Whitewater Rafting

The City of Oklahoma City recently awarded S2o Design and Engineering the contract to design a new whitewater park, part of ongoing economic development that has revitalized the city’s seven-mile long downtown riverfront known as the Boathouse District, which already boasts flatwater offerings and other outdoor recreation.

Paddling legend and author Jon Turk will be speaking at Canoecopia 2013 to profile what it was like to be part of the first team to circumnavigate Ellesmere Island in Canada’s high Arctic by kayak.

After this winter's pullout by Teva of the Vail, Colo.-based Mountain Games, which began more than 11 years ago as the Jeep Whitewater Festival, event organizers and GoPro have agreed to a long-term partnership, placing the company as the title sponsor for what has become one of the world’s premier celebrations of mountain sport, lifestyle and music.

The Pan American Sport Organization (PASO) announced women's canoe events will be added to the sprint and slalom program as Olympic track sports, and women's whitewater slalom will make its Pan American Games debut in Toronto in 2015.

Sailboats may not be your typical shuttle vehicle, nor the fastest way to get to international put-ins, but in this case the journey is more important than the destination, as world-record holding extreme kayaker Tyler Bradt leads a rotating band of adventurers, artists and athletes around the world for the next five years. In March, the sailboat Wizard’s Eye will slip quietly out of the Bay of La Paz, Mexico, and begin a multi-year journey across the planet.

Founded in 2003 by Scott Shipley, S2o Design and Engineering recently completed New Zealand’s first in-stream whitewater park, the Camphill Surf Park, near Wanaka on the South Island, and it is earning rave reviews by boaters of all abilities.

After 114 days, 4200+ miles, 12 paddlers and two countries, and a cast of support people marathon paddler West Hansen recently completed his National Geographic-sponsored source to sea expedition down the Amazon River in record time...

With Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar announcing his resignation recently, effective at the end of March, more than one river conservation organization will be mourning his loss. “Secretary Salazar has been a true champion for protecting and restoring rivers and his leadership will be missed by everyone who cares about healthy, free-flowing rivers,” says Bob Irvin, President of American Rivers.

Okay, all you paddlers. Here’s your chance to put one of your peers on the podium. National Geographic just released its candidates for its Adventurer of the Year, with kayaker Steve Fisher making the cut for its People’s Choice category for last year’s run of the Congo’s Inga rapids, as documented in his film The Grand Inga Project. So get off your duffs and vote…

According to river runners Jon Barker and Clancy Reece, anything worth doing is worth overdoing – which is exactly what led them to tempt fate on a flooding Salmon River in 1996 to see how far they could float Reece’s homemade wooden dory through the largest wilderness tract in the Lower 48 in 24 hours. The result, as captured drop by drop by former Idaho raft guide Jo Deurbrouck in her new award-winning book Anything Worth Doing, is a storyline every paddler who has dipped a blade in water can appreciate…

As The Who might put it in Tommy, “How do you think he does it? What makes him so good?” Dane Jackson pinballed his way down some of Chile’s toughest whitewater in five events of the 2012 Whitewater Grand Prix, sealing his second straight overall title with commanding wins in the final Boatercross and Whitewater Enduro races on Chile’s big-water Rio Futaleufu...

Your local creeks might be devoid of their best paddlers right about now. That’s because 30 of the world’s best from 13 countries have been invited to Chile for the Second Annual Whitewater Grand Prix kayaking championship, underway as we speak with three of five events completed. In the driver’s seat so far are last year’s winner Dane Jackson, Isaac Levinson and France’s Eric Deguil, with France’s Nouria Newman leading the women's pack…

Last week Olympic whitewater paddling sensation Tony Estanguet announced his retirement from the sport, with plans to continue serving the Olympic games and youth athletes for years to come.

The Teva Mountain Games are the Teva Mountain Games no more. The world's biggest stage for freestyle and creek racing will still be around, just not with Teva as a sponsor. Teva president Joel Heath announced Nov. 28 that the footwear giant is pulling out of the Games after an 11-year run. PL checks in with Heath for the lowdown...

If you want to test out apparel made specifically for getting wet, it helps to do so on the manufacturer’s home turf. And if that turf involves surf, so much the better. Such was the case when, on vacation in Maui, we found ourselves Supping with Bluesmiths founder John Smalley, whose apparel line is making waves as fast as its wearers are catching them….

Wondering where the best whitewater kayakers in the world will be in December? They'll be in Chile for the second annual Whitewater Gran Prix, a unique Class V stage-style event that is quickly going viral. A look at who got the golden ticket to compete, and PL's pick for the winner...

Has there ever been a movie out of Hollywood that has done more to put paddling on the map? Deliverance, that iconic canoeing flick that put paddling and the Southeast on the nation’s radar for good, is celebrating its 40th anniversary this year, with the cinematic staying power of Hypalon….

Shaving 8 seconds off the course record, Kiwi kayaking kingpin Mike Dawson won both the long and short boat division of this year’s 17th annual Green Race on North Carolina’s Green River, earning year-long bragging rights as well as...the coveted stained glass trophy.

The perils of inner-city living hit the tight-knit Colorado boating community on Oct. 17 when BLM river ranger Ross Richter, who worked at the popular Pumphouse and Statebridge sections of the Upper Colorado River, was among the five victims killed at a Denver bar shooting...

For the fifth year 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 for the third year in a row, once again it was Kiwi Sam Sutton in the driver’s seat...

After long challenging the world’s best, British Columbia's Stikine River claimed its first life, that of Jeff West, 42, owner of Chattanooga’s Ace Kayaking School, on Tuesday, Sept. 11. Just before attempting his one-day solo descent, West kayaked the stretch with Stikine pioneer Doug Ammons, who was heli'd after a nasty swim. PL caught up with Ammons -- the first person to run it solo – for his take on his run with West, Ben Marr’s subsequent first descent of notorious Site Zed, and one of the biggest badges of courage in whitewater...

Canadian river advocate, paddler and filmmaker Mark Angelo has begun filming his next documentary on the world's rivers, with plenty of paddling required to make it happen. Angelo plans to hire a high profile narrator for the film.

Erik Weihenmayer is taking running rapids blind to new heights. I’m sitting in an eddy with the blind adventurer -- best known as the first and only blind man to reach the summit of Mount Everest and climb the world’s Seven Summits – on the Class III Shoshone section of the Colorado River. An accomplished mountaineer, backcountry skier, parachutist and more, he now has his sights on a new a goal -- kayaking the Grand Canyon in fall 2013.

The movie might not be in 3D, but the rivers it talks about sure are. The Conservation Alliance recently released Our Rivers, the second video in the worthWILD series, telling the story of American Whitewater and footwear brand KEEN's efforts to save rivers nationwide...