Uneasiness ballooned in my stomach during the hour-long drive to an eight-mile stretch of Class IV rapids on Washington’s Skykomish River. We were about to test Jackson’s brand new Dynamic Duo ($1600; jacksonkayak.com), the first two-man, whitewater kayak since the latest date/divorce-boat: Eskimo’s Topo Duo. Click for Link
Since retiring from competitive freestyle kayaking last year and becoming an eight to fiver at Glacier Glove, 2003 world champ Jay Kincaid has devoted all of his strength and athletic skill into fighting Brazilian Jiujitsu. On a day in early May, Kincaid directed all of that training at Joe the Intern. Click for story
INTERLOCK PROPHET, SMITH–Our biggest fear with the Prophets is that the paparazzi will start flooding popular take-outs—mistaking boaters for the likes of Paris Hilton and Matthew McConaughey. With the Prophet, Smith has become comfortable enough with the success of their original Interlock glasses keep the technology and place more focus on style. You can enjoy looking like Ashton Kutcher—as Associate Editor Christian Knight points out when Joe the Intern slips on Paddler’s swag pair of Prophets—but still have functionality of easy-to-change lenses to serve you well in the river or outside of the clubs you are getting paid to be seen at.Click for piece
There is a wonderful myth on the rivers these days—the possibility of a dry-flip. That is—what is the possibility of a river guide climbing over the tube of a flipping raft and getting herself on the bottom of the boat before she falls out? Click for story
Days after Rami Zur placed 10th in the K-1 500-meter flat water sprint at his second Olympic Games in Athens, he dove into the shallow end of his hotel pool and broke his neck. The injury threatened to paralyze him and required a surgery that fused his C5 and C6 vertebrae. Five weeks after the surgery, however, he was back in the water. Three months after that he battled the notoriously high winds and large swells of Hawaii’s Molokai Channel and finished the crossing. Now, nearly four years later, the 31-year-old hopes to apply this type of tenacity to bring the U.S. a medal in the K-1 500-meter race. Click for story
The process to choose these towns took nearly as long as researching and writing their profiles did. I ferociously fought for Grass Valley, California and Fayetteville, West Virginia. I wrote the profiles of those two as well as San Marcos, Texas and McCall, Idaho.
Click the individual towns: Grass Valley/Nevada City, Fayetteville, San Marcos, McCall.
11 a.m. (or so): Put in on the Truss. I swim twice. Scout 28-foot Big Brother for 10 minutes. Tao says it can kill me. I portage Big Brother. Tao pushes me to paddle faster through the flat stretch. Can’t. I am broken. I tell him, “No.” I hike out above Upper Zigzag. Click for story
This feature was a painstaking process that started from an inspirational picture our Editor saw and decided to conceptualize a feature around it.
I shared the editorial side of this assignment with Paddler’s Editor, Mike Kord. I wrote the following entries:
1. Leave No Trace; 14. Set Up a Z-Pulley; 16. Be a Rescue Hero; 18. Pay Off a Foreign Cop; 20. Feed 20 Hungry Paddlers; 23. Circumnavigate the Grand Canyon Permit System; 25. Practice Paddling PR; 29. Vacation on 2K or Less; 35. Plan an Expedition
Our art director suggested the photographic concept to me which I collaborated with my good friend Nick Walker and my brother to carry out. We used my childhood GI Joes, which Nick shot in my parent’s suburban backyard and pool. Click for entire feature
Assignment: Could you test the short- and long-term consequences of drinking beer out of a river bootie? Click for story
In the nine-year activist career of Alberto de Jesus Mercado—that’s ‘Tito Kayak’—the Puerto Rican has initiated a tense standoff in the top level of the Statue of Liberty, tried to replace the American flag hanging in the U.N. with Puerto Rico’s, and in early November, he climbed 150 feet into the bucket of a crane, thereby halting progress on Paseo Caribe’s beach side resort. Click for story