Feb till Today: Caught Up!

Finally caught up on the blog posts!  More work, some paddling, a little skiing, and a really fun trip down to CA.

(This is the crew and booth NA set up at the PDX Sportsman show this year.  Good time and good for business.)

 (The NA crew getting a powder day in on Mt. Hood.)

(I love PDX!)

 (Got to do a photo shoot with Canoe and Kayak magazine for thier big boat review on Canyon Creek.  Really fun day on the river, as the photo session was my second lap of the day.  This is a shot of Nick Hinds boofing Prelude.)

(Nick Hinds boofing Champaign on Canyon Creek.)

 (Joe Stumpfel dropping into Crack in the Earth on Hagen Gorge.)

(After a morning run on Hagen Gorge a few of us decided to check out the Upper Washugal.  Ended up hiking in the snow for a few hours to get some fun class 3/4 rapids.  Will have to try to get in there even higher upstream sometime.)

 (Attended the 25th Annual Santa Cruz Paddle Fest this year.  Only my second surf kayak competition and I managed a 12th place finish of 27 HP Men from all over the world.  This shot is from the "mellow" Thursday practice.  The comp days had some tough weather conditions to deal with!)

 (Photo by Jeffery Steehler)

(Photo by Jeffery Steehler)

 (After Santa Cruz I got a 4 day vacation in the San Fran area with Julie.  We got to stay at some fancy digs provided by my parents (Thanks Guys!!!) in San Fran and spend a little time on the coast.  This is a shot of our first tourist activity, Alcatraz Island.)

 (Julie is a caged tiger and just can't be let loose on society.)

 (Julie took this cool photo of me setting up to kiteboard at Chrissy Field.  That is the Golden Gate in the background and the crazy wind and water conditions here are famous.  I had a quick nervous session and called it a day.  I'll be back for more though.)

(Julie and I stayed in this Airstream trailer along the coast one night at the Pescadero Bed and Biscuit.  Cool little place and fun experience.)

(A highlight of the San Fran trip was getting to go indoor skydiving, or tunnerl flying.  I can't explain how much fun this is!!!  Julie and each got 4 minutes of flight time.  At $20/minute that is all we could afford!  Julie and I both picked up on it really fast and were achiving relatively controlled flight by the end.)

(Julie showing off our cocktails at NOPA in SF.  Cool little resturaunt with amazing food.  We got to have a fun night out on the town afterwards at Johnny Foley's Piano Bar.)

(On our last stormy day in SF we visited the SF-MOMA.  I highly recommend this really amazing museum.)

Dec. '10 & Jan. '11 Update

Once again life has kept me way too busy and I haven't gotten around to updating this blog.  Lots of snow and rain have made for some killar days on both the slopes and rivers.  Also got to spend some time with Julie over New Year's this year which was a fun last minute deal.  Work at Next Adventure has not let up and the winter has been really busy at the Paddle Sports Center.

(Hoffstadt Creek was quite a mission.  Check out the video for all the details.)

(Dan Lahan running Gnargasm on Hoffstadt Creek.)

(Me having some blunt tastic fun on the Washugal Wave.)

(Trip Jennings boofing into Crack in the Earth on Hagen Gorge.)

(Tried to watch the lunar eclipse with Maren from Skyline drive overlooking PDX, but the clouds and rain made that hard.  Cool view of PDX though!)

(A little Holiday fun at Next Adventure)

(Dan Devine and I ready to shred the gnar gnar on X-Mas under bluebird skies at Meadows.)

(Julie came out for a New Year's visit and enjoyed some time at the coast on Jan. 1 and some skiing at Ski Bowl late on New Year's eve.)

("Kooks Go Home".  That about sums up the OR surfer attitude.  Sad really.)

(Local surfer killing it at the secret OR coast surf spot.  Conditions where a bit ugly for surf kayaking.)

(Perfect waves at a secret outside point break in OR.)

(Julie at the super-duper secret third outside point break.)

(Finally got a trip down the Little White.  At 3.6ft on the bottom gauge this run is everything everyone says it is.  Can't wait to get back in there!  This is a shot of Lane Jacobs and crew trying to remove the wood from Island Rapid.)

(Photo of me by Joe at the Washugal Wave.)

(Sick level at the Washugal wave forced Joe and I to surf into the darkness.)

(Me boofing fun drop on the Little Klickitat, a run that very rarely has enough water to kayak.  Fun crew and a fun continous class 4 river.  Photo by Heather Herbeck.)

(This is a shot I thought I'd never see, Canyon Creek without a log jam!  I managed to get in thier for the first post log jam descent.  Really solid crew and a beefy fun level, 1250 cfs.)

(Dave Hoffman eyeing up his boof stroke on Kahuna Falls on Canyon Creek.)

(Took a fun road trip out to the Deschutes area with Joe and Rachel for some fun high water playboating. Had to stop at Celestial Falls and check it out on the way.  WAY to much water to run on this day.)

(Joe surfing the Tressel Wave.)

(Joe finding the sweet spot on Tressel wave.)

(Joe going big on the Conastoga wave.)

(The NA display at the PDX car show.  Good fun and good showing with only a few days notice that we would be displaying at the show.)

(Also had a great display aournd the BMW motorcyle display at the show.  Good crew and sick bikes.)

Update 3: Sept.-Nov. 2010

 (Luke overlooking the surf at Pacific City.  I've been getting to the coast a good bit, but not finding much good surf.  This day was marginal at best.)

(Gerry Lopez on his SUP just shredding the waves apart at Pacific City!)

(The OR coast is a rugged and majestic place.)

(This is a creek that never flows just outside PDX.  They where draining the lake for a pipe replacement project and the creek was running for probably the only time in over 100 yrs.  This one drop was by far the biggest and most fun on the run.)

(The locals didn't know what to think about a bunch of kayakers in their back yards.  Luckily we had every right to be there and the cops where way cool about it.)

(The scene around the judges booth at the Hobuck Hodown surf kayak competition.  Very fun comp at the western most point of the contigious US on an Indian reservation.  My first surf kayak competition.)

(Luke and I got the same heat in the comp.  He managed a win and I ended up in dead last.  Had some great rides, like this one, but also got an interference penalty on the best wave of the day, which Luke happened to be surfing.  Big thanks to Rob Avery for letting Luke and I borrow some high performance Valley surf kayaks.  Photo: Tommy Sly)

 (I made a trip back East for Thanksgiving and went straight from the plane to Great Falls.  It was for climbing on this day, which was odd since I'm always there with a kayk!  On the first rappel I managed to remove a few knuckles.)

(The whole family was around this year for Thanksgiving and it was really good to see everyone.)

 (I did get a day of paddling on Great Falls with my good friend Bobby "The Dogg" Miller and Shawn Devine.  This is a shot of Bobby running the left side of horseshoe on the MD lines of the falls.)

(This is Bobby running the right line at the Spout on the VA lines of the falls.)

(This is me airing out the right line at the Spout.  This was my first time running this line and I styled it!  So much fun!!!  I really miss having the falls around to paddle all the time.)