Stand Up Paddle Boarding

Right now there is an AIRE kayak stored in a garage or a canoe waiting in a barn that come August will be featured in the winning entry for the AIRE Video Contest for 2011...

Buy shoes, save rivers. That’s the message from Teva, which is putting its money where our rivers’ mouths are with the launch of its "Pair for a Foot" campaign on World Water Day (March 22), an initiative estimated to help protect over four million linear feet of global waterways this year alone...

As the Ugandan government dams sections of the White Nile River, the villages that depend on the river seem destined to suffer a similar fate. PL guest correspondent Errik Hill was there to run the Silverback section of the river on it's final day. This is his report...

For more than a decade The River Network has been holding the National River Rally to bring together activist from across the country (and planet). This year the rally is being held June 3-6 in Charleston South Carolina. Read on to learn about the weekend, the speakers, and of course– preserving our rivers…

For Gale and Eileen Marshall of Pendleton, Oregon, the date of May 20, 2006 will forever be etched into their minds and hearts. A date marked with tragedy when one of their close friends, plus the owner and head guide of the rafting company, died on the Klickitat River. Now almost five years later, the Marshalls continue to grieve, though Gale feels it’s time to talk about what happened.

It doesn’t run often, but when it does it goes big. This time, in early March, it careened in at more than 70,000 cfs, drawing hairboaters like Trent Thibodeaux, Sam Fulbright, Chris Wing, Pablo McCandless and Chris Gragtmans out of the watery woodwork to ply its epic waves. And its name, the New River Dries, is about as much of an oxymoron as you’ll find in the paddling world...

Okay, all you Colorado boaters. Since this one’s in Paddling Life’s own backyard, we’re asking any and everyone who’s ever paddled in our neck of the woods to help us out with American Whitewater’s flow study for the Yampa Basin. And, yes, it includes such local faves as Cross Mountain and Fish and Willow creeks....

Sniff, sniff...Kayakers in Uganda's White Nile region joined in an Irish Wake hosted by outfitter Nile River Explorers as an era came to an end on perhaps the best play run in the world: on March 1, the Day 1 Section (Silverback) of the Nile was closed to river traffic through the main rapid of Silverback for an upcoming hydro project...

For some people, paddling solo enhances everything about the sport, from its dangers to its rewards. Perhaps no one knows this better than British Columbia rafting guide Bruce Low, who recently returned from a solo cataraft mission down Peru’s Rio Cotahuasi, billed by many as the deepest canyon in the world. Read on for a PL Exclusive first-hand report (yes, he lived to tell the tale…)

It looks like we're not finished with Whitewater in the White House. Only this time around, instead of a scandal plaguing the Clinton administration, president Obama is putting it at the forefront of his concerns, listing river recreation as among the top ten priorities of a new federal action plan for reconnecting people with nature...

Think diminutive, 4-lb. pack-rafts aren’t suitable for multi-day wilderness Class V? Bill Hatcher, and Roman and Rome Dial beg to differ, recently returning from a five-day Class V self-support pack-raft trip down Tasmania’s Franklin River ( a trip us here at PL once bagged in our kayaks)...

It's permit season. So get your act together and send in your applications for your favorite river trip. Remember: if you don’t play the game--or aren't a cook or good looking--you won’t get invited along. Here's all the info you need...

Kayak surfers in Steamboat Springs, Colo., might have a little more time on their downtown play waves now. Bomber Gear founder Rick Franken and his 8-year-old son, Kai, won’t be surfing them at all hours anymore, as the paddlesports apparel company was recently sold to Confluence Watersports...

No, that's not a typo. You can finally play Taps for Paddler, the long-standing member benefit magazine for the American Canoe Association. At it November board meeting, the ACA announced that it will “officially” suspend publishing Paddler and will have Canada’s Rapid Media, spearheaded by Scott MacGregor, satisfy its member magazine benefits...

The Higgins & Langley Award for Swiftwater Rescue is seeking nominations for 2011 rescues. If you were involved in, witnessed, or even heard tell of a great save on the rivers this past season, consider nominating the rescuers for the premier award in swiftwater rescue.

Perfect for Inflatable Kayaks and Stand-Up Paddleboards, Metropolitan Vacuum Cleaner Company of Suffern, New York, has introduced a new generation of rapid-deployment Magic-Air Electric Inflator/Deflators.

Want stylish slip-on sandal comfort off the water as well as on? Slide into a pair of Chaco ToeCoops or PedSheds, slip-ons that will see you to your post-paddle PBR and nacho plate in style. Plus, the company honors a kayak instructor from Bainbridge Island, Wash...

So PL just got off the Grand Canyon, whose experimental September flows of 8,000 cfs made it ideal for everything from surfing and sucking suds to gobbling gourmet cuisine from PL partner Ceiba Adventures. To shine some light on the re-entry-to-civilization problems those emerging from the Big Ditch deal with, following are a couple of musical ditties thrown together by participant Dana Birke from Boulder -- just in time for an abrupt return to an early Colorado winter...

A mass start Class V downriver race followed by a beer slalom past the finish line...it can only mean one thing: the sixth annual BurnFest on the Trinity River’s Burnt Ranch Gorge in California...

Four days in October with global implications. No, it's not a political crisis, just the International Rafting Federation Pre-World competition in Costa Rica. Keep reading for the PL lowdown...

Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus. That's how a few river conservation organizations are feeling after the Conservation Alliance awarded grants totaling $500,000 to 17 conservation throughout North America, many of whom are working to protect our waterways. PL checks in...

Giant splats on Pillow Rock; striders, C-1ers and kayakers sharing eddies with rafts; and the biggest party in paddlesports. Yep...American Whitewater's biggest fundraising event -- and the largest boater festival in the world – went off without a hitch as paddlers of all walks converged on the Woodstock-like Gauley Fest at the Nicholas County Veteran's Memorial Park in Summersville, W.V., for a weekend of debauchery and sinus-douching. PL checks in...

The River Management Society has a good guide steering it to the future. Its Board of Directors recently hired Risa Shimoda as its new Executive Director beginning October 1, 2010...

Canoeists and sea kayakers planning flatwater fall trips on Labyrinth/Stillwater Canyons of the Green River in Canyonlands National Park might want to start making a change of plans. On Aug. 20, a huge flash flood caused severe damage to the switchbacks on the road leading to Mineral Bottom, making the road impassable as a put-in or take-out....