{"id":8393,"date":"2011-12-03T18:59:14","date_gmt":"2011-12-03T18:59:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.pyranha.com\/blog\/?p=8393"},"modified":"2011-12-03T18:59:14","modified_gmt":"2011-12-03T18:59:14","slug":"retrospective","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.pyranha.com\/blog\/retrospective\/","title":{"rendered":"Retrospective"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Pyranha’s 40th anniversary year is drawing to a close. I’ve had a Pyranha boat in the quiver since at least\u00c2\u00a01995 and Wendy has\u00c2\u00a0loved her various Pyranhas since ’98,\u00c2\u00a0so I dug through\u00c2\u00a0the archives\u00c2\u00a0to find a few oldy-but-goody images to share.<\/p>\n

Great Falls of the Potomac:<\/strong> I love this pic. Original Micro 230.\u00c2\u00a0Harris and I\u00c2\u00a0at Great Falls:<\/p>\n

\"Great<\/p>\n

Upper Gauley<\/strong>, October 1995.<\/strong> My first day in my new Acrobat 270:<\/p>\n

\"Gauley<\/a><\/p>\n

Upper Gauley<\/strong>. Surfing in a Pyranha “Blade” at Geek Wave. Back in the day this boat was a cartwheeling machine.<\/p>\n

\"Acrobat<\/a><\/p>\n

Maury River, VA<\/strong>. Locally renowned art photographer L. Collingwood gave me this one:<\/p>\n

\"Maury<\/a><\/p>\n

New River, WV<\/strong>. Wendy working her\u00c2\u00a0Attak through the “Splat Room.” This boat\u00c2\u00a0is a cult classic. Kinda seems like a precursor to the Ammo design:\u00c2\u00a0<\/p>\n

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\"New<\/a><\/p>\n

South Fork Tye, VA. (1998?)<\/strong> A much-younger me in my first Micro 230. This boat opened up creeking for so many paddlers. What a breakthrough boat!\u00c2\u00a0This blog post could also be seen as a tribute to the Micro; when I look back at all the creek and rivers\u00c2\u00a0we explored in this boat I realize how revolutionary it was. This solid yellow one here\u00c2\u00a0was one of the original hull-style\u00c2\u00a0versions of the Micro 230:<\/p>\n

\"SFTye<\/a><\/p>\n

Vallecito Creek, CO. (June, 1998).<\/strong>\u00c2\u00a0My first time in Colorado and my first run on Vallecito. We had no guidebook and no clue. Kirk and I hiked in to the creek together\u00c2\u00a0but\u00c2\u00a0he\u00c2\u00a0(wisely) decided to not put-on;\u00c2\u00a0but\u00c2\u00a0I (foolishly) decided to drop in solo. All I knew was I had heard this was a run people whitewater kayaked. I ended up routing Entrance Falls blind and scared as hell. I had a good landing but realized I was in some serious aqua. Somewhere in there I came across Charlie Beavers and Brett Bowerman chillin’ on a midstream rock\u00c2\u00a0and they made the rest of the run sound pretty calm [it’s not] so I kept going. After a few more terrifying but thankfully-clean drops I caught up with “Bubba” Cotton and leached on to his group as fast as I could to finish the run.<\/p>\n

\"Vallecito<\/a><\/p>\n

…and now, 13 years later, I think Vallectio is probably one of my favorite creeks in the U.S.<\/p>\n

Below: Pyranha’s Burn dropping into “No Way Out” on Vallecito:<\/p>\n

\"vallecito\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\u00c2\u00a0<\/strong>Below: Crystal Gorge, CO. (July, 2001).<\/strong> “Zute Chute”<\/p>\n

\"Crystal<\/a><\/p>\n

Lake Creek, CO.<\/strong> (July, 2001)<\/strong> “Paralyzer.” Props to my then-girlfriend for holding a throwbag and a camera while I hucked myself from Brains down through Cauldrons.<\/p>\n

\"Lake<\/a><\/p>\n

Big Sandy, WV.<\/strong> Two shots of “Big Splat” – the first is in the original Micro 230 and the second is in\u00c2\u00a0the yellow\/black newer-style Micro with the revised hull design.<\/p>\n

\"Big<\/a>\u00c2\u00a0 \"Big<\/a><\/p>\n

Gauley River, WV<\/strong>. I won’t name this boater (let’s call him “Tino”) because he’s a friend and a good dude, but this pic is just too good<\/span> to not get some air time. Textbook carping!\u00c2\u00a0The boat is an Ina-Zone. I also had an Ina-Zone and it was the boat that I learned to do flatwater cartwheels in. Spent the whole summer double-pumping my way through the pools between drops on the New as a video-kayaker. Wish I still had one.\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0 “Tino S.” on the Gauley River:<\/p>\n

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\"Carpin\"<\/a><\/p>\n

South Silver Creek, CA<\/strong>. We post-holed through hip-deep snow to get on the California gem:<\/p>\n

\"South<\/a><\/p>\n

Henry’s Fork, ID (2002).<\/strong> Lower Mesa Falls. My buddy Josh and I took turns\u00c2\u00a0hucking this double drop in my Micro 230:<\/p>\n

\"Mesa<\/a><\/p>\n

Big Timber Creek, MT (2002)<\/strong>. One of the Top 5 Greats.<\/p>\n

\"Big<\/a><\/p>\n

Big Timber Creek, MT (2002). <\/strong>The Micro hopping down “The Pinch,” a massive slide:<\/p>\n

\"Pinch<\/a><\/p>\n

Randy Boush in his tough, well-used Micro on Bottom Creek, VA<\/strong>\u00c2\u00a0at a\u00c2\u00a0healthy flow. Like I said, this post is almost a tribute to the\u00c2\u00a0uber-classic Micro 230.<\/p>\n

\"BC<\/a><\/p>\n

A retrospective of recent-past Pyranha boats wouldn’t be complete without a couple shots of the venerable S:6 – one of the best Pyranha boats ever, IMHO. Here’s the\u00c2\u00a0S:6 at the Durango Whitewater Park, CO.<\/p>\n

\"Smelter\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The S:6 was a superb playboat but it also ran rivers like a champ. Here it is producing a clapper at Valley Falls, WV:<\/p>\n

\"VFalls\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The last shot is a bit of a memorial to our friend Don Smith. Here he is\u00c2\u00a0dropping Yule Creek, CO<\/strong> in his Micro 230. Yule Creek is balls to the wall creekboating.<\/p>\n

\"Yule<\/a><\/p>\n

Pyranha’s hull designs have been the best available for as long as i’ve been paddling. Looking forward to 40 more years of cutting edge kayaks.<\/p>\n

<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Pyranha’s 40th anniversary year is drawing to a close. I’ve had a Pyranha boat in the quiver since at least\u00c2\u00a01995 and Wendy has\u00c2\u00a0loved her various Pyranhas since ’98,\u00c2\u00a0so I dug through\u00c2\u00a0the archives\u00c2\u00a0to find a few oldy-but-goody images to share. Great Falls of the Potomac: I love this pic. Original Micro 230.\u00c2\u00a0Harris and I\u00c2\u00a0at Great Falls: … <\/p>\n

Continue reading »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":137,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8393","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-paddler-lifestyle-articles"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p9tk9G-2bn","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pyranha.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8393","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pyranha.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pyranha.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pyranha.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/137"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pyranha.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8393"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.pyranha.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8393\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pyranha.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8393"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pyranha.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8393"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pyranha.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8393"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}