Best Pet EVER!

So I'm back in the Great White North enjoying some big water fun. One of my local runs, the Petawawa, is in flood and with that comes big waves and even bigger holes. I've been testing out my gear by throwing myself into anything I think I'll come out of. So far so good. I've also had a few sessions on a small but fun wave and the wife was around with the camera so here you go. Hopefully the levels will continue to rise and I'll have some more updates around the corner.

Dan Caldwell

Down Utah's Green River

Hello! This is Sean Bierle, and I just wanted to report on the recent trip I helped lead down the Green River in Utah. Working for the National Outdoor Leadership School (NOLS), I was fortunate enough to be a part of a great group of folks that explored the Green's Desolation, Gray, and Lodore Canyons for the past 14 days.

For those of you that haven't been down those sections, I'd highly recommend them. The Green cuts through the Colorado Plateau and creates these amazing, diverse canyons. April in Utah is a bit cold (I had the bowline of our oar rig freeze solid multiple times), but there was an abundance of wildlife in the canyons. We saw bison, big horned sheep, mule deer, and loads of herons and eagles. One of our students even found an elk antler.

The water in Lodore was at a low-average level, as they haven't yet begun releasing much from Flaming Gorge Reservoir. However, down in Deso, the water was at a fun level, with a decent amount coming off the undammed Yampa River. The NOLS students, all beginner paddlers, loved the Class III rapids of the Green, and many expressed interest in getting into kayaking. I was excited to see them battle the mental challenge of frozen neoprene and still realize how exciting and fun whitewater can be.

Kristin and I have a lot more programs lined up for this Spring. She's about to compete at the US National Slalom Team Trials in Charlotte this weekend, and then we will both head to Durango to finish becoming ACA instructor trainers. Later in May, I head to California to lead a two week rafting trip in the Klamath River drainage. Our biggest program, though, is WILD Idaho, which we are leading for Boise State University this June. We just got our new WRSI helmets and throwbags, and look forward to putting them to good use!

More later. Sean

One Step Closer to a Better, Cleaner Watershed

South Platte River Clean-Up

Sunday the boating community around Denver celebrated Earth Day by getting out on the South Platte and cleaning up the trash. For those of you who are not familiar with the South Platte let me give you a little background. This river flows all the way through Denver starting in the commercial and manufacturing parks of Denver first. By the time it reaches Confluence Play Park, 9 miles down the river, the water is pretty nasty. They don’t call it Hepatitis Hole for nothing! I have been playing at Confluence for the past few weeks because nothing else anywhere close to the Front Range is running, after seeing some of the stuff we cleaned up I am kind of second guessing my after school play options.
The South Platte Clean-up is a fairly new idea. Last year, the first year, about 100 people collected two tons of trash in 9 miles. This year more people came out to help. I believe our numbers were closer to 150 or 200. It was great to see family’s as well as the college communities around Denver come out and clean up the environment, especially one so important to all of us.

Check it out.

We all started at once, here is some of the boats. I bet there were about 70 or 80 water crafts out on the river.

Hanging with my friends Marilee and Maria in the Ducky and a cool family on the raft. the rafters were pretty neat. They would pull into and eddy and everyone would

pile out and clean up the side of the river and then jump back into the raft.

If you look closely you can see a trash bag in my cockpit. We would fill our trash bags up and give them to the rafts. We also set safety at the bottom of the drops just to make sure everyone was good to go.

I am Glad I got to take part in this event

Hopefully after school is out, I can travel further on the weekends and get my paddle on.
SYOTR,
Christine

WRSI Team paddler Dan Burke-Checks in from the EAST!

Dan Burke (C1 World Freestyle Champion) checks in from New Hamshire....here is what he has to say" We are having some great weekends with the water up in New Hampshire. The Play spots are all starting to come in, but we are still waiting for the early creeks."

Here are some pics of our local play spot the "CrackPipe".

We look forward to seeing more of Dan Burke in action on his local creeks.

Oregon Rafting Team (ORT) Canyon Creek TR

Human behavior.
Never fails to intrigue me.

Rivers.
Never fail to fascinate me.

The synergy of humans running rivers, an abstract of life itself, a synapse of energies which create a mirror of being.
We can learn a lot from a simple river trip.


Last weekend the boys we’re tied up for 48 hours with the Wind Race.
This coming weekend we roll down to the North Fork of the American so I wasn’t too surprised when only Ox and Matt showed up Saturday morning for a Canyon Creek run.
Oh sure everyone had an excuse/reason; mom’s in town, bachelor party in Vegas, flying back from spring break in Arizona(x2), gotta work.

For what might be the same reason folks rubber neck when driving by an accident about 8 kayakers showed up at the put in. Of course we didn’t disappoint. We ran 90% of the drops fairly well, it was just that the 10% was an 18 footer we body hucked sideways. Sure we might have seen the guard rocks we got hung up on had we scouted it, but we will not be able to scout during the Canyon Creek Race, training makes one stronger if ya can survive it.

Once all control was lost and we were peering the wrong way into a bad situation, during the next millisecond the concept of fate and luck crossed my mind.

Tchaikovsky explored the concept of fate with his Fourth Symphony and even stated that, “ This is Fate, that fateful force which prevents the impulse to happiness from entirely achieving its goal, forever on jealous guard lest peace and well being should ever be attained in complete and unclouded form, hanging above us like the sword of Damacoles, constantly and unremittingly poisoning the soul. Its force is invisible and can never be overcome. Our only choice is to surrender to it, and to languish fruitlessly”.

Ox and I surrendered to gravity as we body gutted the reversal at the base of Big Kahuna and languished fruitlessly in the frothy run out. Kayakers watched, and our teammates will hear about it from a safe distance.

Human behavior, classical music, whitewater.

When it all comes it apart it all comes together.

Yin and Yang, another day on the river with ORT.


Tim
http://www.oregonraftingteam.com
Check out the vid by Corey Morton at:
http://wondermidget.blogspot.com/

Wet and Wild Spring Break!!! (video included)

LRC Falls pic by Adam Goshorn

Well maybe not that wild, but definitely wet. After givin' her all semester with school and keeping good grades, I was in definite need of a break. Luckily I was able to do some kayaking locally and then got to travel up to Western NC and sample some of their finest. I managed to catch our local classics Johnnies and LRC at good flow. Then I came down with a bad cold and was out of commission for a few days, but recovered in time to meet up with some some friends in NC to get on Big Creek and the Raven Fork.


The Raven Fork is by far an incredible place, and I feel very privileged to have kayaked there. Enjoy the pics:



Headless Horseman pic by Joey Jarrell

Another shot of Headless by Ryan Moore

pic by Joey Jarrell

Launching at Mortal Combat pic by Joey Jarrell




Sam watching me at Mike Tyson's Punchout(I'm the little yellow dot at the top of the picture) pic by Joey Jarrell

Caveman pic by Ryan Moore

And here's the video thanks to Ryran:

http://www.vimeo.com/822819

Now it's back to the books!!!

-Charlie Mix

2008 ORT Wind Race : Stabler Washington

Season Kickoff for the:

2008 Western Whitewater Championship Series (WWCS)

What a blast.
29 racers suited up to brave the cold rainy weather, early start time, and wrath from mom for not attending Easter dinner to attend the first downriver Upper Wind race in 14 years.

Joe Stumpfel in his super mongo Wave Hopper was the only racer to break the 20 minute barrier finishing the roughly 3 mile (Class III-IV+) course in 19minutes:17seconds.

At approximately 6.7 feet on the gauge at race time the Upper Wind held on to it’s reputation of being technical while still smashing paddlers with solid holes.
Ram’s Horn was said to humble several fatigued paddlers on this day.

Dave Hagmeier proved yet again that he is the man to beat in a cataraft, while Greg Mallory beat all comers in the competitive under 9 feet kayak class. Greg represents what is right about competition, his inner strength and modest demeanor was unmatched. I really hope you get to meet Greg on the river someday.

The California Women tactfully took full advantage of their downriver starting position and cleverly held a solid line throughout the first 1/3rd of the race completely disallowing ORT an opportunity to pass. When the channel finally widened up just above Initiation, ORT snuck by on the inside but blew their exit line after the first big ledge which let the opportunistic ladies from Cali to slip by. ORT was again forced to wait patiently for an opening and about 4 boulder gardens later were able to crank by just above Ram’s Horn. Our line at the Horn wasn’t real clean but it was good enough to take a solid lead and settle in for the remainder of the gorge.

At the finish line we waited anxiously for new ORT recruit and first year paddler Matt King who had never seen this section of stout water before. Additionally, he was racing it (R2) in a 12 foot Aire Puma with a classmate he had just “drug” off the campus who may have only been in a raft a few times, ever. We let out a big cheer as this crew finally came around the corner, Matt with a big grin and his bro with the thousand yard stare.

Back at the cabin racers and volunteers were stoked with some spicy chili served up by ORT, Easter Eggs by Kate and April, and PBR which was donated by Zach from Echo River Trips.
83% of the racers went home with gear or prizes provided by:

Gerber Knives
River Connection
Whitewater Designs
Cascade Outfitters
Next Adventure
NRS
WRSI

A very special thanks for:

Event insurance and timing provided by Bob and Kerry of the Northwest Rafters Association (NWRA) who will be hosting the 25th annual Upper Clackamas Whitewater Festival May 16th – 18th.

Registration and event support by Mark Rettmann.

Shuttle and tent by Next Adventure.

Gerber knives and parking by Rob Virostek of kayakattack.com.

And of course the great folks at Aire, Aquabound, WRSI, and Immersion Research, who continue to provide the boys with the best equipment on the river.

Come join the fun next year with practice on Saturday March 21st and the race on Sunday March 22nd.

Next stop on the WWCS is the North Fork of the American April 5th.

ORT, we are more than just a whitewater rafting team,

Tim


EVENT RESULTS
Long Boat Kayak
1st Joe Stumpfel 19:17
2nd Austin Rathman 20:04
3rd Nate Bell 22:06
4th Christie Glissmeyer 22:48

Kayak (Under 9 feet)---Times “rained out”
1st Greg Mallory
2nd Tony Skirvanek
3rd Rob Virostek
4th Jim Kennedy
5th Roberta Grant
6th Luke Spencer

Cataraft---Times “rained out”
1st Dave Hagmeier
2nd Zachary Collier
3rd Val Shaull


Paddle Raft
1st Oregon Rafting Team (ORT) 22:44
2nd California Women 23:17
3rd Bigfoot (R2) 27:09
4th ORT Rookies (R2) 28:55

http://www.oregonraftingteam.com/