my personal first decent of the Upper Petawawa River in Algonquin Park. I was a bit nervous to say the least.
I manage to hook up with three other open boaters I have paddle with in the past. It would have been five of us in total but Jamie got hurt the day before and could not make it.
After doing all the shuttle logistics we put on the river and enjoyed a leisurely warm up paddle to the first set of rapids. Soon there was us and about thirty kayakers on the river. I managed to run my first ever drop in my life. I think it was about a six footer. I ran it clean with the proper angle and lean back. It was a bit nerver racking as I was not sure about how far back to lean but I nailed it. I have hapy to see that alot of people I new watched me run it.
There was another sketchy drop on river right at the next set. I did not even attempt to think about running that one. I took the left channel and end up having a swim. I ended up with having to much lean going through the hole sideways. I tried my best to slowly move my weight over to the other side and almost made it. Johno said i looked like one of those fainting goats trying to get my boat to lean the other way in slo-motion.
After that the river was pretty much full on. I ran the rest of the solid class 4's fine with some interesting lines to say the least. It did not take the four of us long to scout each set. It got to the point that we head to depart from the group of kayakers as they were taking way to long to over analyze the runs only to end up psyching themselves out not to run them.
I ended up running the drop at the last class 5 fine but did not realize there was more crap further down below about 100 metres away and ended up going over the equivalent of Leftside Horsehoe on the Ottawa and then having a short swim.
After what would be a long bumpy swim on a stupid "F_ck You" rock we were at the takeout.
All I can say is that is was a fricking awesome experience and I want to run that section of river again. Thanks to Dave, Matt, and Johno for an excellent day.
I must apologize to Jen for bailing and not paddling with her tah day. Sorry ... next time!
Photos are here. Not that many due to all the rain.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/cmnypny/sets/72157624018869150/
Monday, April 19, 2010
The Roadtrip Home
I know I am a bit late on getting this final post to my roadtrip done but here goes.
Monday 5th April 2010
I left Colorado and kept driving east. My most memorable moment of the day was when I was driving painfully slow at about 20 to 25MPH in a really long construction area thru Hickville, Somewhere. I had a really good laugh when I ended up getting passed by a tumbleweed that was going faster then me.
I arrived in Wichita, KS around 3pm which gave me time to check into the hotel, cleanup, and get my camera gear ready before my friend David picked me up for dinner at his place.
It was great to finally meet his family in person. Having a sitdown dinner with all the fixins was a real treat and was thoroughly enjoyed by all.
After that it was off to robotics night. David has been heavily involved with a local group of home schooled kids that compete in robotics competitions.
Every year it is a different so called game play. A detailed manual is given out to those teams that wish to compete. It outlines what task the robot has to complete. All the raw materials are provided for free and you can only use what has been provided. The is absolutey no charge for any of the teams to enter the competition.
The kids did have to raise funds in order to purchase the materials to make a replica of the game play area, presentation supplies, etc.
David's son was on this years team and was involved in the CAD portion of the design phase. There were about 30 kids involved in the design, build, test, presentation, and competition phases of the robot. The youngest was 13 and the oldest was 18. All the kids had to be home schooled at least 51% of the time (this allowed some of the kids to take some early university/college courses).
These kids are the master of building robots as they have been doing it for years. It was pretty amazing to see the results of them being able to split pvc pipe down, flatten it, and then reshape it for their own needs let alone the programming in C language for the brain and remote controllers, etc.
I sat through their formal and booth presentations. It was pretty amazing to see the hard work these kids did. They treated the whole project by forming a company with various departments and everything complete with employee badges.
The team gets together four nights a week and all day saturdays. The furtherest people come from about 70 miles away. Thats the dedication that won themthe right to compete in the upcoming Nationals in Dallas, TX
Their team name is "Wichita Homeschool Warriors" and their website is http://www.whwrbest.com/
Tuesday 6th April 2010
Spent the day driving to Chicago, IL area where I had my last free hotel room at the Four Points hotel from one of my points card. It was even across the road from the Midway Coscto so I go another one off my list. I ended up going for a long walk followed by dinner at a really good Mexican place.
Wednesday 7th April 2010
Spent the day driving back my house. Picked up a couple of bottles at the duty free and sailed through customs like nothing. Had dinner in Barrie with my friend Mark at Jack Astors as I was not cooking anything that night.
Thursday 8th April 2010
The plan was to actually go into the office and work but I kind of didn't make it. I had this really bizzare dream where I dreamnt I was sleeping in my own bed. I woke up to see that I was not in my tent and went back to sleep only to realize that it was not a dream but reality.
I ended up working from home both thursday and friday playing catchup on emails and other stuff.
That concludes the end of my trip. I ended up driving 13013 KM or 8085 miles in 28 days.
I still need to figure out how much it cost me but I am pretty sure I did it for under 2000 bucks!
Monday 5th April 2010
I left Colorado and kept driving east. My most memorable moment of the day was when I was driving painfully slow at about 20 to 25MPH in a really long construction area thru Hickville, Somewhere. I had a really good laugh when I ended up getting passed by a tumbleweed that was going faster then me.
I arrived in Wichita, KS around 3pm which gave me time to check into the hotel, cleanup, and get my camera gear ready before my friend David picked me up for dinner at his place.
It was great to finally meet his family in person. Having a sitdown dinner with all the fixins was a real treat and was thoroughly enjoyed by all.
After that it was off to robotics night. David has been heavily involved with a local group of home schooled kids that compete in robotics competitions.
Every year it is a different so called game play. A detailed manual is given out to those teams that wish to compete. It outlines what task the robot has to complete. All the raw materials are provided for free and you can only use what has been provided. The is absolutey no charge for any of the teams to enter the competition.
The kids did have to raise funds in order to purchase the materials to make a replica of the game play area, presentation supplies, etc.
David's son was on this years team and was involved in the CAD portion of the design phase. There were about 30 kids involved in the design, build, test, presentation, and competition phases of the robot. The youngest was 13 and the oldest was 18. All the kids had to be home schooled at least 51% of the time (this allowed some of the kids to take some early university/college courses).
These kids are the master of building robots as they have been doing it for years. It was pretty amazing to see the results of them being able to split pvc pipe down, flatten it, and then reshape it for their own needs let alone the programming in C language for the brain and remote controllers, etc.
I sat through their formal and booth presentations. It was pretty amazing to see the hard work these kids did. They treated the whole project by forming a company with various departments and everything complete with employee badges.
The team gets together four nights a week and all day saturdays. The furtherest people come from about 70 miles away. Thats the dedication that won themthe right to compete in the upcoming Nationals in Dallas, TX
Their team name is "Wichita Homeschool Warriors" and their website is http://www.whwrbest.com/
Tuesday 6th April 2010
Spent the day driving to Chicago, IL area where I had my last free hotel room at the Four Points hotel from one of my points card. It was even across the road from the Midway Coscto so I go another one off my list. I ended up going for a long walk followed by dinner at a really good Mexican place.
Wednesday 7th April 2010
Spent the day driving back my house. Picked up a couple of bottles at the duty free and sailed through customs like nothing. Had dinner in Barrie with my friend Mark at Jack Astors as I was not cooking anything that night.
Thursday 8th April 2010
The plan was to actually go into the office and work but I kind of didn't make it. I had this really bizzare dream where I dreamnt I was sleeping in my own bed. I woke up to see that I was not in my tent and went back to sleep only to realize that it was not a dream but reality.
I ended up working from home both thursday and friday playing catchup on emails and other stuff.
That concludes the end of my trip. I ended up driving 13013 KM or 8085 miles in 28 days.
I still need to figure out how much it cost me but I am pretty sure I did it for under 2000 bucks!
Monday, April 5, 2010
The Arches, Canyon Lands, and beyond
Tuesday 30th March, 2010
I slept in until 9am. Guess I needed it.
Spent the rest of the morning going through my receipts, online banking, and off-loading photos from my memory cards.
Went to a paddling film festival in SLC. It was kayaker oriented … I guess they have not seen the light yet!
Wednesday 31st March, 2010
I spent most of the day over at Antelope Island. The weather kind of sucked for photos but it is a really amazing place to visit. Hard to believe that on a relatively small island on the variety in the changes of landscape it had. There was quite the collection of Bison and other animals there.
I did manage to visit the Costco in Ogden (another one of my list) before heading back to Jeff’s Places. I did have to log into work for a while and finish off some month end reporting stuff otherwise I would have spent longer trying to fix it if someone else had tried to do it for me.
Thursday 1st April, 2010
Woke up to about three inches of sticky wet snow on my car. Great day for a road trip to the Moab. Luckily I still had my snow tires on as the road was kind of sketchy in spots on the number 6 highway thru the canyon. There was no sign of snow once on the other side. Tip …. There is a huge frigging Jeep Safari every Easter weekend in Moab. The place is a total zoo. I have never seen so many jeeps in once place. A lot of the things cost 40K or more with all the bells and whistles they hand on them. The cops were having a field day handing out tickets to the maniacs on the road.
I spent the next couple of days in The Arches National Park. Pretty amazing place to visit. I highly recommend it to everyone.
Saturday 3rd April, 2010
I spent the early morning in The Arches and the afternoon in Canyon Lands National Park. Amazing view from above. I then drove down to the Newspaper Rock State Park to take some photos of the petroglyphs before finding a place to camp at the BLM just a few miles from outside the Canyon Lands Needles park entrance. You can camp anywhere there for free but I decided to be sociable and pay 6 bucks to camp at a fee site and mingle with some of the others there.
It was the first time I actually set my tent up in daylight hours. Later that night a wind storm came in.
Sunday 4th April, 2010
I woke up to a whole bunch of red sand inside my tent that blew in through the mesh screen. Luckily I keep all my clothes and stuff in a Rubbermaid container inside the tent otherwise it would have been real interesting trying to get the dirt out of it all. I spoke to the BLM campsite host. He said the winds were about 60 MPH. He was surprised my tent was still in one piece and attached to the ground. He told me he has seen lots of tents get totally ripped to shreds in the wind storms. Go Sierra Designs!!!!
I headed over to the Needles section of Canyon Lands and hiked some of the shorter trails.
I then came to a decision that I was getting vacationed out and made a decision to start heading east. I emailed my friend in Wichita and asked if it was ok to come Monday and Tuesday night instead of Thursday and Friday night. He said it was fine but the only problem now was his son had MONO so staying there was not really an option. David had a plan B which was to let me use a two night hotel gift certificate they had won in a fundraiser. I now have a comfy stay in Wichita to look forward to.
I managed to make it all the way to Walsenburg, CO before deciding to stop for the night. I really think that all the deer in Colorado really need not to stand on the road to eat the grass in the dark. Is the amount of damage to a car by a deer different at 55 to 65 mph? It was too much drama for me so I ended up getting a room for the night instead of playing chicken with a deer.
I slept in until 9am. Guess I needed it.
Spent the rest of the morning going through my receipts, online banking, and off-loading photos from my memory cards.
Went to a paddling film festival in SLC. It was kayaker oriented … I guess they have not seen the light yet!
Wednesday 31st March, 2010
I spent most of the day over at Antelope Island. The weather kind of sucked for photos but it is a really amazing place to visit. Hard to believe that on a relatively small island on the variety in the changes of landscape it had. There was quite the collection of Bison and other animals there.
I did manage to visit the Costco in Ogden (another one of my list) before heading back to Jeff’s Places. I did have to log into work for a while and finish off some month end reporting stuff otherwise I would have spent longer trying to fix it if someone else had tried to do it for me.
Thursday 1st April, 2010
Woke up to about three inches of sticky wet snow on my car. Great day for a road trip to the Moab. Luckily I still had my snow tires on as the road was kind of sketchy in spots on the number 6 highway thru the canyon. There was no sign of snow once on the other side. Tip …. There is a huge frigging Jeep Safari every Easter weekend in Moab. The place is a total zoo. I have never seen so many jeeps in once place. A lot of the things cost 40K or more with all the bells and whistles they hand on them. The cops were having a field day handing out tickets to the maniacs on the road.
I spent the next couple of days in The Arches National Park. Pretty amazing place to visit. I highly recommend it to everyone.
Saturday 3rd April, 2010
I spent the early morning in The Arches and the afternoon in Canyon Lands National Park. Amazing view from above. I then drove down to the Newspaper Rock State Park to take some photos of the petroglyphs before finding a place to camp at the BLM just a few miles from outside the Canyon Lands Needles park entrance. You can camp anywhere there for free but I decided to be sociable and pay 6 bucks to camp at a fee site and mingle with some of the others there.
It was the first time I actually set my tent up in daylight hours. Later that night a wind storm came in.
Sunday 4th April, 2010
I woke up to a whole bunch of red sand inside my tent that blew in through the mesh screen. Luckily I keep all my clothes and stuff in a Rubbermaid container inside the tent otherwise it would have been real interesting trying to get the dirt out of it all. I spoke to the BLM campsite host. He said the winds were about 60 MPH. He was surprised my tent was still in one piece and attached to the ground. He told me he has seen lots of tents get totally ripped to shreds in the wind storms. Go Sierra Designs!!!!
I headed over to the Needles section of Canyon Lands and hiked some of the shorter trails.
I then came to a decision that I was getting vacationed out and made a decision to start heading east. I emailed my friend in Wichita and asked if it was ok to come Monday and Tuesday night instead of Thursday and Friday night. He said it was fine but the only problem now was his son had MONO so staying there was not really an option. David had a plan B which was to let me use a two night hotel gift certificate they had won in a fundraiser. I now have a comfy stay in Wichita to look forward to.
I managed to make it all the way to Walsenburg, CO before deciding to stop for the night. I really think that all the deer in Colorado really need not to stand on the road to eat the grass in the dark. Is the amount of damage to a car by a deer different at 55 to 65 mph? It was too much drama for me so I ended up getting a room for the night instead of playing chicken with a deer.
Tuesday, March 30, 2010
Utah
Saturday March 27th, 2010
I made the drive over to Zion National Park. I must say yes … the Grand Canyon when viewed from above has the holy crap what a nice view feeling when you first look at it but Zion is way better. After getting a camping spot I hiked around for the afternoon shoot photos of the amazing rocks and shadows.
This place is totally worth seeing and spending a few days at.
Sunday March 28th, 2010
I actually managed to sleep in until 9am. I guess life on the road finally caught up to me. But I think it is probably due to all the fresh air and the higher altitude. I must say it takes a lot more out of you hiking around here then it does back home. I spent the rest of the morning shooting photos on the east side of the mountain tunnel before making the roadtrip out to Bryce Canyon.
I was in shock when I finally arrived. There was still about four to five feet of snow all over the place. I stopped at the visitor center and then headed right up to the end of the road as far as it would go at an elevation of just over 9000 feet.
I slowly worked my way back down shooting photos at all the view points. I came across a German family from New Mexico that had a top radiator hose that was leaking. It took me a few minutes to find my metal duct tape that was somewhere in my car. I took off the radiator hose and taped it up. They refilled the radiator with water and they were good to go to make it to the closest town to get a new hose.
After that it was back to shooting photos which lasted a whole two minutes. My circular polarizing filter decided to come off my camera lense and roll down about 200 feet down the steep cliff bank before it most likely fell the other 1000 feet to the bottom somewhere. I was not going to get it back.
I now had to change my plans. Instead of heading to the Moab area I decided to head up to Salt Lake City area and drop off a boat to my friend Jeff. This would give me time to buy another filter and get an oil change for my car as it was due for one. This also unfortunately meant that I would not have enough time to head up to Montana to visit another friend of mine as I would have to backtrack over to Moab to finish off my photo trip.
I made the 4.5 hour trip up to Jeff’s place. The drive up through highway 15 was beautiful. This would be the first time I actually met Jeff in person. We knew each other from CBoats.net and he found out I was heading out west and asked me if I could shuttle a boat from TN to his place as it was on my way. He was happy to get his new toy.
Monday 29th March, 2010
Today would be a lazy day. I managed to buy a new filter, oil changed on the car, and re-attached my thwart on my boat (thanks to Jeff).
Jeff and I headed off to a local play spot ten minutes from his place named Riverdale Wave. It is a cool spot to play at. The water was a bit low but you could still get some surfs in. We were there for about an hour before heading over to another play spot. Jeff continued to paddle there while I took photos of him and an old abandoned building that was beside the river.
After that we headed over to one of the local creek runs. It was low an runable in a plastic boat but not my barge. As we walked along the river Jeff explained all the features and dangers of the river. It was a really cool section of river complete with an outdoor shooting range beside it.
Soon it was time for dinner and watching of some video clips of the local play spots at higher water.
I was wiped and was in bed by 9pm.
I made the drive over to Zion National Park. I must say yes … the Grand Canyon when viewed from above has the holy crap what a nice view feeling when you first look at it but Zion is way better. After getting a camping spot I hiked around for the afternoon shoot photos of the amazing rocks and shadows.
This place is totally worth seeing and spending a few days at.
Sunday March 28th, 2010
I actually managed to sleep in until 9am. I guess life on the road finally caught up to me. But I think it is probably due to all the fresh air and the higher altitude. I must say it takes a lot more out of you hiking around here then it does back home. I spent the rest of the morning shooting photos on the east side of the mountain tunnel before making the roadtrip out to Bryce Canyon.
I was in shock when I finally arrived. There was still about four to five feet of snow all over the place. I stopped at the visitor center and then headed right up to the end of the road as far as it would go at an elevation of just over 9000 feet.
I slowly worked my way back down shooting photos at all the view points. I came across a German family from New Mexico that had a top radiator hose that was leaking. It took me a few minutes to find my metal duct tape that was somewhere in my car. I took off the radiator hose and taped it up. They refilled the radiator with water and they were good to go to make it to the closest town to get a new hose.
After that it was back to shooting photos which lasted a whole two minutes. My circular polarizing filter decided to come off my camera lense and roll down about 200 feet down the steep cliff bank before it most likely fell the other 1000 feet to the bottom somewhere. I was not going to get it back.
I now had to change my plans. Instead of heading to the Moab area I decided to head up to Salt Lake City area and drop off a boat to my friend Jeff. This would give me time to buy another filter and get an oil change for my car as it was due for one. This also unfortunately meant that I would not have enough time to head up to Montana to visit another friend of mine as I would have to backtrack over to Moab to finish off my photo trip.
I made the 4.5 hour trip up to Jeff’s place. The drive up through highway 15 was beautiful. This would be the first time I actually met Jeff in person. We knew each other from CBoats.net and he found out I was heading out west and asked me if I could shuttle a boat from TN to his place as it was on my way. He was happy to get his new toy.
Monday 29th March, 2010
Today would be a lazy day. I managed to buy a new filter, oil changed on the car, and re-attached my thwart on my boat (thanks to Jeff).
Jeff and I headed off to a local play spot ten minutes from his place named Riverdale Wave. It is a cool spot to play at. The water was a bit low but you could still get some surfs in. We were there for about an hour before heading over to another play spot. Jeff continued to paddle there while I took photos of him and an old abandoned building that was beside the river.
After that we headed over to one of the local creek runs. It was low an runable in a plastic boat but not my barge. As we walked along the river Jeff explained all the features and dangers of the river. It was a really cool section of river complete with an outdoor shooting range beside it.
Soon it was time for dinner and watching of some video clips of the local play spots at higher water.
I was wiped and was in bed by 9pm.
Saturday, March 27, 2010
New Mexico and Arizona
Wednesday March 24th, 2010
It was snowing when I went out to load up the car. I was laughing my ass off when I saw a whole pile of cars from California covered in snow and they owners weren’t sure how to take the snow off them. They looked at me funny when I pulled my snow brush out of the car and cleaned my car off. I was asked where did I buy that and answered with Canada.
I spent the day driving around the northwest part of New Mexico. I was totally amazed at how the landscape was always changing in terms of rock formations and plant life. I spent about four hours hiking around the Chaco Culture World Heritage Park. It was pretty amazing to see remnants of Pueblo’s that were built sometime in the 800A.D. I was able to get some great photos of pictographs and rock formations.
After that I drove up to Shiprock to take some photos of Shiprock Peak. I was hoping to get up close but the dirt road leading into it started to get pretty sketchy. It was definitely a beautiful sunset.
After that I headed down to Gallup and grabbed a room for the night.
Thursday March 25th, 2010
I continued my day driving around New Mexico.
My first stop was at the El Malpais National Monument. It was really cool to see sandstone bluffs on one side of you and the left overs of volcanic eruption on the other side of you. I also managed to get some amazing photos of a natural arch bridge.
Next stop was at the Very Large Area (VLA). This place had 27 huge radio astronomy dishes that when place in their largest configuration in the shape of a Y that each leg of the Y would be 13 miles long. They were in their smallest configuration close together which was pretty cool to see. For those of you who have seen the movie Contact with Jodie Foster … this is where part of the movie was filmed.
Next stop was Flagstaff, Arizona. The plan was to meet some boaters from the south east that were just finishing up a 16 day paddling adventure down the Grand Canyon. I missed dinner with them but we were able to hang out next door at the Pub for drinks. It was great to meet Anne, Amanda, and the gang.
Friday March 26th, 2010
Once again I woke up to snow on my car.
Todays plan was to hang out at the Grand Canyon for most of the day. The drive over was interesting. At 8000 feet the winds were blowing with white out conditions. There was a car about 300 meters in front of me and then he disappeared only to re-appear in the ditch. Glad I still had my winter tires on. For the most part my trip has been hovering in the low temps and I was prepared with everything from summer to winter clothes and anything in between.
I spent about four hours hiking along the South Rim trail. The view was amazing. I am totally envious of a few different groups of my paddling friends that have been able to paddle the Grand Canyon over the last few months.
I made the drive up to Page Arizona and camped for the night. Luckily I put all the extra tent pegs in as around midnight a huge windstorm accompanied by rain moved in. I thought I was going to lose my tent fly but everything worked out.
It was snowing when I went out to load up the car. I was laughing my ass off when I saw a whole pile of cars from California covered in snow and they owners weren’t sure how to take the snow off them. They looked at me funny when I pulled my snow brush out of the car and cleaned my car off. I was asked where did I buy that and answered with Canada.
I spent the day driving around the northwest part of New Mexico. I was totally amazed at how the landscape was always changing in terms of rock formations and plant life. I spent about four hours hiking around the Chaco Culture World Heritage Park. It was pretty amazing to see remnants of Pueblo’s that were built sometime in the 800A.D. I was able to get some great photos of pictographs and rock formations.
After that I drove up to Shiprock to take some photos of Shiprock Peak. I was hoping to get up close but the dirt road leading into it started to get pretty sketchy. It was definitely a beautiful sunset.
After that I headed down to Gallup and grabbed a room for the night.
Thursday March 25th, 2010
I continued my day driving around New Mexico.
My first stop was at the El Malpais National Monument. It was really cool to see sandstone bluffs on one side of you and the left overs of volcanic eruption on the other side of you. I also managed to get some amazing photos of a natural arch bridge.
Next stop was at the Very Large Area (VLA). This place had 27 huge radio astronomy dishes that when place in their largest configuration in the shape of a Y that each leg of the Y would be 13 miles long. They were in their smallest configuration close together which was pretty cool to see. For those of you who have seen the movie Contact with Jodie Foster … this is where part of the movie was filmed.
Next stop was Flagstaff, Arizona. The plan was to meet some boaters from the south east that were just finishing up a 16 day paddling adventure down the Grand Canyon. I missed dinner with them but we were able to hang out next door at the Pub for drinks. It was great to meet Anne, Amanda, and the gang.
Friday March 26th, 2010
Once again I woke up to snow on my car.
Todays plan was to hang out at the Grand Canyon for most of the day. The drive over was interesting. At 8000 feet the winds were blowing with white out conditions. There was a car about 300 meters in front of me and then he disappeared only to re-appear in the ditch. Glad I still had my winter tires on. For the most part my trip has been hovering in the low temps and I was prepared with everything from summer to winter clothes and anything in between.
I spent about four hours hiking along the South Rim trail. The view was amazing. I am totally envious of a few different groups of my paddling friends that have been able to paddle the Grand Canyon over the last few months.
I made the drive up to Page Arizona and camped for the night. Luckily I put all the extra tent pegs in as around midnight a huge windstorm accompanied by rain moved in. I thought I was going to lose my tent fly but everything worked out.
Tuesday, March 23, 2010
Paddling in Alabama and the drive out west
Wednesday 17th March- paddled the Tellico and then off to Davids place in Hunstville for the night
Thursday 18th March
Spent the day at the Space Museum in Huntsville, AL. It is a really cool place to spend the day and just relax. I also managed do some shopping at the local Costco.
I ran into the Jackson Kayak crew at a restaurant just outside of Kings bend. It was nice to get caught up with everone as I had not seen them since last summer before they competed at Worlds in Switzerland.
I spent the night camping at Alabama Mountain Games site.
Friday 19th March
I woke up to find ice on my tent. WTF is up with that as I am in friggin Alabama!
I ran the Locust Fork river from Swann Bridge and took photos of rodeo completion at Ender Hole. I also had some fun playing in the hole. Got some great front, side, and back surfs in plus a couple of swims after but worth it. The crowd on shore seemed to be surprised I could surf my boat in there. It was a funny that when a kayaker swims another one chases them. None of them chase an open boater. Guess it comes down that kayakers might not know how to swim
Saturday 20th March
Today would be the Locust Fork Slalom Race, I spent most of the day shoot photos of my friends. I had a great BBQ lunch from Art Fowler, I have been totally amazed with the BBQ I have had all over the South East. BBQ in Canada sucks big time. At the end of the day I decided to run the lower part of the course and did very well. I should have raced…. Maybe next time. We all went to the awards at AMG site and then it was time to say goodbye to friends but not before setting plans in motion for Nationals and Gauleyfest. I was lucky enough to stay at a friend place that night and avoided the rain
Sunday 21st March
Paddled the Locust Fork from Kings bend down to the 160 takeout with the gang , Ran an excellent line at the drop on the falls. Arlene and Joseph decided to run my line as I made it look easy and did not hit any rocks. Part way down the river I pulled a Old Town Discovery fiber glass boat of a rock in less than a minute by myself. It had a huge crack right across the middle of it. Judy asked me how many times I had done that in my life as I made it look so easy. My answer was lots . It got pretty cold on the river near the end when the wind picked up near the end as the temperature dropped big time.
Mexican for dinner in Oneanta followed by a nice comfy bed at a friends place in Talledaga.
Side Note:
I think the one most question that a lot of people asked if I went to the Olympics. I don’t want to seem rude but the Americans have no concept at how big Canada really is.
Here are the stats from Wikipedia:
Covering 9,984,670 km2 or 3,855,100 sq mi (Land: 9,093,507 km2 or 3,511,023 sq mi; Water: 891,163 km2 or 344,080 sq mi, Canada is slightly larger than the U.S.
Monday 22nd March
The plan was to drive 1270KM to Oklahoma City today. Managed to do it in 13.5 hours,
I was hoping to go visit some friends in Wichita Kansas but decided it was not in plans for this trip due to some tight time frames for getting on all my photography stuff.
I crossed the North Canadian River twice and then decided to get a room on my points at the Sheraton by the airport. You should have seen the look on the cops at the airport when I did a drive by with two canoes on my car. It was like a WTF moment!
Spent the night getting caught up on re-charging the camera batteries and backup photos from memory cards onto a couple of external drives.
Logged into work and caught up on some work that needs to be done during my trip. Works out well as I get to save a vacation day or two by the time my trip is over.
Also rinsed off some of my paddling gear and hung it up to dry before a well deserved sleep.
Tuesday 23rd March 24, 2010
I managed to sleep in and then pack up my gear.
I logged into work for a conference call. Looks like I have to figure out some computer programming stuff in my head during my driving time.
I talked to my dad for a bit to see if he got rid of some nasty spyware off his computer. Luckily he was able to do a system restore back to just before he got it. So life`is now way better for him!
Today will be a shorter drive of about 850km to Albuquerque NM.
Crossed the South Canadian River and drove through a place called Canadian County.
I talked to a State Trooper in Shamrock Texas about speeding on the highway. He told me not to go past 70mph as the posted limit is strictly enforced in Texas.
The landscape through Oklahoma and Texas is pretty barren. Saw probably 200 or so of those huge wind power generation towers all over the place. Also would like to know why gas is more expensive in Texas than all the other states I have been through.
Finally reached the New Mexico border and huge wind sheer while driving. Almost saw a transport get blown off the road. Glad I was not beside it
I saw a motor home on its side as it was blown over by the wind. I could only go 65mph in the wind even though the posted speed was 75mph
I decided to grab a room in Santa Fe, New Mexico for the night. I think tomorrow will be a promising day for photos as long as the weather holds out.
Thursday 18th March
Spent the day at the Space Museum in Huntsville, AL. It is a really cool place to spend the day and just relax. I also managed do some shopping at the local Costco.
I ran into the Jackson Kayak crew at a restaurant just outside of Kings bend. It was nice to get caught up with everone as I had not seen them since last summer before they competed at Worlds in Switzerland.
I spent the night camping at Alabama Mountain Games site.
Friday 19th March
I woke up to find ice on my tent. WTF is up with that as I am in friggin Alabama!
I ran the Locust Fork river from Swann Bridge and took photos of rodeo completion at Ender Hole. I also had some fun playing in the hole. Got some great front, side, and back surfs in plus a couple of swims after but worth it. The crowd on shore seemed to be surprised I could surf my boat in there. It was a funny that when a kayaker swims another one chases them. None of them chase an open boater. Guess it comes down that kayakers might not know how to swim
Saturday 20th March
Today would be the Locust Fork Slalom Race, I spent most of the day shoot photos of my friends. I had a great BBQ lunch from Art Fowler, I have been totally amazed with the BBQ I have had all over the South East. BBQ in Canada sucks big time. At the end of the day I decided to run the lower part of the course and did very well. I should have raced…. Maybe next time. We all went to the awards at AMG site and then it was time to say goodbye to friends but not before setting plans in motion for Nationals and Gauleyfest. I was lucky enough to stay at a friend place that night and avoided the rain
Sunday 21st March
Paddled the Locust Fork from Kings bend down to the 160 takeout with the gang , Ran an excellent line at the drop on the falls. Arlene and Joseph decided to run my line as I made it look easy and did not hit any rocks. Part way down the river I pulled a Old Town Discovery fiber glass boat of a rock in less than a minute by myself. It had a huge crack right across the middle of it. Judy asked me how many times I had done that in my life as I made it look so easy. My answer was lots . It got pretty cold on the river near the end when the wind picked up near the end as the temperature dropped big time.
Mexican for dinner in Oneanta followed by a nice comfy bed at a friends place in Talledaga.
Side Note:
I think the one most question that a lot of people asked if I went to the Olympics. I don’t want to seem rude but the Americans have no concept at how big Canada really is.
Here are the stats from Wikipedia:
Covering 9,984,670 km2 or 3,855,100 sq mi (Land: 9,093,507 km2 or 3,511,023 sq mi; Water: 891,163 km2 or 344,080 sq mi, Canada is slightly larger than the U.S.
Monday 22nd March
The plan was to drive 1270KM to Oklahoma City today. Managed to do it in 13.5 hours,
I was hoping to go visit some friends in Wichita Kansas but decided it was not in plans for this trip due to some tight time frames for getting on all my photography stuff.
I crossed the North Canadian River twice and then decided to get a room on my points at the Sheraton by the airport. You should have seen the look on the cops at the airport when I did a drive by with two canoes on my car. It was like a WTF moment!
Spent the night getting caught up on re-charging the camera batteries and backup photos from memory cards onto a couple of external drives.
Logged into work and caught up on some work that needs to be done during my trip. Works out well as I get to save a vacation day or two by the time my trip is over.
Also rinsed off some of my paddling gear and hung it up to dry before a well deserved sleep.
Tuesday 23rd March 24, 2010
I managed to sleep in and then pack up my gear.
I logged into work for a conference call. Looks like I have to figure out some computer programming stuff in my head during my driving time.
I talked to my dad for a bit to see if he got rid of some nasty spyware off his computer. Luckily he was able to do a system restore back to just before he got it. So life`is now way better for him!
Today will be a shorter drive of about 850km to Albuquerque NM.
Crossed the South Canadian River and drove through a place called Canadian County.
I talked to a State Trooper in Shamrock Texas about speeding on the highway. He told me not to go past 70mph as the posted limit is strictly enforced in Texas.
The landscape through Oklahoma and Texas is pretty barren. Saw probably 200 or so of those huge wind power generation towers all over the place. Also would like to know why gas is more expensive in Texas than all the other states I have been through.
Finally reached the New Mexico border and huge wind sheer while driving. Almost saw a transport get blown off the road. Glad I was not beside it
I saw a motor home on its side as it was blown over by the wind. I could only go 65mph in the wind even though the posted speed was 75mph
I decided to grab a room in Santa Fe, New Mexico for the night. I think tomorrow will be a promising day for photos as long as the weather holds out.
Wednesday, March 17, 2010
Paddling in North Carolina and Tennessee
Well he last few days have defineitely been interesting so far on my paddling portion of my roadtrip.
I spent the saturday paddling section B of Wilson Creek in NC with Kimmie and Craig. The level was about 9 inches.
I spent the night at Kimmies before heading off bright and early on sunday morning for the 3.5 hour drive over to the Tellico River for the down river race. I took some shots of everyone running Baby Falls before heading off to go run the river from below Jarods Knee to the Ranger Station with a large group of boaters from all over. The level was 2.4.
Sunday we had about 50 or 60 open boaters at Calhouns in Lenoir City for dinner
Monday was spent running The Little river in the Smokies from just below Elkmont to just above the Sinks. I forget what the level was.
Tuesday was another run down the Tellico with the level at 2.5.
Today was another run down the Tellico with the level at 2.25.
I am currently spending the night in Hunstville, AL and plan to spend thursday visiting the Space Museum before heading off to Kings Bend for the Locust Fork slalom race in Kings Bend.
And maybe a shopping spree at Costco in Huntsville.
I spent the saturday paddling section B of Wilson Creek in NC with Kimmie and Craig. The level was about 9 inches.
I spent the night at Kimmies before heading off bright and early on sunday morning for the 3.5 hour drive over to the Tellico River for the down river race. I took some shots of everyone running Baby Falls before heading off to go run the river from below Jarods Knee to the Ranger Station with a large group of boaters from all over. The level was 2.4.
Sunday we had about 50 or 60 open boaters at Calhouns in Lenoir City for dinner
Monday was spent running The Little river in the Smokies from just below Elkmont to just above the Sinks. I forget what the level was.
Tuesday was another run down the Tellico with the level at 2.5.
Today was another run down the Tellico with the level at 2.25.
I am currently spending the night in Hunstville, AL and plan to spend thursday visiting the Space Museum before heading off to Kings Bend for the Locust Fork slalom race in Kings Bend.
And maybe a shopping spree at Costco in Huntsville.
Friday, March 12, 2010
March Break Roadtrip to the USA
It's time for another R.O.A.D.T.R.I.P. to the USA.
I decided to take some extra vacation time and head down to the South East for a week of fun paddling.
To sum up my trip do far:
14 hours of driving
925 miles of road
3 toll booths
20 dead roadkill deer and one munched by a transport truck on the fly.
6 State Troopers
Paddling on the Big Laurel Creek and the rest of Section 9 French Broad in North Carolina with old friends and some new ones ... P.R.I.C.E.L.E.S.S!
I decided to take some extra vacation time and head down to the South East for a week of fun paddling.
To sum up my trip do far:
14 hours of driving
925 miles of road
3 toll booths
20 dead roadkill deer and one munched by a transport truck on the fly.
6 State Troopers
Paddling on the Big Laurel Creek and the rest of Section 9 French Broad in North Carolina with old friends and some new ones ... P.R.I.C.E.L.E.S.S!
Monday, March 1, 2010
Almost time for another R.O.A.D.T.R.I.P
Well I can't believe another year has almost past and that it will be soon time to head to the U.S.A for a paddling / photo roadtrip.
This time it will be a week of white water canoeing with great friends and soon to be new friends in North Carolina, Tennessee, and Alabama. There should be quite the turn out there this year for ALF (Ain't Louie Fest). Knoxville ... here we come.
I am looking forward to paddling on some new rivers down south. Tellico here I hope you don't kick my ass this year.
After that I am heading out to Arizona, Utah, and Montana for some landscape photography before heading back home.
The countdown begins :D
This time it will be a week of white water canoeing with great friends and soon to be new friends in North Carolina, Tennessee, and Alabama. There should be quite the turn out there this year for ALF (Ain't Louie Fest). Knoxville ... here we come.
I am looking forward to paddling on some new rivers down south. Tellico here I hope you don't kick my ass this year.
After that I am heading out to Arizona, Utah, and Montana for some landscape photography before heading back home.
The countdown begins :D
Tuesday, January 5, 2010
New Years holiday time in West Virginia
I decided to head down and ring in the New Year with my friends in West Virginia.
I figured if I was going to freeze my butt off I might as well do it down there as there was a huge cold air mass covering eastern Canada and the USA. Go figure that it was -14C in Alabama and that friends down there were dealing with bursting pipes and other problems due to the frigid cold.
I was looking forward to using my Nexus card for the first time. Crossing the border was super quick for me as it took a whole 10 seconds versus the hour I would have ended up waiting going through the regular lineup that was 30 cars deep.
US Border Guy: question - Anything to declare.
My Answer: bottle of rum
US Border Guy: goodbye
No where you going, staying, coming back, etc.
I made the drive to WV after work on the wednesday in seven hours which included about a 30 minute stop for gas and various goodies. I had no issues with crappy weather or anything. It was smooth sailing.
I did have to work from WV on thursday ut luckily I have a job with the technology that allows me to do that. New Years eve was pretty low key with great munchies, some drinks, and a movie.
And then came New Years day. I forgot I was visiting the college football fanatics and soon found out I was going to be forced to watch three football games. But not before spending a few hours outside with a chainsaw cutting up the rest of a big tree that fell over in the fall. Ended up making a huge bonfire.
It was pretty neat to see all the deer on my buddies front grass. There were ten of them. Too bad it wasn't Bambi season.
And then came the football. My buddies son Mark was patient in explaining the rules of the game. I am pretty sure he must have thought I was a freak for not watching sports. Dinner was great which included the ham I had brought down with me plus some other goodies Pam whipped up.
Saturday basically consisted of learning how to cut mats for picture frames, make risotto, troubleshoot a busted microwave (turned out to be a bad diode) and the world of the Wii. The Wii was a blast. I am thinking I might get one later on but only after I take care of some of the Xmas bills first.
Sunday was the drive from hell. It would normally would only be a 8 hour drive back home but that would be too simple. I ended up running into a friggin snow storm complete with white outs on the I79 just north of Pittsburgh. It was alot of where did the vehicle in front of me go. Oh there it is in the ditch. I totally laughed my ass off when a Lexus SUV pulled out to pass me and ended up in the ditch about 390M down the hill. Seriously if there are no transport trucks driving in the left lane then the roads must be pretty crappy and then there was the fact that most people down there dont have winter tires.
As soon as I got onto the I90 they closed the I79 behind me. I pulled into Erie, PA for some gas and snacks from Panera bakery before continuing my journey on the I90 East bound. I was the only car on the highway going my way for about 20 km. All I could think about was is this friggin road closed and then i finally saw another car. The west bound lanes were a different story. I watched about 40 vehicles slide into the ditch. They finally closed the west bound lanes once I reached the New York state border to way past Erie.
They raised the toll fair on the I90 in NY state. It went up a whopping 15 cents. Pretty good considering you drive about 100ish km for $3.15 which would be over 20 buck in Canada for the same distance. Soon I was at the Duty Free in Buffalo and then across the border just as quick my trip down south.
My question to Canadian Border Lady: did my card scan ok
Her response: Yes have a nice day
Saved another hour as the cars were over 30 deep in the regular lanes. Soon I was at the Burlington Sky Bridge. The only problem was that it was around 4:30 and I still had an hour to drive to get home. But after checking the traffic report up in my neck of the woods I decided to stay at a co-workers place near my work as it was a total disaster zone at home.
I finally made it home safe and sound monday after work.
I figured if I was going to freeze my butt off I might as well do it down there as there was a huge cold air mass covering eastern Canada and the USA. Go figure that it was -14C in Alabama and that friends down there were dealing with bursting pipes and other problems due to the frigid cold.
I was looking forward to using my Nexus card for the first time. Crossing the border was super quick for me as it took a whole 10 seconds versus the hour I would have ended up waiting going through the regular lineup that was 30 cars deep.
US Border Guy: question - Anything to declare.
My Answer: bottle of rum
US Border Guy: goodbye
No where you going, staying, coming back, etc.
I made the drive to WV after work on the wednesday in seven hours which included about a 30 minute stop for gas and various goodies. I had no issues with crappy weather or anything. It was smooth sailing.
I did have to work from WV on thursday ut luckily I have a job with the technology that allows me to do that. New Years eve was pretty low key with great munchies, some drinks, and a movie.
And then came New Years day. I forgot I was visiting the college football fanatics and soon found out I was going to be forced to watch three football games. But not before spending a few hours outside with a chainsaw cutting up the rest of a big tree that fell over in the fall. Ended up making a huge bonfire.
It was pretty neat to see all the deer on my buddies front grass. There were ten of them. Too bad it wasn't Bambi season.
And then came the football. My buddies son Mark was patient in explaining the rules of the game. I am pretty sure he must have thought I was a freak for not watching sports. Dinner was great which included the ham I had brought down with me plus some other goodies Pam whipped up.
Saturday basically consisted of learning how to cut mats for picture frames, make risotto, troubleshoot a busted microwave (turned out to be a bad diode) and the world of the Wii. The Wii was a blast. I am thinking I might get one later on but only after I take care of some of the Xmas bills first.
Sunday was the drive from hell. It would normally would only be a 8 hour drive back home but that would be too simple. I ended up running into a friggin snow storm complete with white outs on the I79 just north of Pittsburgh. It was alot of where did the vehicle in front of me go. Oh there it is in the ditch. I totally laughed my ass off when a Lexus SUV pulled out to pass me and ended up in the ditch about 390M down the hill. Seriously if there are no transport trucks driving in the left lane then the roads must be pretty crappy and then there was the fact that most people down there dont have winter tires.
As soon as I got onto the I90 they closed the I79 behind me. I pulled into Erie, PA for some gas and snacks from Panera bakery before continuing my journey on the I90 East bound. I was the only car on the highway going my way for about 20 km. All I could think about was is this friggin road closed and then i finally saw another car. The west bound lanes were a different story. I watched about 40 vehicles slide into the ditch. They finally closed the west bound lanes once I reached the New York state border to way past Erie.
They raised the toll fair on the I90 in NY state. It went up a whopping 15 cents. Pretty good considering you drive about 100ish km for $3.15 which would be over 20 buck in Canada for the same distance. Soon I was at the Duty Free in Buffalo and then across the border just as quick my trip down south.
My question to Canadian Border Lady: did my card scan ok
Her response: Yes have a nice day
Saved another hour as the cars were over 30 deep in the regular lanes. Soon I was at the Burlington Sky Bridge. The only problem was that it was around 4:30 and I still had an hour to drive to get home. But after checking the traffic report up in my neck of the woods I decided to stay at a co-workers place near my work as it was a total disaster zone at home.
I finally made it home safe and sound monday after work.
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