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.

Gulf Hagas

A little while back Alex Bender, Dan Mcgrath and I were in the Moosehead lake region for a weekend of paddling and hanging out. We had planned on just heading to the seboomook and west branch, but with a few scattered reports of rain in the area we decided to load the creekboats just in case. On Saturday we took a quick run on Seboomook in the morning, headed over to the West Branch for a gorge/crib lap or two in the afternoon, and then called it a day. As we were getting ready to head down to Greenville for the night the skies completely opened up and rain just pummeled the ground. A little smile started to grow on each of our faces... we knew we had a chance of making it over to Gulf Hagas if this kept up. No one said anything, we didn't want to jinx it, but it looked like the clouds were sticking around all night.

...skip over the rest of the night, hoping for more and more rain...

We packed up early, headed over the gauge bridge, and were pleasantly surprised to find just enough water. The level was about 3 inches below the abutment, definitely on the low side, but completely runnable. We got in our boats as fast as possible and headed downstream. It was a great way to end what was an amazing creeking season. This spring had more new rivers and creeks for all of us than in the past two years combined. Here are a few pics, whish we had taken more but we were all too excited to bust out the camera much. Make it up there if you get any chance at all!

Alex drops over Billings



Myself running the left side of faceplant, contrast this to how much water was in the Karen Roy article in No Umbrella... completely different river at the two levels I'm sure.



...and about to drop over Buttermilk



The first series of drops from downstream. The water was low, but all the lines were there and everything was runnable.



Dan drops over Billings



Could maybe have used a little more water



The whole run was just beautiful drop, boogie water, beautiful drop, boogie water... all deep in the gorge



followed by a 5 mile walk, uphill, to the car. The foot shuttle sucks for this one.



Hope you enjoy, if you ever get a chance to get up there, go go go. The water was low at 3 inches below, but I'm sure you could run even a few more inches down.