Playak News Flash 2010-07-08

Playak News Flash - July 8, 2010
The world's latest paddling headlines.

News Watch Headlines

Brandseth: Take 2 Pyranha Team Van - Yeah baby! The heavens opened and the Brandseth rose. look how happy I am in the medium Karnali; it matches my helmet! A classic feature of Voss' best rivers is the put-in drop. Above: Max boofing the second slide, below: Paula at the top with the first fall in view.

Loops, Flips, McNastys and Space Godzillas Oh My Rapid Magazine Blog - Teens Jason Craig, Dane Jackson, Jordan Poffenberger and Lauren Burress all turned in impressive performances as they battled in various divisions for the chance to represent the US at World Championships in Germany next summer.

Big Timber Falls Photos Sweet - While July should be the month of pure sunshine, i woke up to snow on the mountain tops and some damn cold weather. And getting a call to head up to Big Timber Creek again, motivation was pretty low. But i guess it was worth it as the sun came out and it ended up in a sweet day.

Sweet wedding and home run pictures Sweet - As a 22 year old kid, pro kayaker, travelling the world, if somebody would ask me about getting married I would laugh at him/her big time. After meeting my girlfriend Meg last year in Colorado and travelling in between US and Europe I got big hassels last time I came over here. Grampy dude at the US immigration customs gave me shit how come I am in the US more often than in Czech where I come from. I explained him situation and he said I need another type of visas than 10 years tourist visa.. Afterwards, lot of our friends who have foreign partners told us to get married. Then you can apply for a Green card, legally work and travel in the country anytime you need..

Voss Extreme Festival: Head-to-Head Pyranha Team Van - It was a difficult start for the UK crowd in the BoaterX; they were refused entry for their tardiness and, after some discussion with officials, were all entered into the same heat.

2nd Eiskanal Boatercross Team Pyranha - Last Sunday the 2nd edition of the Eiskanal Boatercross as part of the Slalom World Cup took place in Augsburg. Organized by Jakobus Stenglein and Arnd Schaeftlein and supported by Teva, Sandiline and OptimalRad (local bike shop), 32 men and 6 women from 6 nations participated, including several national slalom team members. Wolfgang from Kanu Treff provided several Pyranha kayaks for those who couldn't bring a boat. After the ramp start, a course with various possible lines promised exciting fights for the first prize - a mountainbike worth 1000 Euro!

A hard man is good to find Imagine Surf Blog - On Saturday, two US Navy Seals flew into Montreal to go for a paddle. Donnie came up last year to run the Rouge with me and I was impressed – not only a super cool guy, but also a whole lot of fun, and very interesting. In fact he broke a rib on the Rouge and was not interested in stopping. We finished the run, and the next day he was out with me again at Habitat. While he was here he told me about his friend Dan who had just been injured in Afghanistan.

1st Annual Auburn River Fest a success! Wavesport Blogs - A few weeks back, the 1st Annual Auburn River Festival went off! In terms of being accessible for the general public to get an idea of what whitewater kayaking is, I would say it was the most successful event I have been to! Access was opened to the proposed site of a dam that has thankfully been shelved due to seismic instability and public opposition. For many years, the North Fork American river was re-routed through a diversion tunnel in preparation for dam construction.

Giant Slalom on the Green River Shane's Logic - This is my favorite form of racing on whitewater. I love the technical nature of paddling harder rapids with gates hung that make you paddle places you might not have or even wanted to paddle necessarily. In fact setting the gates makes a rapid that you may have paddled a hundred times a totally different problem because you have to look at it and paddle it in a different way.

Team Hotel Charlie offers a video review of the Villain Jackson Kayak - If a picture is truly worth a thousand words, this video ode to the Villain conveys an epic in just under three minutes with incredible scenes from the South Branch of the Feather, North Fork of the Payette, Glenwood Canyon's Barrell Springs and the Royal Gorge of the American.

Back to Royal... this time with the Canon Jordan Searle - With my lost post you can gather how much I like this run. This time the water was a lot lower (boo) but we recruited Shannon the Canon who was all fired up. After testing the structural integrity of AT paddles (failed twice), we made our way down in very good time running the same drops we did last time and the Canon fired Heath Two and Snarley and Shanon ran Wabena.

North Fork of the Payette Sweet - The whole time I was running around in Oregon/Washington I was getting harassed by my best friend, Cheese, to come to Idaho and do his home river at record high flow. He lives in McCall, ID only 45 miles from the put in of the infamous North Fork of the Payette. Hearing him tell stories of 15 foot tall waves and man eating seems, I wanted to go, but was scared to say the least. Big water has always been a passion of mine, but steep creeking and waterfalls have become my forte. Even after trips down the Rio Baker, Stikine, Futa, Nile, Zambezi, Fear Canyon on the Elaho, and many more big water trips, I still had goose bumps thinking of this particular river with so much water.

Latest California Rafting Flow Updates as of July 5, 2010 All Outdoors WW Rafting - The first half of the 2010 California rafting season has been remarkable for many reasons. For the first time in many years, early spring acted like winter. For eight consecutive weeks from April 1 to May 31, winter hung out in California. At a time when the sun usually begins to melt the white blanket of preserved water in the high Sierra, storm systems moved in one after another on a regular basis, and dumped rain and snow on top of what was already a good winter snowpack.

Trollofrs, Sweden Astral Currently - 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!

Surf Kayaking the West Coast waves Adventurous Experiences - Some pics taken on the 'Young Adventurers' session on Saturday, part of their core skills training course.

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