Playak News Flash 2010-06-03

Playak News Flash - June 3, 2010
The world's latest paddling headlines.

News Watch Headlines

South Africa: Western Cape Province, Witte River Playak - The standard section of the Witte consists of mostly boulder garden type rapids that are seething in undercuts and siphons. The river is very continuous and a typical river runs take between two and four hours depending on how much you scout and/or portage. It can be done in under an hour and all the rapids are runnable. The average gradient is 36m/km for the full 7.5km stretch but some sections are way steeper and this produces rapids in the class 3 to 5 range, and at high water 5+.

Steelpoort River – Quick Fly Up from Cape Town to Score the Rain! Adrian Tregoning - On Friday 29 January 2010 I made a hurried decision. With an ever decreasing bank account, no employment and no rain in Cape Town, I bought an air ticket to fly up to Johannesburg. I made that choice at about 10:00am, I flew out that night. Johannesburg had received loads of rain and the rivers were flowing nicely. The Vaal was at around 2000 cumecs (for my American friends that just under 71 000 cfs!!!) and this was something of a fifteen year record. The plan was to drive to the Steelpoort River on Friday night straight from the airport, paddle it on Saturday, then drive later that evening to the Vaal, paddle the Vaal on Sunday and fly back Monday morning early. That's exactly what we did. This first article covers only the Steelpoort with the monstrous Vaal coming up in the next one.

Tryweryn results UK Freestyle - The first of the British League events took place on Saturday 22nd May. Unusually for North Wales the sun was shining and it was hot! The water, however, was still pretty chilly. The feature at the Tryweryn is tricky...

California Creeking with the Villain S Jackson Kayak - My month of creeking in Cali was a bit harder then expected, because of the continuous amounts of snow and cold weather. Though this still didn't stop me from paddling some of the best day runs in the state.

Cameron and Cataract Wavesport Blogs - Cameron Creek had a nice juicy medium flow, great for the Upper portion and a tad high for the Lower Canyon, oh well it gives me a good excuse to get down there again. We paddled from Aldridge falls down to just below Deja Vu, Aldridge had a log in the top ledge so we where limited to running the bottom two ledges, still fun. After a mellow float through the scenic valley the river starts to change character into the typical Alberta Ledge fashion, a couple of class 4 ledges leads to Something Nasty, a 8 foot ledge with a sloping lead in and a sticky hole, with easy safety set on river left we where all able to clear the hole with a couple close calls.

Paddling Life Invitational and BV Rodeo wrap up Jackson Kayak - It's been a great Memorial Day weekend! We kicked things off with the wildly popular CKS Paddlefest–where people can demo boats for free, take a clinic with a pro paddler, and enjoy CKS's huge inventory of kickin' kayaking gear on sale! Amidst the Paddlefest is the BV Pro Rodeo, organized by Katie and Dustin Urban. This year's competition was held at a new playspot, built over the winter. Water rose quickly throughout the weekend, and the new feature jacked-up into a POWERFUL, stompy wave-hole. Lots of big air and big face surfs were served-up cold in the snowmelt-fed Arkansas River during and after the event.

World Cup 1- Augsburg Germany- Wrap Up Jackson Kayak - The 2010 World Cup is underway with the Augsburg, Germany competition completed yesterday. With more competitors than expected by the organizers, from 20 countries, the event ran until 10pm on Saturday night to get the Prelims and Quarter Finals finished. Luckily there were plenty of places to get food, drinks, coffee, etc. at the course with Vendors and the kayak clubhouse providing free dinner.

Pincher Creek Festival Level 6 - A quick video I threw together of a couple of runs I've been able to get on in the past couple of weeks before the snow started flying in Alberta. Plus a story of my weekend at the Pincher Creek festival, and a bunch of pictures.

Freya Hoffmeister – Woman in Black Daily Paddle - Freya Hoffmeister is accomplished in several styles of paddling, including open water marathon racing, Greenland style rolling, huge expeditions and rough water kayaking – and who knows what else she's going to try next.

Past Week with Demshitz: Golden Rodeo & CKS Paddlefest Team Pyranha - Demshitz spent the last week in Colorado basking in the warm sunshine and paddling some of the great playparks the state has to offer. Here's Pyranha's newest team member Craig Kleckner throwing down in the BV Pro Rodeo.

Teva NK Rafting Championships 2010 Teva Blog - After 2 weeks of a massive cold spell across the Alps finally the sun and much warmer temperatures returned, just in time for this year edition of the Dutch Rafting Championships held again on the Durance River in the southern French Alps. Besides the national title, his years event was also the qualifier for the 2010 U21 R4 (4 person Raft) Worlds in July and for the 2011 R6 World Championships in Costa Rica - the Heat was on !

Canada charges to seven medals at Sprint World Cup! Level 6 - SZEGED, Hungary – Adam van Koeverden of Oakville, Ont., won the gold medal in the K-1 500 and Richard Dober Jr., of Trois-Rivieres, Que., made two podium appearances to cap a seven-medal Canadian performance on Sunday at a World Cup paddling competition.

Wilderness Paddling Stories Needed for September/October Journal Am. Whitewater - Wilderness Whitewater is the theme for our September/October issue of American Whitewater. If you have stories of adventures or reflections on wild, remote rivers, this is your chance to share them. Deadline is June 25th.

UK Circumnavigation P&H - James Bonnell and Joe Andrews are now 5 weeks into their 5 month expedition around the coast of mainland Britain. Although the trip took a few months to plan, there has been a steady stream of unforeseen circumstances since they started back in Falmouth, and quite a few difficult decisions have had to be made. Here is the outline of the last few weeks…

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