Living in Bellingham, WA definitely has it’s perks.  One of those is the close proximity to some world class boating.  Just 20 minutes North is the BC border and 20 minutes East is the Nooksack River drainage, just to name a few.  I had just received my shipment of a new L Karnali and an Everest in Seattle, when I picked up Paul Gamache and we both headed back to BC to find some goods.

We definitely found more than what we were looking for.  We stumbled across the MASSIVE Cascade Falls.  After a long day of sussing out that beast, Paul gave ‘er and stuck it the next morning.  Turned out it was 108.2 feet tall….freakin’ sweet!  Check out HUCKINHUGE.com for some screen shots of the descent.  Footage will be featured in the spring 09 release…. THE RISEN SUN.

Well after all that went down, I figured I’d give the new Karnali a test on Clearwater Creek, WA.  A fun steep thing just outside of town.  Dropping 450 feet with no vertical drop bigger than 4 feet, it spells for a great time of tight technical creeking.  I found the Karnali to be my new favorite boat.  The thing was built for this situation and made everything a class easier.  Stoked!

Check out the stern cam i built onto a L Burn.  This is Clearwater’s first coupla drops, and gives you a feel of what I’m talking about (were the Karnali test went down).   CLICK HERE FOR THE VIDEO and enjoy!

Demshitz made some helmet cam videos of two classics in Chile. The Rio Puesco and Upper Palguin! Check dem out. 
Upper Palguin

Rio Puesco

I brought a shiny new Pyranha Burn out with me to Africa this time for numerous missions that a few friends and I have been planning for a while. But I couldn’t leave it sitting in its bag for long… it was time to test out the Burn on some of the bigger rapids the Nile had to offer!

I have paddled creek boats on big volume white water a few times in the past and never been particularly satisfied with the way they perform. The rounded hulls and lack of rails makes it feel like you are paddling a cork! Instead of holding speed and direction when carving on ferry glides, boils and waves they simply slide and skid across the water leaving paddle power as the only tool for moving across the river.

One morning a Widowmaker mission was suggested and before I knew it the Burn was dropping into its first ever rapid…

The Burn looking small in the trough of Widowmaker

Widowmaker is a one move rapid – two huge overlapping holes with a monster curler that feeds between them. The idea is to launch off the curler charging from left to right and miss both! Now on the previous run when I hit the curler in my playboat I subbed through the wave and hit the left hole.
I came from far left charging right in a similar place as the previous run and instead of subbing through the wave the extra volume and speed of the Burn sent me flying off the back of the curler and free of the holes. A good start for the Burn!

Over the next few days, I paddled the boat on lots of different rapids, boils, big volume features and even waves and was constantly impressed with the Burn’s performance.

There is enough rail to carve and control the boat and to allow you to use the diagonals, boils and waves to your advantage. But where a playboat with hard rails might be twitchy and unstable in changing water the burn sits on top with the rails high enough to make it forgiving. A common problem with creek boats in big water is when you end up surfing holes (involuntarily!). Creekboats tend to slide out into a side surf and bounce around uncontrollably, the burn however has enough rail to give control to give the paddler at least a half decent chance of getting out the hole. I even managed a cheeky flat spin on the corner of the Cuban (a big hole half way down Itanda Falls), which I never imagined I could ever do in a creek boat!

I’m looking forward to the next few months where we have some interesting missions planned here in Uganda on some rockier and steeper rivers!

Happy Paddling, Sam

Check out these blog updates from Demshitz in Chile!
Fred Norquists blog and Evan Garcia’s blog check back for more photos up later this week from a stout Demshitz first Descent in Pucon! ciao huevons!

In July we went to Turkey and here is a short video from that trip.

Turkey Chai and Coruh from Greg Chandler on Vimeo.

 Trying to get left on the big un’. The boils were stout I ended up melting into the hyrup  Read the rest of this entry »

ItÂ’s been a while since I paddled a new river but with the river of Wales full of water and a weekend off it seamed only fair to go forth and paddle. Me and Ali set off early Saturday morning and headed to the Mellte in south Wales we reached the river and found it at a good level, this river really doesnÂ’t give you much of a warm up!

(Ali at the start of a good day)
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