Whitewater Rafting

The Smith River, Skeena watershed, southern Utah ...these are just a few of the nation's paddling areas benefiting from $700,000 in grants recently issued by the Conservation Alliance, marking the largest funding cycle in the group’s 23-year history...

There aren’t too many hard-charging, big-water boaters who get after it as much as Steve Fisher, Tyler Bradt, Benny Marr and Rush Sturges. That’s why Fisher, famed for his exploits on the Zambezi and White Nile, hand-picked Bradt, Marr and Sturges to run the notorious Inga Rapids in the heart of Africa’s Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). The result: Congo, The The Grand Inga Rapids, one of the best paddling flicks to hit the shelves in years.

In another blow to the close-knit paddling community, Alan Panebaker, 29, AW's Northeast Stewardship Director and native of Paddling Life's hometown of Steamboat Springs, Colo., drowned Sept. 19 while paddling with friends on New Hampshire’s Upper Pemigewassett River.

It's a nice day for a...whitewater wedding. In a gathering of some of kayaking's most prestigious whitewater paddlers, soul boater Willie Kern and Tracy Bowerman recently tie the knot in Montana. Read on to ID the veritable Who's Who of Whitewater attendees on hand there to wish them the best...

The paddling world lost one of its greatest members the weekend of Sept. 8-9 when long-time Ocoee River instructor and guide Jeff West was killed on a solo attempt of British Columbia’s Grand Canyon of the Stikine River. PL pieces together what it knows about the tragedy, including comments from Erik Boomer, who had also planned a one-day solo of the run this fall...

With a brand new playhole now thoroughly vetted and ready for the 2013 Freestyle World Championships, the 2012 Freestyle World Cup came to an end on Sunday afternoon at the Nantahala Outdoor Center.

Want a great excuse to get out and paddle, and win schwag in the process? Footwear company KEEN is sponsoring World Wide Recess Day (WWRD) on September 14, trying to break the record for the most recesses ever taken in one 24-hour period. Knowing PL readers don’t need much incentive to hit the water, clean those cobwebs out of your cockpit and join the cause...

Want to learn from whitewater’s best, while paddling some of the best rivers in the country? Head to The Whitewater Symposium in White Salmon, Wash., Oct. 12-14 for a weekend of seminars, symposiums, on-water instruction and more, all in the heart of prime paddling...

Warm Springs Rapid on the Yampa wasn't the only rapid rearranged by Mother Nature this year. Hance rapid on the Grand will also take a closer scout after a flash flood changed it in late August...

Peter Csonka (SVK) continued his domination of the 2012 Freestyle World Cup Series, finishing first with a final score of 1416. Csonka was first after both the preliminary and the quarter-final rounds, but was seeded in second place behind USA’s Dane Jackson coming out of the semifinal. However, Dane Jackson, a resident of Rock Island, couldn’t quite match Csonka’s score in the final round.

The 2012 ICF Freestyle World Cups are underway, drawing high-flying freestylers from more than 17 countries to the Southeast U.S., which is hosting all three events this season. With this weekend’s event wrapping up in Sparta, Tenn., on the Caney Fork at Rock Island – with Peter Czonka and Emily Jackson on top – the paddlers now pilgrimage to the Pigeon River for event #2 Aug. 28-30 before wrapping up on the NOC’s Nantahala River Sept. 7-9. Read on for full event coverage...

With its low water through much of the season, fewer paddlers than normal got to run Yampa Canyon in Colorado’s Dinosaur National Monument, and dodge the giant hole at the bottom of its signature Warms Springs rapid. Those who run it next year might want to give the rapid a second look while scouting. In early August, a flash flood, rock fall or both cascaded down the canyon, altering the landmark drop significantly.

Phelps, schmelps. World Freestyle Kayak Championships? Even that's small fry compared to the stage the sport played out on in August. Yep, at this year’s London 2012 Olympic Games, freestyle kayaking made its biggest appearance ever when six athletes from five continents were chosen to present freestyle kayaking to the Olympics...

You could hear a pin drop when he took the stage. Thankfully for Martin Litton, 95, winner of Canoe & Kayak magazine’s Lifetime Achievement award at this summer’s Outdoor Retailer tradeshow, it wasn’t a thole pin from his dory-rowing days on the Grand Canyon. The silence came out of sheer respect for one of the world's top river environmentalists...

He’s baaaack. Decades after founding footwear giant Teva in 1984, a born-in-the-Grand-Canyon brand that has since become synonymous with river running, Teva founder Mark Thatcher is at it again launching a new footwear company called Sazzi...

Despite the year's rebound in the paddlesports sales -- Leisure Trend’s Paddlesport RetailTRAK reports January through May paddlesports sales totaled $177 million, a 20 percent increase over 2011-- Johnson Watercraft, a division of Johnson Outdoors, has announced plans to shutter its marketing and R&D offices in Bellingham, Wash., and move the departments to its facility in Old Town, Maine...

The $5,000 REP Whitewater Challenge, a series of events held at river parks designed by Boulder, Colo.’s Recreation Engineering & Planning, wrapped up on the weekend of July 7-8 at Kelly’s Whitewater Park in Cascade, Idaho, with familiar names on the podium and grand plans for an even bigger and better series next year...

When slalom paddlers descend on the newly completed Lee Valley Whitewater Centre course for the London Olympic Games in a few short days, they’ll do so knowing they’re in for some serious whitewater -- the course has been proclaimed as the best and most challenging Olympic paddling venue to-date...

Believe it or not, in this year of historically low runoff in Colorado, the state's main artery, the Colorado River, is running higher than average in Class V Gore Canyon and Class II Lower Gore Canyon downstream (1,150 cfs), and perfect for rafters in Shoshone Canyon near Glenwood Springs. And paddlers owe it all to something called the Shoshone Outage Protocol...

While the world waits for the London Games to begin, a host of Juniors strutted their slalom stuff at the U-23 Canoe Slalom World Championships in the good ol’ USA in Wausau, Wis. In all, the event drew more than 300 young athletes from 27 nations, including three 2012 Olympians, to test themselves against the world’s best. The highlight for the U.S.: Rick Powell's bronze...

The North Fork downstream had its chance with a blow-out extreme race a few weeks earlier. Now it was the North Fork’s chance to show freestyle kayakers what it could offer. And it offered plenty at the U.S. National Whitewater Championships July 6-8 at Kelly’s Whitewater Park in Cascade, on what competitors called “possibly the biggest loop spot on Earth...”

They’re at it again, this time exploring new realms of verticality. First Ascent expedition kayakers Ben Stookesberry and Chris Korbulic recently returned from a first descent of the Marble Fork of the Kaweah River in Sierra National Park, testing ropes as much as their adrenaline glands on a five-hour descent into a never-before-run, 2,000-foot-deep canyon....

In an effort to tie in more people in the town’s own backyard to the world-class river park amenity they have coursing through downtown, the city of Wausau, Wis., recently followed the path of other whitewater park townships by hosting a summer festival based around the river. The result: the 2nd Annual Wausau RiverFest, drawing over 100 paddlers to the town’s park as well as a few cheeseheads along for the ride...

With the Lyons Outdoor Games and FIBArk wrapping up in Colorado, and river fest followers now flocking to Gunnison, Festival season is in full swing in Colorado, with familiar names on the podium. A quick wrap PL-style on who’s done what where...