Whitewater Rafting

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...

Marking only the second time the feat has ever been done, Erik Boomer, Jeff West and Todd Wells recently kayaked the entire 60-mile-long Grand Canyon of the Stikine in a single, adrenaline-filled day. They're the first to do it since Tommy Hilleke, Dan DelaVergne, John Grace and Toby MacDermott made their unheralded single-day Stikine run in 2005. PL checks in...

For the fourth consecutive time the adidas Sickline Extreme Kayak World Championship took place in Austria’s Ötztal valley, luring 150 of the world’s best kayakers from 26 countries to the Tyrol region to compete on the legendary Class V Wellerbrücke rapids. And a Kiwi took the crown. PL checks in...

Want a classic feather in your Class V hat? Enter the downriver race at California’s Feather Festival on the North Fork of the Feather. This year’s event drew its largest turn-out ever, and even included an event called the Hangover-X...

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...

A group of Class V kayakers is certainly hoping so as they follow the wake of two other failed expeditions by attempting the first-ever complete descent of the last major un-run tributary of the Amazon River, the Pongo De Aguirre Gorge on Peru's Rio Huallaga...

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...

Ah Slovenia, land of babushkas, borscht, and…boats. That’s right, boats. Lots of ‘em. Most of the western world wouldn’t consider the former Soviet Republic a hotbed of paddling action. However, here in the PL office we know better. The 2010 edition of the ICF Canoe Slalom World Championships just wrapped up from the Tacen Whitewater Course on the Sava River, keep reading for highlights of all the action and results…

Pack some popcorn in your paddlecraft. Raven Fork, the newest full-length whitewater film to hit the silver screen since The River Wild, will have its world premiere in Athens, Ga., Oct. 2, at the Dixie Film Festival. PL caught up with producer Tom Oliver for his take a film that explores everything from friendship to death on the river...

The Nantahala Outdoor Center in western North Carolina is hosting the 2010 White Water Symposium this October 8-10. The WWS is excited about the new format of the symposium, calling it the “Next Rapid Evolution” in the annual gathering of the best and brightest in the paddling industry. New this year are 3 “tracks” of conversation. The business track, development track, and paddler tracks will each feature leaders in the respective fields.

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...

Not doing anything the weekend of Sept. 25? In the region anyways for Gauley season? Head on over to Germantown, Maryland, to support your local river stud-mo’s at the induction ceremony for the International Whitewater Hall of Fame Class of 2010. Read on to find out how to attend and make a donation...

It’s got a capital G, Class V and the same season. But it’s not Gauley Fest. It’s Gore Fest in Colorado, drawing the Class V racing set to Gore Canyon of the Colorado River the last weekend in August every year. The event, put on by Timberline Rafting of Vail, promises debauchery, death ferries and dunkings, and once again delivered a few surprises...

Turns out you can also make rapids out of kayak plastic. Proof lies in the new whitewater slalom course for the London Olympics, which just saw water for the first time....flowing over plastic features designed by Scott Shipley. Read on for beta and a video glimpse...

Expedition kayaker and filmmaker Bryan Smith is back from Russia with love…for salmon, first descents and wild places that still remain. We caught up with him at the Outdoor Retailer show to get his take on all things Siberia and salmon...

Paddling Life is on hand at this year’s Outdoor Retailer Summer Market tradeshow, to bring you not-in-the-industry folk up to speed on what’s going down. First installment: a look at products for the stockier set. Turns out that Morgan Spurlock, whose 30-day McDonald's diet documented the fast-food industry, isn’t the only one going super size. Paddlesport exhibitors are also banking on beefier consumers by churning out products that excel for XLs. Following are a few tipping the scales.

It should be a fairly straightforward exercise in manliness. The unwritten rules were obvious to all parties involved. However, to quote The Dude (or El Duderino if you’re not into that whole brevity thing) “New s&%# has come to light.”

The Teva Mountain Games are the nation’s largest celebration of mountain sport, lifestyle and music featuring top professional and amateur athletes from around the world. The environmentally-friendly adventure sporting event hosts approximately 2,000 adventure athletes, along with an estimated 40,000 spectators. Athletes converge on Vail’s mountains and rivers to compete in eight sports and 24 disciplines for over $100,000 in prize money. Events include kayaking, rafting, mountain biking, road cycling, World Cup Bouldering, amateur climbing, fly-fishing, trail and road running and stand up paddling.

A coalition of seven corporations and foundations driven by sustainability have united to raise funding and awareness for the environmentally threatened Colorado River.

Students at TRU earn college credits while exploring the rivers of Nepal and help Nepalese Sherpas with funding to continue their own education