Sturgeon Video

Here's some video from the weekend. Most of it's from the helmet cam, but some's off of my point-n-shoot as well. If I get a chance I'll try to put up some other clips as well, but for now...

Sturgeon Falls, eh?

There was a great group of us that headed North for the long weekend to hit the big, deep waves at Sturgeon Falls on the Winnipeg River. The river was higher than I'd seen it, running somewhere in the neighborhood of 70,000 cfs. That made for some big waves, crazy eddies, and lots of pictures.



Dennis volunteered to ride up with me to pick up the motorboat at my family's cabin. Little did we know that the huge flow rate would make the boat nearly useless as a shuttle and rescue vehicle. But, now we know for next year...



We had beautiful weather, with warm, sunny days and cool, clear nights. Nora, Dennis, and I learned from our cold and wet past experiences there and reserved a Yurt to sleep in. Even though the weather was better this year, I've gotta say the Yurt was worth it.



The paddling was great - Mike M and Scotty were throwing rapid-fire blunts on Surfer's, Alon was gettin' dizzy on Triple S, everybody was getting some quality spins and bounces on the waves. The big eddy behind the island had the twin whirlpools fading in and out, so if you timed it right you got the moving-sidewalk ride back up. Then again, if you timed it wrong, you had a ridiculous and frustrating time trying to paddle up hill through the boils.



The coolest part of the weekend was Sunday evening when the wind died out completely and the water was just like a mirror. You could actually see your reflection while you were on Surfer's. From the island, it looked like people were surfing on folds of mercury. Absolutely awesome.



I also have to give Katie huge props for being able to literally self-rescue after a swim. She can wet exit, grab her gear, drain her boat, and get in and paddle her way back to shore - all completely by herself while floating downstream. It was amazing.


The only problem with going to Sturgeon is that you're never there long enough. For me, it takes about 1 full day to get my brain comfortable in the big water. Unfortunately, by then the body's usually pretty worn out and the two never really get in sync. Next year I think I'll take Friday off to get an extra day, and hopefully do some conditioning as well. Shockingly, it turns out that sitting at a desk 6 days a week doesn't qualify as a training regimen.

All in all, it was a great weekend with some awesome paddlers. We paddled, chilled on the rock, surfed ourselves silly, hung out around bonfires, and told endless paddling stories. Tough to beat that. I'm already looking forward to next time.

Here are some pics from the weekend:
1) The Bomber Gear twins
2) Melissa cruising Triple S
3) Scotty working on blunts
4) Scott bouncing Surfer's
5) Me getting eaten by the foam

6) Alon discovering the silk-surf on Surfer's
7) Mike M setting up for a blunt
8) Mike L in front of Big Mouth
9) Me in a low-altitude blunt
10)Mike L riding the glass
11)Melissa basking in the warm sun


I've got videos as well - hope to get those up tonight, so check back!

Launching Into Canoe U!

From Canoe U

This weekend was the first River weekend of Canoe U! We had over 40 students, about 10 instructors, and a whole bunch of safety boaters. The weather was nice (cold in the evenings, but warm and sunny afternoons) and the level of the Kettle was close to 800 cfs on Sunday.

From Canoe U

I taught the Whitewater Refresher course with Bobzilla. We had a great student-teacher ratio with 2 instructors, 6 students, and 2 safety boaters - Jeremiah and Ben. Jeremiah was with us both days and had some rock-star rescues. Ben joined us the second day when we had very few swims, so both safety boaters were giving tips and assistance to the students instead of chasing gear. It worked great, and I think (and hope) that the students felt that way as well.

From Canoe U

Speaking of the students, we had Lynn, Drew, Dan, Tim, Derek, and Liz. Each student had some paddling experience, but wanted to get some additional technique work in to get the most out of this paddling season.

From Canoe U

We spent both days on the "upper" Kettle, the first day on the flatwater and then Blueberry Slide, and the second day running the whole river. The level was high enough to challenge everyone, and it pushed the learning curve a little steeper. While that led to a couple of swims on Day 1, it also led to noticeable improvements in ferrying, eddy moves, and general comfort in dynamic water by day 2.

From Canoe U

Day one was loaded with drills and stroke work to get a solid foundation of basics. Day two was putting those skills to use and incorporating water reading and river judgment to become more independent as paddlers. By the end of Day 2 students were picking their own lines, punching holes, catching mid-rapid eddy's and more. It was really fun to watch.

From Canoe U

Big thanks to all the students that participated in the class and made it so much fun! Also, huge thanks to Chad, Art, and all of the others who put in so much time and effort with the planning, logistics, cooking, and other behind-the-scenes work that made the weekend flow smoothly. Really looking forward to Graduation Weekend and the Continuum class!

Check out the "My Web Albums" link on the right of this page to see more pics. Thanks to Derek for taking a bunch of the on-water shots!

ACA Certification!

What do you get when you combine 2400 miles, 7 states, 45 hours of training, and two awesome instructor-trainers? An ACA kayak instructor certification from NOC! The trip was great, and both Nora and I got our level IV certs.

I've always enjoyed introducing people to new experiences and activities, so teaching kayaking has always been one of my favorite things to do. I was an instructor/trip leader with the UW-Madison Hoofers for a couple years, then have been teaching informally in MN ever since. After law school I realized that I missed teaching classes and started looking into how to do it around here. Turns out that it was good timing, because Rapids Riders was looking for instructors. The only catch was that they require certification by the American Canoe Association in order to teach with them. So, I looked around for courses, found a good one at the Natahala Outdoor Center in North Carolina, talked Nora into coming with me, and headed out.



The area around the NOC had been pretty dry for the last few years, but as Nora and I headed South, we managed to bring a monsoon down with us to fix that little problem. It was raining the night we arrived and never really stopped for more than a couple hours. This was great to push the rivers up, but slightly less great for spending the week sleeping in tents.

Speaking of tents, we stayed at the Smokey Mountain Meadows Campground, which I can't recommend highly enough. It's in a beautiful spot, the grounds and shower houses are immaculate, and the owners are about the nicest people you could ever meet. They even let us move our tents under the picnic pavilion so that we could have a couple nights without getting rained on. This was a godsend because we were pretty much spending our days in the river, then our nights in the rain. Not the greatest scenario for drying stuff out, but at least it was warm...



The course itself was packed with a combination of classroom discussion, on-water skills development, rescue training, and teaching real students under the guidance of our instructor-trainers. We had lots of time on and in the chilly water of the Nantahala River. It made for a long week, but I think that both Nora and I learned a lot and had a great time.



Our group consisted of 8 paddlers of a variety of ages and experience levels, all of whom brought something unique to the group. They were wonderful people, and I feel lucky to have spent the week with them. Our instructor-trainers were Rob and Jason, and they were both awesome. They were fun and laid-back, but also demonstrated expertise to an extreme and an intuitive way of teaching that was helpful both as one of their students, and as a model for ways to relate to those I'll be teaching.

Now that we're back in the real world and our stuff is starting to finally dry out, I'm looking forward to getting out this weekend and teaching. It'll be great to meet all the new paddlers and try out some of the new teaching tricks I picked up!














Pics:
1)The whole crew
2)Jason demonstrating roll instruction
3)Nora teaching real students on Friday
4)Instructor-trainer Jason
5)Instructor-trainer Rob
6)Swift water rescue practice
7)Pretty much explains itself
8)Camping in the pavillion
9)Smokey Mountain traffic jam

Stoney River

The Stoney river is a fairly remote stretch of Class II-IV whitewater near Babbitt, MN, and right on the fringe of the BWCA. Like many creeks in Minnesota, it only runs for a week or two each year, and I didn't even know it existed until Alan F invited me along on this trip Friday night. Since it's not too well known, I'll try to give a more complete description. Apologies for the length.

Well, about 9 hours after I found out the river existed, we were on the road. In Two Harbors Alan and I met up with Dan and Dave and we headed off into the middle of the Arrowhead. After finding the river and running shuttle down the logging roads, we put on to bright sunshine and temps in the neighborhood of 50 degrees. The river was at 2.8', which the guys said was a medium flow.

This river doesn't make you wait long to get to the fun stuff. About 40 yards downstream from the put in is the first rapid. It's only a II-III, but it's got some fun wave trains and gets things off on the right foot.







Not long after that, you encounter the first major rapid. Always Right Sluice is a curving, two-stage Class IV with a nasty little falls starting on river right, then a huge, powerful, barrel-roll hole that's about 5' high and 40' long (it runs parallel to the general run of the river, instead of perpendicular) and ends in a turbulent mess where it meets water coming from two other directions. This was the first time I'd seen a feature like that before and I was a little intimidated. It looked like it would easily pick up a boater and corkscrew him into the bottom over and over again as he moved down the length of the hole. I was told to charge the hole with as much speed as possible in the hopes of riding up onto it and around the huge mess. I took that advice to heart and hit it as fast and hard as I could get my boat to go. The advice worked, and I shot through it no problem. It was amazing watching Dan and Dave run it in open boats. Those guys are better and more fearless paddlers than I'll ever be. It was great to watch.

The next major rapid was Triple drop, a class III+ with a couple opportunities for unhappiness if you hit the wrong line. It also has a cool boof rock right in the middle. I missed my line on the rock, but Alan hit perfectly. At the bottom, Dan spent some time sport surfing a hole that I was happy to stay out of - and he was in an open boat. Afterward we sat in the sun and had lunch.

#3 on the notable drops list is The Box, a constricted canyon with the most impressive side-curler I've seen and it's very own geyser! After a II-III lead-in, paddlers get a 50 yard stretch of quiet to eddy out before dropping into the canyon. As the water funnels in, it drops about 20 feet and ends in a huge left-to-right curler that was well over head-high and smashed against the cliff on river right. As an added incentive to get left in a hurry, the river makes a natural fountain against the right wall towards the top. The water shoots straight up anyhere from 4-8 feet. It's pretty amazing to see. Anyway, you run the rapid right-to-left, paddling hard at the rocks on river left. As soon as you hit the shoulder of that wave, your speed doubles and you start moving diagonally to the right. If you hit your line, you ride up onto the top of the curler, through the crazy out flow and into a calm stretch. If you don't, you either get slammed into the stone wall and beaten silly, or flip in the outwash and get hammered by the cheese-grader rocks. Luckily, I got to skip both of those experiences and ran it clean. Dan amazed me by running it perfectly clean in his OC, and Alan led off in Dave's OC, making through the meat of it fine, then getting caught up in the outwash.

The last big rapid is Desensitization Falls (I called it Dome Falls in the video). It's 10-12' falls with a variety of lines ranging from auto-boof to auto-pencil. As I found, the difference between those two scenarios can be about 2 feet. After a boogie water lead-in, you follow the wave train down river left and off the falls. My first run I was just on the right side of the wave crests and penciled into the pool for my only flip of the day. On the second run, I lined up on the left side of the wave crests and had a perfect boof line. It's definitely a game of inches. It was really cool to see the OC's hit the falls.

After that, it was some flatwater (where we stumbled upon 3 huge Trumpeter Swans), some more II-III's, and into Birch lake to the take out. Mixed among all of the above rapids were wavy II-III boulder gardens and wave trains. There is some flatwater on the run, but not enough to be a problem.

Huge thanks to Alan, Dan, and Dave for having me along on the trip. It was great to paddle with those guys and exciting to watch them style rapids that I would have been certain were impossible in canoes. They also made great guides/instructors, and I don't know how I'd have made it down without their insight. Finally, Dan brought along his HD video camera and has put together some great video from the day. If you're on facebook, you can check it out on his page or mine.

I've got a couple more pics and short video clips from the day that I'll try to post tonight. Check back!

Kettle Again!

Yesterday was a pleasant surprise. After having a crazy busy week that was capped by a really fun wedding (congrats to Meaghan & Nick!), I was happy, but lacking sleep. The original plan was to head up to the N. Shore w/ Nora and hit the French. When I found out I'd have to leave by 6am to meet up with them, however, I changed my mind and decided to do something later so that I could get a little sleep before the workweek started up again.

As it turns out, it was a great decision. Nate G happened to be looking for someone to do the Kettle with, and so we made that our new plan. It's always fun paddling with Nate, and it was great to catch up. Plus, I got to sleep in a little and (more importantly) had time to rig up my new Helmet cam before heading out! Huge thanks to Meaghan and Nick for the awesome gift!

The level was good (approx 3'), the water was starting to warm up, and it was great catching up with Nate. We did a video run through Dragon's Tooth, then went back up and surfed at Blueberry. Both the wave and hole above it were in, and we had a blast. The wave was just fast enough to get some small blunts in, which made for great practice for sturgeon.

Check out the pics and vids below. The videos are from the new helmet cam. Unfortunately, YouTube wouldn't play the music I set the first video to. Instead, it offered to automatically select a song that it felt would work and didn't require user rights to post. It chose a rap song in Spanish. Go YouTube. If you don't like it, turn the sound off and imagine "Standing Outside" by Primitive Radio Gods in your head. That was what it was supposed to be set to. After that debacle, I just left the two shorter vids w/o sound.

Enjoy!

1st Kettle Run

There was pretty much an armada of kayakers on the Kettle today for what was my first run of the season. We had over twenty in our group when we put on, and as we were leaving we saw another group taking out. There were paddlers from the Twin Cities, Wisconsin, St. Cloud, Duluth, and more. It was really fun to see everybody, and to meet a handful of new people!

To make things even better, the river was at a great level (2.7' on the bridge gauge) and it was a nice mix of play and river running. The snow and cold stayed away for the afternoon, and we had sunshine on us for most of the run.

Newbie Aaron had his first day on a non-verm river and did great. Several of us ran Wolf Creek, even though it was a little low. There were a couple swims and a couple saves, but on the whole it was just a lot of fun. Bring on the '09 season!

Season Opener!

We had a great evening down at the Verm yesterday, and the '09 paddling season is officially open at last! There are few things in life that make me as happy as kayaking, so I'm totally stoked to get another season up and running. We had a whole bunch of paddlers, including three Bryan's (one was a Brian, though), two Aarons, and a whole bunch of other folks. The water level was higher than the gauge said, maybe around 110 or 120. It was flowing fast, though, so there was lots of fun to be had. The put-in trail was its nasty springtime self, but everyone made it down in one piece. Big congratulations to Aaron W. who had his first ever river run! He did great, running the river without flipping, throwing himself into donut for an intro to surfing, and doing the cliff drop into Fisherman's pool. Looking forward to lots more paddling days to come!

I didn't take any pics yesterday, but Nora did. Check 'em out on her blog.

Polar Plunge!

12 of us (though sadly only 1 other kayaker besides me) jumped into the not-so-tropical waters of Lake Calhoun on Saturday. The water was a bit chilly, but the day was a blast. We started with some beverages at Bar Abilene Saturday morning before jumping on the shuttle bus and heading to Thomas Beach.

Our team was named Shaking, Not Stirred. In keeping with the Bond theme, the guys all had tuxedo t-shirts and the girls had "Bond Girl" shirts. Next year, we'll have to try to get some fancy heating gadgets from Q before jumping in... This year we had to settle for the hot tubs that were graciously provided by the Plunge sponsors.

After plunging, we headed over to Famous Dave's for some nice, hot comfort food. It was a great end to a fun day.

Together our team raised over $1600 for Special Olympics. Thanks to all those who donated - S.O. is a great cause.

Now, who's in for next year?

From Polar Plunge '09

From Polar Plunge '09

From Polar Plunge '09

From Polar Plunge '09

From Polar Plunge '09

From Polar Plunge '09

From Polar Plunge '09