After my first descent in 2010 the time had come to head back.

We were lucky enough to enjoy 2 trips down the river. We did the classic 3 day trip followed by the more unconventional 1 day descent. The one day descent was the most incredible day of kayaking I have ever done. We were blessed with great weather and perfect water flows (380cms trip 1, 320cms trip 2). The team consisted of myself (Ric Moxon), Benni Marr, Eric Parker, James Burd, Sam Rickettes and Ryan (Baby Bird) Lucas for the first trip and myself, Benni, Eric and Ryan for the second.

What I would like to share is the challenges associated with the mental preparation of such a trip. This for me is the biggest challenge. The mental preparation that goes into a river like the Stikine takes months to achieve. All season I spend training, analysing my abilities and enhancing my fitness. Then all of a sudden, almost out of nowhere I felt ready. A trip to the Stikine feels like a good idea. Rather than driving 20 hours, stressing about what is to come, for me there was genuine excitement, joking, good music and a super positive vibe! The mental strain I felt from this trip was putting back on for a second one day descent. There were a lot of thoughts going through your head. “Am I pushing my luck”, “What if I swim”, “Maybe this will be the trip I spend a few lonely nights on the canyon rim or worse”. Learning to settle all these thoughts and finding the courage and stoke to make such a day of kayaking happen is what class 5 kayaking as all about for me.

Thanks for the epic trip boys! It is awesome paddling with a team that is so passionate about kayaking.

My Large Burn yet again proved to be awesome, thanks Pyranha!

Enjoy the photos! Thanks for reading.

After an intense few weeks up in northern BC, we headed back to Whistler. After a few laps on the Ashlu a team of us decided it was about time to go on another adventure. After 2 trips down the Stikine we thought we deserved some class 4-5 read and run multiday action. The Clendenning seemed like the obvious choice.

The gauge for the Elaho read  150-180cms (a nice high flow) on the diurnal, perfect. Little did we know that the unusually high alpine temperatures would spike the river to over 250cms! The team which consisted of myself (Ric Moxon), Ryan (Baby Bird) Lucas, Sam Rickettes, Riley Best, Brandon Willms and Rich Kemble rose to the challenge and made it to the bottom safe and sound!

The white water was next level, the class 4-5 had become un-runnable class 6 (portage fest) and the class 4 had become class 5+. Eddies were virtually non-existent and rapids ran back to back. A swim was NOT an option. Adrenaline was pumping the second you pealing into the main flow!

The scenery however was mind blowing! Words cannot describe so I am not even going to try. Check out the photos. We were even able to walk under the glacier. Unfortunately there are only a couple of photos of the team kayaking as we all wanted to be in our kayaks, sticking together for safety!

The Large Burn proved to be the tool for the job yet again! Awesome kayak.

it’s been a busy summer, working and teaching. Finally got some days off and time to write about our early trip to Gaspesie.

Its a little known region for whitewater, especially because there are almost no active paddlers. Fortunately, I had the chance to meet Simon Roy, the best local to show you the goods, and he delivered!

A week before the Neilson Race in Quebec, Simon called me, telling me creeks were running high. I wasnt much excited since all the classic creeks near Quebec City were running too…However, he convinced me to come visit for few days and paddle around. Marie-Pier and I loaded up the truck and we left for a 6 hours drive to New Richmond, hometown of Simon.

First morning, we drove to the Grande Cascapedia. Crystal clear water, well known for Salmon fishing. paddling down and ferrying across, we arrived at a tiny tributary that looked like nothing. He then told us we were about to discover a nice unknown spot.

Jonathan Falls shook me…Turquoise water falling over a sweet 15ft surrounded by green forest and dark rocks – It was hard to think that we were still in Quebec province!

Short technical entrance leaded to the lip of that fun drop. Perfect warm up to begin our journey.

Jonathan falls

We kept driving north on 299 through the National Park of the Gaspesie (Chic Choc mountains). I heard sometimes  that this region was the Rockies of the East…I understood why! Whats important to understand is that the National Park accept paddlers, but you need to pay the backcountry access pass (6$/day) and respect the season (before fishing, like may and beggining of June) There’s a myth that paddling the creeks around + chute Sainte-Anne (stout 40ft twisted drop) were illegal, which isnt true. You just need to have your access permission.

we drove a bit east to do a quick run of the York, classic III+ run in Gaspesie with nice canyon.

We slept in a sweet lodge, in front of the Mont Albert. Next morning, off to the Sainte-Anne-Nord-Est, really the gem of the area…and next to our lodge!

Couple of kilometers of continuous class IV then Gates of Hell. Far right have seen descent at much lower/reasonable level, but we decided to run the center slide line. Just below were the biggest rapid of the run, a nice technical V with some sieves to avoid. Another couple of continuous class IV and we were at the take-out! Quality boulder garden interspersed with small ledges and a bigger slide halfrun make the Sainte-Anne-Nord-Est a must!

Gates of hell

Mont Albert, Sainte-Anne-Nord-Est, QC

During the afternoon, we went to a kilometer  long class IV+ roadside rapid in Capchat. We scouted some major stouts but would have take an higher level to run.

Cant wait to go back soon.

If you have the chance to go there during may-june, dont miss it!

In just over a week I’ll be flying out to India for a return trip to Meghalaya. In an attempt to pass the time I’ve put together a video of our first and second descents of the Kynshi river last year. In my mind the Kynshi holds the best whitewater alonside the most beautiful scenery that I’ve ever seen. I absolutely cannot wait to get back and see what other gems we can find.

The much anticipated 2013 World championships took place in Nantahalla gorge, North Carolina this past week.

The feature was created artificially and whilst being situated on a natural river the competition hole is created by a concrete “wave shaper”. This feature differs massively to that off the last worlds. Smaller, less powerful but far more retentive. The shallowness punished the stronger competitors who where forced not to plug hard for loops to avoid hitting the bottom and stalling out of the hole. However the retentiveness put many dream rides and combos into play which was fantastic to see.

The standard of paddling has once again grown and progressed. Along with the old school rodeo legends a new school generation of freestylers are moving up through the ranks and pushing hard for the top spots.

Matt Dumoulin had the most incredible ride I have ever seen in pre-lims but couldn’t quite replicate it in the semi finals and failed to make the cut to top 5, which just goes to show what a strange beast competition is and the that it is not necessarily the best paddlers that win. Junior team rider Brandon Hepburn had a similar scenario and finished in 11th place.

Team Pyranha represented well, Michael Patterson finished in a respectable 13th place. I finished in 9th place far from happy but content at my first worlds as a senior and keen to fire it up in Spain 2 years from now.

However, our junior rippers really shone, Local girl Rowan Stuart stood apart in the junior ladies category, by performing the hardest scoring moves ever seen in a junior ladies final, and took home a gold medal.

Thomas Richard. The junior french ripper, and in my opinion the next Matt Dumoulin, took a well deserved 2nd place with some flowing rides.

A huge congratulations to all the competitors but especially to my freestyle fish family and many thanks to Pyranha for making such an incredible boat.

Also to “coach” David Fusilli who spent many hours stood on the side of the river restraining himself from running the green daily.

See you on the water,
Bren

In the early to middle part of the summer, the pacific northwest is the place to be in the USA. After most of the rest of the country has run out of water, the cascade mountains still have plentiful options due to the glacial and spring fed rivers. In the heart of the cascades is the columbia river gorge, which hosts a massive variety of different rivers and waterfalls flowing from both sides of the gorge, off Mt Hood on the Oregon side and Mt Adams on the Washington side. Here is a little video of some of my favorite drops I got to run this summer! Even though this was a very low water year out here, and the southeast had the most epic summer paddling conditions ever, I am still very glad to have made the move out here and been able to experience a ton of new rivers of different styles, run some sweet waterfalls, and do some traveling as well.

Puchbowl Falls

Hope you enjoy this video!  Northwest Summertime Waterfalling

Churrr