Ken Whiting Emailed Me.

The title says it all. Our heartfelt plea to Ken to return to his former glory as freestyle champion generated not only some small controversy regarding the plausibility of a Whiting comeback and his ability to do cartwheels on a wave, but also an email from the great man himself. Here is a dramatic re-enactment of me opening my gmail account to and finding a letter in it from the man, the myth, the legend, Mr. Ken Whiting:



In his letter to me, Ken noted that he was flying under the radar up in Canada, was non-comittal about attempting a freestyle comeback in '07 (though he did thank us for helping to provide "inspirado"), and further confirmed that he is not only the best instructor working these days, but also has a great sense of humor and is an all-around class act.
Though Dan and I are both a little baffled about what to do now after completing a life goal of making contact with Ken Whiting, a few of the projects that are in the works for AE is Elliot's Vancouver Island Trip, Dan's exploration of his new home turf, the Columbia River Gorge, a Halloween Extravaganza, and Patrol Season Countdown.

You're the Man, Ken!

The End of Bi-Coastal Blogging

Well, that's the end of our bi-coastal kayak blog. After a two-week road trip, Dan Abraham, truck, and boats have safely made the trek from Edgecomb, ME to Astoria, OR, and he has already started his new job training dolphins to attack Russian nuclear submarines with torpedoes. Or something like that. On the bright side, we will contine to post our sub-par adventures and pictures. Such as these, from our memorable drive across the country.

We left Boston, MA, and decided that we needed some way to mark the passage of time other than empty coffee cups and the circuitous route of the sun in the sky. So we put a little checklist on the side of the truck to mark our progress toward the promised land of BC whitewater.


Here, Dan is writing the checklist on the side of the truck outside an art store in Reading, MA.

Then we started driving. We drove and drove. We drank lots of coffee. By that evening, we had arrived in Niagra Falls, NY. We got out and took a quick look at the falls and returned to find our car surrounded by Rent-A-Cops hell bent on discouraging us from running the falls in the kayaks on top of the car. Dissapointed, we continued on.



That night, we camped at a State Park in Michigan after driving through Canada for most of the night. In Indiana, it turns out that you can buy fireworks, so we made a brief stop to procure supplies for the rest of the journey.



In this photo, Dan is excited because he has lived a sheltered life and never got to play with fire while growing up.

There's not that much to tell through the middle part of the country. There were many dead animals on the side of the road. It was quite hot and petrol was very expensive.

Then we got to Montana, where my little sister just started college. Missoula is an amazing city, and a real testament to forward thinking, community-oriented western living. Case in point: the brand new play feature that was just finished right in downtown Missoula.



It is an awesome little feature, and supposedly even better with more water.

We arrived in Ellensburg, WA, that evening after driving the whole way in four long days. But the trip wasn't over. Actually it was, but we didn't know yet. The next part of our plan was to meet up with friends Dane and Craig and head up to British Columbia and do some paddling before I needed to start my environmental educating and Dan needed to start working with the national defense dolphins.
Dane and Craig met us the next morning and we headed over to Seattle, and then to the Tumwater Section of the Wenatchee River, which was super low, but fun.



Unfortunately, after getting to Bellingham, our last jumping-off point before British Columbia, we realized that there was actually no water in BC, and the only river that had water actually had too much. Stuck between a rock and a hard place, we headed for beautiful Orcas Island to wait for the water to come down.



From Orcas, we took an adrenaline-filled overnight trip to Patos Island, which was amazingly beautiful. When we returned, some kind of sophisticated hydrodynamical mathematical model that scientists Dan and Dane made confirmed that the river was not going to come down in time for us to paddle it.

Thus, our British Columbian whitewater odyssey ended on Orcas Island, and our group dispersed until the rain starts falling, the snow melting, or everyone fell in love with sea kayaking.



Oh well, what can you do? It was a hell of a summer and a great fall, and there are surely more adventures to come. Special thanks to Bryan Smith of The Range Life (www.therangelife.blogspot.com) for providing us with tons of great beta about water levels in BC. Cheers!

An Open Letter to Ken Whiting, '98 Freestyle Champion

Dear Ken,

We looked for you on the Ottawa. We spent a whole week there without seeing you. Every time a Pink Whippet, Z, Super EZ, or Project 62 came paddling down the river, we hoped it would be you. The US team trials came and went and still you remained in seclusion, like Bobby Fischer. We watched "Play Daze" and "Playboating with Ken Whiting" over and over, but it wasn't the same. Now, as the World's loom in 2007, we decided that the time has come to draft a letter to you, asking you to leave South America and return to your former glory as Freestyle Champion.
That's right, Ken, we're asking you to make a comeback. A lot has changed since '98--we know. The boats are shorter, the tricks have stupider names, and the Jackson Family were all bitten by radioactive spiders that give them super-human strength and reflexes. It would be a daunting task for anyone. But the simple fact is that the freestyle world is tired of short boats, short paddles, and short people. Its time for a real Canadian man to remind them what they've forgotten.
Its true that you haven't really been on the cutting edge of freestyle for a while. I'm sure that if you wanted to you could have come up with tons of new tricks, and then named them The Gnarltromper or Cosmonaut Escape Pod, but you didn't. Why? The answer is simple. The greatest kayak trick has already been perfected, and its called the cartwheel. Those McNasty Jedi-Flippers won't know what hit them when you show up at the World Cup and unleash 147 clean ends on their ass. Then a split-wheel and 200 on the other side. "I'm not left-handed either"--haha!
Now, we would be loathe to tell you your business, but for this auspicious comeback tour, we would also suggest that you go back to old trusty. No offense to the Wavesport Project, but we think that the time has come to paddle a man's boat, not a boat that looks like a mango mated with a running shoe. That's right, the Z. We believe that only the Z could truly capture the essence of your comeback campaign 2007. Imagine your satisfaction hogging the eddy and beholding the tiny playthings of the other competitors. Your boat would be three times larger than Dane Jackson himself. This will have a profound psychological effect on the other competitors. Furthermore, no other boat is better suited to absolutely destroying every feature on the river with cartwheels so fast it looks like a blue and black buzzsaw is moving upriver.
We can't make this decision for you, no matter how fondly we wish to see you. All we can say is that freestyle kayaking needs you now, Ken, more than ever. We'll print a run of "Whiting in '07" stickers and hope for the best. We know you'll do the right thing.

With great hope,

Elliot and Dan

Ken Whiting: Role Model

Northeast Rivers--Home Safe!

Hey All,

Dan and I are back from NE Rivers, and what a trip is was! We dipped
our paddles in the West Branch of the Penobscott, Rapid River, Black
River, Blackwater River, Hudson River Gorge, The Ottawa, the
Jacques-Cartier, and the Kennebec. Eight beautiful, very different
rivers in five weeks, and a great group to boot. It was an incredible
trip, and we're still sorting through the approximately 700 photos
that we took, but here is a quick slideshow of some of the best, along
with some video clips of our campers killing it:

NER SLIDESHOW


Enjoy, and we'll try to get more up once we get our pictures sorted out.

Team NER Paddlers:

Robbie "Crazylegs" Walzer
Connor Bodell
Caleb Woodworth
George Vandercook
Andrew Stellato
Peter Boardman
Taylor Wicks
Will Fleming

Team Northeast Rivers: "Rocky" Training Montage

It's not easy getting ready for a five-week kayaking trip. There's a lot of food packing, gear packing, and "staff development." Staff development is our favorite. Here are some pictures of our latest staff development clinic at Sheepscott Falls on Sunday. As you look over this post, we think you should picture the training montage from Rocky IV (the one where he's in Siberia). Picture us paddling around, lifting up logs, helping Siberians extricate their oxcarts from the snow, etc.
In other news, things are looking good for the trip and our itinerary is starting to form up nicely. It sounds like we'll be at the West Branch of the Penobscot, then Rapid River, then Hudson Gorge and the Black River, then up to the Ottawa, and finally the Jaques-Cartier in Quebec. Anyone who is reading this, feel free to drop us a line with suggestions along the way or if you want to catch up with Northeast Rivers. Now onto some pictures...

One in the hole and one in the Wave.
Jim. He surfs. He also cuts his foot. Badly...
Dan throwing down. His helmet is very fashionable.
Bo is cartwheeling, Dan is watching, the river is flowing...
Even though Jim hurt his foot, he's too hard-core to care...
All in all, another beautiful day in the state of Maine!

Northeast Rivers: 26 days and counting

Where in the world are Dan and Elliot? What happened to our radical bi-coastal whitewater blog? Well, before we move on to the next phase of aquatic evolution, we thought we'd better bring everyone up to speed on what we've been up to this long winter.

Dan has been doing this:

Molesting Cats. Edgecomb, Maine.

and this:

Fierce competition at the US Toboggan Nationals. Camden, Maine.

Elliot has been doing this:

Camp counselor 4 life! What what! Orcas Island, WA

and this:

Growing mohawk, tanning obsessively. Ellensburg, WA.

What are Dan and Elliot up to now, you ask? We are doing this:

Working for our turns. Lake Umbagog, Rapid River, ME.

and this:
















Bluntly speaking, radical. Steep Falls, ME.

and this:

Killing it at Smooth Ledge. Rapid River, ME.

That's right, due to some kind of alignment of the stars/huge error in judgement, Dan and I are co-leading the baddest whitewater trip in the east this summer--Northeast Rivers. We will be paddling all of the best rivers in the Northeast--from New York State to Quebec--with 8 awesome young boaters. We will be leaving the Chewonki Foundation (the camp in Wiscassett that puts on such an incredible trip) on the 11th of July, and we'll return five weeks later, hopefully tan, happy, and with 8 incredibly talented young boaters in tow.
After northeast rivers ends, we will be driving across the country, paddling some incredible whitewater, meeting people from coast to coast, and crusading to increase overall fossil fuel usage.

And you're invited! That's right, you! All of our faithful readers (AKA: our moms and the guys at Dan's Dad's office). We will be trying to post regular trip reports, tons of pics from the river and the road, and overall turn our blog into something interesting, dynamic, and, above all, not self-important. So check back often, drop us a line if you're in our intended paddling route, and keep burning those fossil fuels.

Pookie Says: "Michael Keaton was obviously the best Batman."