I’ve had a fun time getting ready for the trip. Let’s just say I haven’t been completely focused on that goal. I got my list started. I didn’t achieve a very precision attack but I got the basics figured out. A place to sleep. Some things to drink. Clothes to stay warm. A place to put your poo, and trash, but food for 12 days that wouldn’t bore me to tears or stop me up so I couldn’t poo proved the hardest to figure out. Well, I guess dealing with the (unspeakable) opposite problem from being stopped up might be the most difficult situation I have ever dealt with on a long paddling trip. But that isn’t the point of this article. The point here is food. Sorry, I got distracted by reminiscing about Nepal. I never plan food 12 days ahead, so to say that I procrastinated the food buy would represent a serious understatement.
Jura area
The Jura area from eastern of France but they are many small rivers, we runed some classicle rivers like Saine, Ain, Anguillon, lemme but somewhere water flows in the gorges at the middle of forest. So, last week I spent 3 days in the jura area, we found two rivers, La Cimante with some small waterfalls, it was beautiful but not really interested and “Le Bief de la Chaille” river. A really funny river close Les rousses village where we did the first descent. The river was narrow, really steep, the eddies was pretty small and many trees across the river but we were at the middle of the completely untouched forest !!
Composite Playboat Prototype #1
The first prototype of my composite playboat started early this year but the process has been drawn out a long time because we have been working so hard on other boats and we want to get this thing just right. The composite playboat is really a long term goal that we are trying to achieve, and that goal is to create a boat that folks would like to paddle in the 2012 World Championships here in North Carolina and a boat that we’d like to paddle anywhere we go to playboat. No they aren’t for sale… yet.
Palguin Sessions
The Palguin river runs off the flanks of Volcan Villarrica, there fore it almost always has a runnable flow. Being summer time rats here in the small town of Pucon this fits perfectly into out busy agenda. Only 20-30 minuets from downtown this river offers close reliable class IV-VI rapids for us to run whenever we want. 8am-9pm there is enough light to head to the Palguin and either run fun class IV boofs or go huge off 40-80 foot stouts! What more can you ask for?
This season the water was prime when we arrived, but has been on a steady decline from day one. This has made for a mad dash to get all the runs and levels opportunities we can in a short amount of time. Once we were warmed up with a few Nevado runs we went straight to the Middle Palguin for some test dummy action. Good lines through Stout 10 and varying lines off the big one…Aniol and I went back up for round 2! A good day of hucking for sure…a few days later Aniol was feeling Salto Palguin so we went back for a Todo Palguin! Aniol laced the stout and we went on to run the entire river with only 2 portages.
Self Support kayaking with the Liquidlogic Freeride; Westwater UT
I suppose this is long out of order from my travels this summer but I just came across an SD card with all the shots from my trip down Westwater Canyon. It’s crazy that I’ve lived only 3 hours away from this beautiful place most of my life and never took advantage and hopped on a trip until this year. It was the perfect way to wind down after the crazy excitement of the Outdoor Retailer show where we launched the new Liquidlogic Stomper and all the other great products with Legacy Paddlesports. I was pumped to meet up with my good friends from First Descents and share some sun, beers, and good times in the canyon. I mean, truly, that’s what this sport is about. As much as it feels good to push yourself, and seek challenging whitewater. It’s the times spent with your friends on the river that really makes you keep coming back for more.