The Youth Freestyle series has officially begun !

The first event saw a huge crowd of junior paddlers head to the river Dee in North Wales,

The river Dee has always been one of my favourite places to paddle, it’s home to some of the best playspots in the u.k at the right levels, has a couple of well known rapids and above all has a really chilled out atmosphere, I was really glad that the Youth Freestyle series returned to the Dee this year so that the younger paddlers could experience this stretch of river,

We were blessed with a nice medium level which easily facilitated high scoring rides but at the same time wasn’t to pushy for the beginners, However despite the organisers best efforts to organise warm sunny weather, the typical welsh weather shone through with heavy showers and low temperatures – luckily for us the juniors that attend these events are really enthusiastic about everything related to freestyle kayaking and weren’t to put off by the weather – the same couldn’t quite be said about Pringle who only returned back to the u.k from uganda the previous day.

The juniors were all split into groups and got the opportunity to be coached by some of the top paddlers in the u.k. Big smiles, new moves and huge wipe out’s where had by all !

With all of the paddlers having had their opportunity to get used to the features and gain a few tips from the coaches it was time to begin the competition – due to the temperature it was decided to run the competition in a jam style format to keep the participants a bit warmer, due to this format paddlers got multiple rides and were a lot more willing to go for bigger, more complicated maneuvers. This year the sponsored and GBR team members were separated into their own categories, to make it a bit more interesting the organisers decided to pit us all against Pringle to try and score the same or even better his ride …

The results for the event can be seen here :
 http://www.youthfreestyle.co.uk/attachments/article/41/Llangollen%20Results%202012a.pdf

A huge thank you to all the juniors that took part, the coaches/Organisers and the sponsors of the Youth Freestyle Series !

And also Brother Photography for letting me use their images !

For more information check out – http://www.youthfreestyle.co.uk/

See you on the water,

Bren

The expedition to paddle solo down the rivers that flow from Everest is now over, the ghost in the machine now at rest. Those that wish to hear about the expedition, are welcome make a trip to one of these two special dates. Where Darren will be discussing the trip. Other dates will be made available on demand.

The trip would not have been possible without the help and assistance of those that donated time, effort and gear.

Principal support came from Berghaus with Pyranha, Lightning, Chaco, Nookie, Sweet, OB, Grangers, Sea Spec and Wayfayrer all providing support. All promotional images were very kindly taken by Peter Stevens Photography.

Amid nationwide ‘drought’ conditions we drove through the rain on Friday evening down through Wales and England to our destination for this ‘nearly-summer’ weekend. A whole bunch of people from canoe clubs up in the North and our friends from 1^st Wet & Wild in Hull, were getting together to celebrate our friend Rod’s 60^th birthday. Whilst setting our tent up in the rain Dave and I cussed the fact that we still had not got around to converting our Berlingo into a sleeping van, but soon we were in the pub having a drink and warming our cockles – whatever they are!!

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Tony G starting things off right on the West branch of the Sacandaga

I won’t sugar coat it.  It’s been a tough spring here in the northeastern United States.  A low snow year this winter combined with a significant lack of precipitation this spring have left us with flows in the rivers that are far from desirable.  We’ve all been doing what we can to make do.  This weekend we resorted to enduring a really long shuttle and rough portage for the chance to run some real whitewater in a real wilderness.  The West Branch of the Sacandaga is a short, remote run, with fairly reliable flows, but forces you to earn it with a 40-mile one way shuttle, hike-in, and stout portage.  Embracing the opportunity to run this stretch of river may be the only positive aspect of such a low water spring.

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Check out the Video

The JED is the best Pyranha playboat of all time.