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Flatwater Spring Training
The Pines rest in the middle of the two-square mile town of Indian Harbour Beach. The Atlantic is a mile east, and Orlando is about an hour northwest. It’s your typical beachside town, except for one thing: The Pines sits on the edge of the Banana River, and adjacent to the put-in to a seven-mile stretch of canal that is almost perfect for long-distance flatwater spring training. It’s so good in fact, that out of the 36 possible Olympic medals in sprint canoe kayak at the 2012 London Olympics, eleven were won by athletes that trained at The Pines.
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BorealDesign P2 Baffin – Rock-Hoppers
06.17.2011
Classic Greenland ride BOREALDESIGN P2 BAFFIN ($1,839 in roto-molded polyethylene, borealdesign.com) L: 17′; W: 22.25″; 59 lbs., also in smaller P1 and larger P3 models Canada’s Baffin Island is one of the most inhospitable places to paddle on the planet. Any boat bearing its name should be ready to get beat up. So that’s exactly [...]
North Shore Aspect RM – Rock-Hoppers
06.17.2011
All-around Greenland-style rock-hopper NORTH SHORE ASPECT RM ($1,299 in roto-molded polyethylene, northshoreseakayaks.com) L: 14’9″; W: 23.5″; 50 lbs. Since the early ‘80s North Shore has been making British-style sea kayaks known for being practical, affordable, and able to take abuse. The Aspect is all of these things, but in a wonderfully condensed package. Picture the [...]
On the phone from Ellesmere Island
06.17.2011
Ellesmere Island is the most northerly of the Canadian Arctic islands and on Monday afternoon, June 13, the odd-couple Ellesmere adventurers—Jon Turk, 65, and Erik Boomer, 26, who are attempting to circumnavigate Ellesmere’s 1,500 mile perimeter—were on its rugged north coast when they called in via satellite phone.
Bros. Seiler in Pucon
06.15.2011
Recently from TheDemshitz — “The Seiler Brothers GoPro footy from Pucon [Chile] 2010. Rivers Palguin Nevado and Puesco in that order. Enjoy.”
Crunch Time
06.15.2011
ALL THE TRAINING, ALL THE YEARS OF INSTRUCTION, ALL THE PRACTICE SCENARIOS IN his Wilderness First Responder courses, none of it really put the moment in context. But that moment and its must-react minutes suddenly became real for Matt Krizan at 9:52 a.m., on Saturday, Jan. 22—when he first spotted the body rag-dolling, facedown in the waves.
Timeline – Remembering Hendri
06.14.2011
Hendri Coetzee meets Pete Meredith, who immediately hires him to guide rafts on the Zambezi, the world’s premier commercially guided big-water Class V run. Coetzee has never been in a raft or a kayak. Within three weeks Hendri runs Number 9-considered a mandatory portage-in a borrowed kayak.
Temagami Canoe Country
06.14.2011
ear-mutiny comes on Day Three of an early-season canoe trip in the wilds of northeastern Ontario. We came to Temagami, a 6,000 square-mile canoe-tripping paradise, to visit a lake that was named after my great-grandfather over a century ago. Marooned on icebound Smoothwater Lake, it’s painfully clear we’re not going to make it to Mihell Lake.
Video: Ben Stookesberry talks ‘Kadoma’
06.14.2011
‘I would do anything in my power to change what happened… but I would never change that 7 weeks with Hendri’
30 Years of the Stikine
06.10.2011
Thirty years ago, Idaho’s Rob Lesser led one of the more audacious whitewater feats of all time: the first descent of the Grand Canyon of the Stikine. This summer, at the ripe age of 65, he’s going back-not necessarily to run the tortuous rapids of the 45-mile-long canyon, but to pay his respects.
Laughing In The Rain by Chris Korbulic
06.09.2011
Hendri had never been rafting or kayaking before I hired him. The Zambezi is pretty full-on, especially in the beginning of the season when the water is high. We threw him right into the deep end. Within a month he was taking some poor unsuspecting customers down the river, and long before that he kept telling me, ‘I’m ready, I’m ready.’
Surf’s Up: Glenwood Springs
06.09.2011
There will be grass skirts, leis and luaus, Hawaiian beer—Primo, is the official beer sponsor—and of course a whole lot of surfing on some of the heaviest water ever seen in western Colorado. Flows at the Glenwood Springs, Colo., play park wave hit unprecedented levels this week—geese, apparently, can surf 25,000-plus cfs, no worries—but then again the park has only been around since March 2008.
Forest Alchemist
06.09.2011
TOM BYERS’ DARK, DUSTY CANOE WORKSHOP IS CLUTTERED WITH EVERYTHING EXCEPT POWER TOOLS. The accomplished backwoods builder shapes immaculate birchbark craft by axe, knife, awl, and bit brace. Hundreds of feet of peeled jack pine roots join the pieces, all products of the northern forest-birchbark skin, white cedar ribs and sheathing, spruce gum-steeped in the indigenous heritage of this centuries-old alchemy.
Spotlight: Racquette River, N.Y.
06.08.2011
Former American Whitewater editor and longtime kayaker Chris Koll calls the Stone Valley section of New York’s Racquette River “one of the hardest commonly run rivers in the Adirondacks.” To see it in spring—a roaring white tumult—makes it tough to imagine that this three-mile stretch of the Racquette was nearly dry during the best paddling months.
Kayak Fishing Tales: Trolling Motors
06.08.2011
Video: Jim Sammons discusses the advantages of an on-board power source
Teva Mountain Games: Kayak Freestyle
06.07.2011
The traveling carnival that is freestyle kayaking pulled into Vail, Colo., over the weekend for the 10th annual Teva Mountain Games. Emily Jackson—no surprise here—captured her seventh-straight TMG kayak freestyle title, while the other Jacksons—Emily’s dad, Eric, and brother, Dane—settled for second and third place in the men’s finals on Saturday behind Colorado paddler Dustin Urban…
Girls Gone Wildwater
06.07.2011
THE QUESTION BEGAN BURNING IN MY MIND at the 2009 Cheat River Race: “What is that strange, bulbous boat and why does it always finish first?” Eventually, that question led me into the obscure and perpetually challenging world of wildwater (aka downriver) kayak racing.
No Half Measures by Celliers Kruger
06.06.2011
Hendri walked into my office a couple of years ago, asking for sponsorship. By that time we knew about each other for a while already, but hadn’t met yet. My answer was an obvious yes—his reputation for running the hardest stuff was already growing. Since then a close relationship grew between two paddlers who discussed everything except paddling.
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