Playak News Flash 2010-07-06

Playak News Flash - July 6, 2010
The world's latest paddling headlines.

News Watch Headlines

Chile winter n' Montana Crikin Sweet - It seems to be one hell of an epic season in the northern hemisphere, but with a surge of work I flew back down to Chile to complete some business. The one thing I never realized until last year, is that the winter down here is the highest water of the year. The constant rain keeps the rivers between a medium and extreme high water flow for months on end. Where as normally we are sitting around waiting for the rain, I have been housed by non stop rain and awaking every morning to fresh snow all around.

Team USA-2011- Awesome Team, Our Best Ever! Jackson Kayak - The 2011 USA Team consists of individuals who came out to Missoula, MT, competed against the best freestyle paddlers in the USA in their class, and peformed well enough to secure their spot. Since there are very few spots available, many incredible paddlers are still left behind for the 2011 Worlds in Germany. The best they can hope for is to do better in the 2013 USA Team Trials for the Worlds at NOC that year.

Locals Only Movie Wavesport Blogs - Since the beginning of the paddling season the majority of my time on the water has been spent shooting video for my upcoming movie Locals Only. I've wanted to make a full length kayaking video for sometime now but told myself that I wouldn't do it until I came up with a solid plan, had a good idea and knew how to work a camera well enough to get the shots I wanted. I'm a pretty picky guy and I couldn't stand the thought of slapping together something mediocre that I wouldn't be excited about once it was finished.

Freestyle End-of-Season News: New National Champs! Wavesport Blogs - This past week the US Team Trials took place in beautiful downtown Missoula, Montana. This was a perfect event to be the grande finale for the season; over 10,000 spectators, perfect weather, and enough rainfall to bring the wave up to an awesome level to throw every trick in the book...

Rapidfire in Whitewater Imagine Surf Blog - First off, the final board is a significant improvement over the original glass proto. I've put a series of inverted channels into the bottom that significantly help with tracking, so it can be paddled without a fin. This is really practical on shallow rivers and running slides, boofing drops, etc. Andreanne and I both paddled finless, Christine used the stock 6″ rubber fin. Each to their own and both methods work fine, but I was unable to paddle the glass proto effectively finless, so this is great news.

Demshitz Past Week on the Road Team Pyranha - We've had a super diverse last week on the road including some CO creeking, a wedding, a day and a half of driving, playboating in Missoula, and some fun MT creeking and river running. Here's a lil' photo update.

Up the road to the Royal Gorge Wavesport Blogs - A local run that I have missed the past two seasons is the Royal Gorge of the North Fork American. To make up for it, I ran two laps on it this year, capitalizing on an unusually extended flow window. On my first trip, I set my personal high for running a waterfall at around 55 ft on Rattlesnake Falls. On my second trip, I re-set my personal max height at 70 ft on Wabena Falls. It was a bit of a hit as you might imagine, but quite an experience.

Oh Be Joyful creek Wavesport Blogs - After almost two weeks working every day I got two days off to visit my friend Brent Toepper in beatiful Crested Butte area. Of course it wouldnt be me just to go visit friend. There was an Oh Be Joyful race going on last Sunday..

Trollfors, Sweden Wavesport Blogs - With the biggest snow pack in Northern Norway and Sweden for the past few years, I simply had to head north and explore some epic whitewater!

lost photos from Glenwood Wave! Jackson Kayak - After Lyons, EVERYONE descended on Glenwood Springs to enjoy the high water and warm weather. These photos were shot by Clay and I then, but I kinda forgot that I had them until yesterday. Enjoy!

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