Archive

On November 25, 2008, Daniel Belanger, a 34-year old activist and photographer, will be launching a two year kayaking expedition. The trip will include a 350-mile open water crossing and will take him to a half a dozen different countries in both the north and south hemispheres. While on his journey, Belanger intends to promote endangered species conservation with photographs... a whole lot of them. Find out more about his plan.

Like a kayak getting sold from one user to the next, the venerable Teva Mountain Games is now under new ownership – only this is one product that’s not close to getting outdated. This week, the Vail Valley Foundation announced that it has acquired the event from Untraditional Marketing...

The media production company the Epicocity Project has been busy in 2007/2008. Lets just say two grants from National Geographic, an hour long TV special, a handful of feature articles and a film heading to Banff Film Festival's World Tour. PL cornered EP paddler and co-owner Andy Maser to find out what they did to secure this kind of media, and what's next for these trend setting boaters.

Astral does it again. Check out their latest whitewater rescue jacket. Its slim, its sleek and it looks even more comfortable than the jacket that has become the standard for many pros, the Aquavest 300. But maybe best of all, its made with eco-friendly materials. Check out what makes the newest, the greatest.

There may be no safer time to throw yourself off of Class V waterfall than in a kayaking race with nearly 1,000 spectators. But at this year’s Green Race, like all races, that’s because safety was a key to its success. PL sought out the safety king himself, Sam Drevo of eNRG kayaking, who is a Rescue III Swiftwater Rescue Instructor and helped organize safety at the 2008 Gorge Games, to remind us how the rest of us can make sure we’re mitigating risks. Even when there’s not a trophy at stake.

Low water and low braces were the theme at this year’s 13th annual running of North Carolina’s notorious Green River Race, with year-long bragging rights as well as the coveted stained glass trophy on the line for the winner. Its no surprise, that the winner was Pat Keller, raging through the course in 4:31, riding the lower water level just three seconds slower than his record time of 4:28 in 2007...

The kayak fishermen are at it again. This time, Alaskan Howard McKim, Canadian Ken Whiting, and Californian Matt Moyer, hooked up with world-renowned, big game kayak angler Jim Sammons and headed to Baja, Mexico. Eleven miles, 30 jumps and 300 pounds later, a Marlin slipped the hook, but not without a leaving one hell of a fish story. PL caught up with angler Jim Sammons and Ken Whiting for a recount of the experience.

After a decade pushing the edge of the sport for New Zealand-based kayaking manufacturer Bliss-Stick, Anthony Yapp has moved on. Where? He’s not dropping any hints, but we're sure there are a handful of kayak manufacturers waiting on pins and needles to see where he lands this particular move. Our guess is that he’s spotted his landing. Check out what he has to say...

Yo dirtbag paddlers: Want some sponsorship help to get your next kayaking, canoeing or rafting adventure off the ground? Look no further than the Polartec® International Challenge Grant, now entering its 17th year and awarding up to $10,000 clams for your next paddling adventure...

Yes folks, it's nearly here. The 2008 Green River Race is just days away, and PL did a little research to find out what makes this race so much better than the others. Let's just say it has to do with a 1,000 spectators, a man in a chicken suit and heart-thumping beast of a drop aptly dubbed Gorilla.

Adventure photographer Taylor Robertson knows a thing or two about boofing. While he’s down to kayaking a paltry 250 days a year, the former US Freestyle Kayak Team Member has more first descents than you have cam straps, and he’s stuck strokes carrying him out of and over harm’s way in more than 22 countries.

In late August 13 friends -- average Joes, just like you and me -- flew into the wilds of Alaska. After nine bush flights, they dragged/paddled their IKs 114 miles from the upper reaches of a Yukon tributary into a 119,000 cfs of sub-artic brownwater. Over the course of 12 days they watched a grizzly devour a caribou, big horn sheep graze on cliff faces and dodged bullets that flew just above their heads. Read their story...

The president of the world's largest trade association for paddlesports stepped out this week. CEO of the Paddlesports Industry Association Matt Menashes will be heading an environmental association based in Washington DC. But, according to the organization, we can expect more work to help unify the paddlesports industry.

It might not have had the same panache as the Emmy's, Oscars, or even ESPYs, but for the tight-knit whitewatwer community, the 2007 and 2008 induction ceremonies for the International Whitewater Hall of Fame, held Oct. 11-12 at the Nantahala Outdoor Center (NOC), was every bit as inspiring...

Sorry, all you babe boaters hoping for a piece of Brad Ludden. Competition for the blond and buff Colorado boater just got a lot tougher as Ludden recently won a contest to become Cosmopolitan magazine's Hottest Bachelor...

Explorer Cristian Donoso led a 155-day, 2,000km odyssey through the ice fjords of Western Patagonia. Donoso undertook the initial stage of 47 days alone until four other adventurers accompanied him on the remaining two stages. They used sea kayaks to navigate the region’s narrow fjords and wild surf, then turned them into sleds that they dragged up and over glaciers.

The eight annual Surf Kayak World Cup was held from September 14-20 outside of Oleron, France. Thirty-four competitors from 6 different countries, including Americans Russ Busskirk and Paul Scutton, came to compete for three days of heated surf in bright weather and consistent swell. The final results showed the UK and the tiny country of Jersey as the dominate forces in the surf. The following is the day-to-day report of the action abroad.

From Colorado’s hottest boater to Cosmo’s Hottest Bachelor. That’s the storyline for Gypsum, Colo.’s Brad Ludden, founder of the First Descent cancer camp for kids. In October, Ludden was nominated as the glamour mag’s hottest bachelor in Colorado, which puts him in the running for the national title of Cosmo’s Bachelor of the Year...

There’s great news for all you masochistic paddlers out there. You have an opportunity to join a fleet of other self-loathing boaters bent on building blisters, shedding tears and slapping mosquitoes in the Great White North. There's a new world's longest and most remote canoe and kayak race. The Yukon River 1000... read more

This month the Trade Association of Paddlesport (TAPS), a non-profit trade association that supports the paddling industry both domestically and abroad, celebrated its 25th anniversary of its West Coast Sea Kayak Symposium in soggy Port Townsend, WA while tropical storm Hannah helped inaugurate its counter-part in Clinton, NJ. Despite cold and blustery weather on both sides of the country, most participants came prepared to get wet. Ahh... the beauty of kayaking.

Gauley, Schmauley. The last Saturday in September is a nostalgic and nervous time in New England as many paddlers either return to the site of their initiation into the world of whitewater, or anxiously await their first true test at West Fest...

Team River Runner's (TRR) idea is pretty basic. To use the power of water and the joy of kayaking to help veterans find, as TRR puts it, health, healing and new challenges. Their new expansion into Augusta, Georgia is just another step in a program that has expanded from its home base in the Washington D.C. to Veteran Affairs hospitals in San Antonio, Boston, Seattle and California. Find out a bit more.

Sure, they might not have pole dancing and sumo wrestling. But while the rest of the whitewater world was hurling themselves off Sweet’s Falls, then hurling back at camp at Gauley Fest, paddlers across the country raged at other local events fueling paddling's stoke every bit as much as their West Virginia counterpart...

This summer, world champion whitewater kayakers Ken Whiting and Brendan Mark teamed up with Jim Sammons, a world-class kayak angler, to push the limits of their fledgling sport, whitewater kayak fishing. The sport is exactly what it sounds like, angling from rapids in kayaks custom built to accommodate fishing equipment and turbulent waters. These guys took it to the extreme on the big-waters of Canada’s Ottawa River.