Last Saturday the first invitational boatercross race at the Eiskanal took place here in Augsburg as part of the slalom worldcup program. Organized by Arnd Schaeftlein and Jakobus Stenglein, incredible paddlers like Mike Dawson from NZ, Dejan Kralj (SLO) and Fabian Doerfler (GER) took part and fought for the 1st prize: a sweet mountainbike! In the end, it was taken home by slalom local Hannes Aigner, who had a stunning final. I myself couldn’t start due to my injury, but took the job of the starter and enjoyed watching the race – just like 1000 (!) other spectators. Wolfgang from Kanu Treff equipped most of the starters with Karnali’s and Burn’s to help making the event a success, which in the end definitely was the case. Now we’re looking forward to more of these races here at the Eiskanal! Here are a couple of shots.

 

 

 

 

This weekend myself and the rest of those Demshitz made our way to Aquasports in Redmond Washington to paddle with the locals and premiere the movie.  The Skykomish was our river destination for the afternoon.  We enjoyed stout mountain peaks and crystal clear waters.  The run featured about 5 miles of class three with one stout called boulder drop.  After a hot day in the sun, we headed back to Redmond to watch Demshitz the movie, and have a few cold ones.  Thanks much to Charles at Aquasports for bringing it all together for us.  Thanks to his help there was a great showing on the river and everyone had a great time at the shop that evening.  We soon head to Canada….skookumchuck awaits us.  All we must do is make it across the border :)  Wish us luck.

 

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The Verzasca River, in Switzerland, is very good.  Tom & I caught it whilst having a few days off working in France & Slovenia and it was great!

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After a late season jump in water levels Lake Creek came back down to a great flow.  Evan Ross took me up for my first run down the lower quality section.  It is a pretty classic Colorado Creek.  It looks pretty manky scouting, but once you are in there it feels pretty clean.

It starts out with a few miles of class 4 read and run before reaching the 4 major drops.  The first one is Brains which is probably the cleanest of the drops.  Quality boofs!

Brains leads into Paralizer which is probably the largest of the drops.  There is a pitony line down the middle, a sweet boof on the left or a triple boof on the right.

The last drop on the run is Cauldron. a cool entrance into a deep melt down in a caved out room.  Pretty quality!  Here are a few photos from the day!

May 2009 a group of british paddlers headed out to the jungle of Peru, the mission was to paddle the first descent of the Rio Concebidayoc a remote jungle river hidden deep in a gorge close to the ancient Inca ruins of Espiritu Pampa the last city of the Inca, the team warmed up on the Deepest canyon in the world the Rio Cotahuasi and the Santa Terasa section of the Urabamba before heading of with mules in to the jungle. The river turned out to be a real gem 4 days of continuous 4+ with the odd class 5, stunning scenery and wildlife. one major 9 hours jungle bashing portage.
The Team, Pete Catterall, Jon Green, Adam Harmer and Paul Cripps. to read the trip report check out our website.

http://www.belowandbeyondmachupicchu09.wordpress.com/

Me running the Silver Falls on the Ohanepecosh in Washington State.
Fusilli “browning” the “shmear boof” on the section below Silver Falls Ohanepecosh River WA.
Nicole showing us how to Boof the Small Burn!!!
Our “made” buddy, Dave Space, firing up his first waterfall !!! Buck Creek Falls in White Salmon WA. Check back next week on Space’s progress…can he roll yet??? is he still going to attempt to surf SKOOK??? Find out next week on Demshitz MADE!!! For those of you not yet informed….Here is a link to the first episode of Demshitz MADE!!!
Space!

Us Demshitz have been having a blast up here in Washington! We had an epic 4th of July weekend in Hood River to kick it off- and of course runs on the Little White and Green Truss always a good time, as well as a run down the Cispus at high water! Life is good. Find Demshitz in Redmond WA this weekend at Aqua-Sports for a Demshitz video premiere and a demo on the Skykomish River! check out www.demshitz.com and buy our movie! Demshitz the Movie , you will love it!!

So here is a 4th of July weekend mission for ya.  The weather flip to a cold 60 degrees and started raining.  The canyon: Clear Fork Cowlitz.  Choked with wood from a couple floods over the last year or two, it requires some cautious scouting and technical boating.  Cool whitewater with an amazing canyon towering on both sides.  Check out the video as I remained behind camera for this one:

The Karnali was released this season and rounds out the River Runner Series from Pyranha Kayak’s whitewater range. Check out the Large Karnali in action on the Salmon River Gorge in Oregon with Team Paddler Cody Howard and local nomad Scott Baker. 

CLICK HERE TO SEE THE VIDEO