Its cold in Missoula...

More to follow, happy holidays!

The Selway, Not the Easy Way

Last weekend, a plan a few weeks in the making finally came together, and four of us ran the Selway River at low flows. The Selway is a river that I've wanted to get on for a long time--its permitted throughout the prime months (April through August), and flows through the most remote and pristine area in the lower 48--the Selway Bitterroot Wilderness. The river canyon is filled with big whitewater at higher flows, and tight, technical whitewater the rest of the year. The shuttle is fairly horrendous, 10 hours if you do it all at once, but the rewards of the river are incredibly high. We had the opportunity to paddle 47 miles of continually interesting, stunningly beautiful whitewater--miles from the nearest person or town. Many thanks to my co-instructor Brandon Gonski for supplying these beautiful photos that give a glimpse into some of the many joys of this river.

The odyssey really started on Friday afternoon, when Ryan and I spent 6 hours running the take-out shuttle. We drove through the afternoon and evening to drop my truck at the take-out. By the time we had rallied over the washboard, it was completely dark, and we ended up just putting the truck where the river sounded the loudest--making sure that we were above the class V Selway Falls.

We woke up the next morning at 4, and, with Kaitlyn generously
volunteering to drop us off at the put-in, loaded up Brandon's
Subaru and started another 3 hour drive. By the time we got close to the river, and the sun began to come up, we could see tiny islands of ice around every rock, and, between them, a shallow trickle of water makings its way towards the Lochsa, 50 miles away. It was clear that this wasn't going to be an easy trip. With only two days to cover all the distance, and without the massive flows that are common in the springtime, we knew that our first day on the river was going to be a marathon. Ryan, eternally the optimist, had made it clear that the first day of paddling, ending at Moose Creek, was going to be "miserable...but awesome."
Here we are putting on the river. Our boats were loaded down with a lot of gear. Only Ryan had the secret weapon--he had borrowed the Outdoor Program's Prijon Chopper. The chopper absolutely swallowed his -40 sleeping bag and had room for more. I think that we all secretly wished for a Chopper of our own, or at least that he wouldn't be able to negotiate the technical whitewater downstream with his gargantuan, comfortable boat.



Here I am looking at the first rapid of our trip. Brandon is sitting behind a rock, taking photos. Little do we both know that soon I'll be upside down, and Brandon will be running the rest of the rapid trying to protect is gajillion dollar camera. It all ended well, though.


The first morning of whitewater was super tight, and there wasn't much water, but we didn't have to get out of our boats, or really stop for anything. We just kept moving, through a beautiful river canyon surrounded by high, arid walls and large evergreens. It was cold, and the day never really seemed to warm up.




We just kept moving, though. Here Ryan pushes the Chopper to its limits.







We kept waiting to see Moose Creek, which marked the half-way point, as well as the beginning of the largest rapids on the river. We managed to convince ourselves that we had passed it, and made camp at a beautiful sight, near a large wooden bridge that spanned the river.

Zach used his boyscout techniques to bring a fire up, we broke out the dehydrated chili, and we had a wonderful evening in camp, followed by a cold night in the tents.

Once we got on the water the next day, one of the first things we did was pass Moose Creek--the spot that we thought we had passed 5 miles earlier. We were in for another, equally long day. Because we didn't know where we had parked the truck, either, we knew that we had to get off the river before it got too dark to find.

On the bright side, though, Moose Creek meant an additional flow that sped up our progress, and significantly beefed up some of the rapids. Here Zach is deep in one of the larger rapids below Moose Creek.




Even though my facial hair is confidence-inspiring, I don't think that I'm looking too sure of myself as I run the same rapid here.








Here, Ryan is taking a look at the Chopper prospects for running this drop with a big pin rock right in the middle. Ry and I both decided to walk this one. By this time, it was getting late in the day, and we were all tired. We hadn't gotten on the river particularly early, due to our little Moose Creek mix-up, and we needed to make solid progress downstream.


Brandon's picture frequency also declined somewhat, as we buckled down and charged for the car.






By the time we finally made it, we were completely exhausted, and happy that we had the foresight to leave BBQ chips in the truck. We drove back out on the washboard just as the light was beginning to go. All in all, a sweet trip in one of the most pristine places that I've ever been.









We were pretty tired by the time we finally made it back to Missoula...









Once again, thanks to Brandon for the sweet pictures. Moral of the story--you may not get to reading all your student's essays, and you may drive for a thousand years to get there, but the Selway River is certainly a spirit-place. Every minute spent on the river you are surrounded with the immediacy and fullness of the wild. See you on the river...

Jackson Panorama

New Home, to be updated soon.

Big Doings, Island Fever, Spring 2007

Winter is over, and spring is definitely blowing up in the Pacific Northwest. Since its been a while since Dan or I posted anything to the blog, here is a quick update about the things that I have going on this spring on Orcas.

Announcement The First: I bought a vehicle. Some said that it was too soon after the Millennium Falcon, but I don't care. I fell in love. Its a 1987 Toyota 4Runner. It smells like mold and sounds like a biplane. See below.



This is the "good" side.









Announcement the Second: I have an article in Paddler Magazine this month. Its about paddling this summer and I'm terribly proud of it. You should look at it. Or email me and I'll send you one of my 50 photocopies. Its on page 30. Good times.

Announcement the Third: There are no rivers on Orcas Island. See below.




Greenland Rolling at Cascade Lake








Announcement the Fourth: I've been accepted to graduate school at the University of Montana, in Missoula. This is what I will be doing for the next two years:

Brennan's Wave, Missoula, MT

Announcement the Fifth: Check out this dreamboat.





Kaitlyn paddling her new boat.







That's about it from beautiful Orcas Island in Washington's San Juans. I'll be on island through August as the Director of Water Trips here, and then moving to Missoula in mid-August. Toodles!

The Millennium Falcon, 1996-2007

This seemed like the best venue to announce the parting of myself and my much-loved, much-maligned minivan, The Millennium Falcon. Those of you who know me certainly knew her--that aging silver battle wagon, seatless in back, with a giant gash along her hindquarters where that bastard Brian Jessop hit her at the Shell Station in Everett.
What you may not know, however, is that before I inherited her, she was beautiful. I remember when she first came off the lot. I was a freshman in high school, and she glowed with a cool silver burnish that could only make me think of comic books. Her sounds system was advanced, her double doors were kicking, and, besides the fact that it was a minivan, I was head-over-heels in love.
Time passed. I left for college and returned. After a brief foray with a 1982 Volvo Wagon, the Millennium Falcon and I were joined irrevocably in the fall of 2003, when we drove across the country for my senior year of college. She was still so new that someone tried to get in her and drive her because they thought she was part of the college van fleet.
She could seat 7, had cupholders for all of them, and could actually go 108 miles per hour, which I think is pretty fast for a minivan. She towed a sailboat across the country with Karen and Nick and I. She took all my roommates to bowling. She once pulled Will Stetler's GMC Yukon out of the ditch. I could fit 9 whitewater kayaks on the custom roof rack She also got good gas mileage and did tolerably well with the ladies.
Still, she had her faults. Who doesn't? The horn, cruise control, door locks and alarm didn't work. Many of you who had the pleasure of riding in her remember "rave mode" when the lights, door locks, and beeper start going crazy and you have to warn people that are prone to seizures to be careful. Also, oddly enough, people were fairly able to intuit that the van had once belonged to my mommy, and sometimes I enjoyed some good natured ribbing (no doubt out of jealousy) for my ability to take half a soccer team, a water cooler, and snacks for halftime in my day-to-day commuter vehicle.
All that, good and bad, are over now. Juan, a fine upstanding man from Renton, has purchased the minivan for his wife. I imagine the Millennium Falcon being relieved at finally being able to carry babies around, and, when they get older, maybe take them to soccer games. Its like C-3P0 finally getting put in for some protocol duties instead of space battles.
So farewell, you beautiful silver escape pod of domesticity. You've towed my boats, endured my cigarette smoke, let me sleep in your roomy interior, brushed off the occasional coffee stain and brutal bashing by that bastard Brian Jessop, and, most importantly, won my many thanks


Fly free sweet silver bird! Fly Free!

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."

The Dude Bus Rolls North

Its been a long time since Dan or I have posted anything, but I just got back from my trip up to British Columbia and of the 500 or so pictures I took, I think about 20 of them aren't just different shades of gray. Everything is still pretty muddled in my head, so hopefully I can post a more coherent write-up in the next week or so, but here are some highlights from a really incredible trip.



Here, The Dude Bus (the name given to us by the dorky shopkeeper at Eastsound Sporting Goods) is leaving Orcas Island on October 26th under fair skies and with all the environmental education staff looking on. This is last time that we'll see the sun for the next 4 weeks.






We paddled north for a few days in decent weather. Here Jake, Kibbee and Andrew are crossing into Plumper Sound after clearing customs in Bedwell Harbor. A hurricane off the north tip of the island has forecasters predicting 50 knot winds in this area. Weather forecasts for greater Vancouver Island are always, always wrong.













We paddled up to Prevost Island, and then decided to make a break for the beautiful sandy beaches at Dionisio Point, just on the eastern side of Porlier Pass. Here we are stopping for our tot break on the north tip of Wallace Island before crossing Trincomali Channel and passing through Porlier Pass.
A beautiful sunset at Dionisio Point was our reward for crossing the straight. From there, we paddled up the eastern side of Gabriola Island, and poached a camp spot on Breakwater Island, whose owners were not home, but, if an island is any indication of the quality of its owners, were surely stellar people.














Sorting food on Breakwater Island. Jake's dad (driedfood@hotmail.com) is surely one of the world's greatest food dehydrators, and throughout the trip we at incredibly well, dining on curried chicken, tons of rehydrated fruit, pizza, and other foods that would have been completely innaccessible for paddlers packing out two weeks of food at a time.



Leaving Breakwater proved to be a bit more difficult than getting there. Here, Andrew, Jake and Kibbee get the boats ready for our first semi-surf launch.










Jake is paddling out like he means it. Most of the challenges on our trip came more from the climate (upper thirties and raining) than from the sea state, though we did have a couple really memorable days of big water. Somehow, I didn't really manage to get the camera out of the case to document them.







From Breakwater Island, we bucked some serious current through Gabriola Passage and on up to Nanaimo, BC, our first bit of shore leave on day 7. We landed at Newcastle Island late in the evening, set up camp at record pace, and managed to finish everything in time to catch the boat across to Protection Island, home of theDinghy Dock Pub, surely one of the finest establishments in the world. We stripped off our paddling layers and enjoyed some "jugs" while we looked over the charts. We knew that the water was going to be bigger and the creature comforts farther apart as we moved to the northern part of our trip...















...or not. These sirens called to us from their hot tub outside of Nanaimo the next day and persuaded us to scale a cliff, climb a rickety ladder and get in their hot tub. They were both gymnastics instructors. Seriously. Jake is very happy.

Two days later, we were completely winded in at Qualicum Beach, halfway between Nanaino and Campbell River. The locals who were out surfing (always a good sign) said that this surf beach (basically the only one on the entire east coast) only goes off 5 or 6 times a year. We considered ourself pretty lucky to land at the only surf beach on the entire island on the only day that the surf is actually up. But we had a nice breakfast in town and got a ride from someone named Gartlett in his creepy van.



Once we passed through Seymour Narrows, things changed really suddenly. We began hanging our food at night to ward off predators (below). Seymour Narrows also represents the border of two different bio-climactic zones, according to the guidebook. Translation: it got really cold.

Here Andrew and Kibbee demonstrate the first rule of The Dude Bus: we don't paddle on snow days. This picture was taken in Sayward, where we had to take a rest day because I had gotten really sick and couldn't keep myself warm. I also pooped my pants. It was a really fun illness.

However, we had a pretty nice place to stay, and our neighbor Dan let us use his garage to dry gear and cook. We also met some really interested people, among them Tom. Tom owns a kayak company which operates out of Sayward and Telegraph Cove called "Village Island Tours," which specializes in an aboriginal kayaking experience. Tom has lived in the area most of his life, and knew all the great spots to go and the history of pretty much everything, including the Bikush. Bigfoot, to the layman.
Most of what Tom told us about the Bikush is secret, but I will tell you this: bigfoot is real, and if you hear wood knocking on wood, turn around and slowly return the way that you came.
Here we are with Tom, his son Hunter, and his dog Land Claims. Tom is THE guy to talk to if you're interested in paddling in the Discovery Islands or northern Vancouver Island, and he's got a webpage at www.villageisland.com. Maybe if you go drinking with him he'll tell you about the bikush as well.
We told Tom that we were planning on paddling up to Telegraph Cove, and that we were hoping that there was a hot tub that might still be open at the resort. Unfortunately, Tom told us that Telegraph Cove, a beautiful summer destination, was "closed up tighter than a nun's cunt"...

...and it was. We camped on the front lawn of the general store and headed out early the next day.
We continued north from Telegraph Cove to Port McNeill, and then on to Port Hardy, our final destination. We arrived in Port Hardy on November 17th, our 23rd day on the water. By time that we arrived, we were all definetely pretty haggard--tired bodies, breaking gear, and, more than anything, just quite tired of being cold. It was strange to arrive at a goal after so many days on the water and come to the realization that Port Hardy, though it occupied some kind of mythic status in our minds, is just a place on the map.


So we had the First-Annual Dude Bus putt-putt golf tournament at our RV park. Here Kibbee, trailing by a few strokes, focuses on the castle obstacle while I look on. Our celebration evening went from putt-putt golf to the Babe's Sports Bar (where Kibbee broke up a fight between the bartender and the only other patron) and eventually to the hot-tub at a local hotel, where we were all unceremoniously thrown out by Jennie, who just could not be convinced that we had rooms at the resort.
End of the line--me, Kibbee, Andrew, and Jake with one of the RV Park dogs. In the end, we paddled 271 miles in 23 days on the water. Suzie and Mikkel picked us up on the 20th of November and we were back in Seattle for Thanksgiving. I realize that I haven't done the trip justice at all, so I will try to post an itinerary and a less scattered trip report at some point. This trip was an amazing experience that I hope I won't have to do again for some time. Kibbee, Jake and Andrew are the best expedition-mates that I could have ever hoped to have, and we saw some of the most beautiful, open country that I have ever seen. Everyone that we met (with one exception--you know who you are Quadra Island) was helpful and interested in our trip, even though they thought we were crazy. All in all, we had a hell of a time.