26th Annual Upper Clackamas Whitewater Festival

Ryan Scott made a sweet little video for the Upper Clackamas Whitewater Festival this year. I almost completed a fakey forward flip off the ramp, at 2:59 in the video:

Northwest Creeking Competition: East Fork Lewis River extreme race

The second year of the newly-reincarnated NW Creeking Comp went off with a bang April 11-12, 2009. The race, party, huckfest, and camaraderie were sick, as expected. The Columbian wrote an article about it, featuring a photo of me doing an old school pirouette whilst waiting at the hole by Oly's house for some other kayakers to come down:

Upper Clackamas play: Joe Bob's

Joe Bob's is better at higher flows, but it's fun enough at around 2850cfs. Paul filmed me working on clean spins:



...and doing some sort of proto-blunt:

PDXkayaker Film Fest 2008: Semi-Pro Spotlight

Luke managed to get 2nd place in last year's PDXkayaker Film Festival, with Semi-Pro Spotlight:



I shot much of the footage used in the film. Luke and I were going to co-produce our effort for the contest, but he just had more spare time in the week leading up to the contest. I'd say he represented, for sure. The Johnny Ott BZ Falls carnage clip was a huge crowd pleaser. Ahh, memories.

Liquid Zen - "Where did you leave your shoes?"

After ten years of study, Zenno believed that he was ready to be made a Zen master. One rainy day, he went to visit the famous teacher Nan-in. When Zenno went into the house, Nan-in asked: “Did you leave your umbrella and your shoes outside?”

“Of course, I did,” replied Zenno. “It’s only polite. I would do the same thing anywhere.”

“Then tell me this: did you place your umbrella to the right or to the left of your shoes?”

“I haven’t the slightest idea, master.”

“Zen Buddhism is the art of being totally aware of one’s every action,” said Nan-in. “Lack of attention to apparently minor details can completely destroy a man’s life. A father hurrying out of his house must never leave a dagger within reach of his small son. A Samurai who does not polish his sword every day will find that when most he needs it, the sword has grown rusty. A young man who forgets to give flowers to his beloved will end up losing her.”

And Zenno understood that, although he had a good knowledge of Zen techniques when applied to the spiritual world, he had forgotten to apply them to the world of men.

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My thoughts on the above Zen koan as it relates to kayaking have made an appearance over at Scott's Liquid Zen blog -- check it out. I'm honored to be included with such esteemed kayakers on that site.

North Santiam: OKCC playboating clinic

On Saturday, I tagged along with the OKCC playboating clinic, handpaddling from Niagara to Spencer's on the North Santiam, with flows around 1050cfs up top. EJ took some pictures:

helping portage Packsaddle dam

EJ's and my Astros at Packsaddle dam

The highlight of the day for me was getting 4 ends while spinning around in a series of whirlpools at one of the squirt spots. The awesome part, though, was watching everyone make progress. Thanks to Michael Williams and EJ Etherington for leading the trip. EJ's trip report is up on the Riot Team site.

Teeny Weeny wave, low flow Upper Clackamas

I haven't updated in forever!

Here's a clip of me on Teeny Weeny last Sunday, shot by Paul. Getting used to the new(-to-me) Riot Astro 58. This was not my best ride of the day, as I was getting pretty tired. After flubbing 3 handpaddle rolls on the eddy line, I barely pulled it out.



Thanks for the footy, Rio Raul.

Me gusta Mexico!

Personas de Mexico!
Si nos reunimos en Mexico y que desea mantenerse en contacto, por favor, dejar un comentario o mensaje de correo electrónico mí con su información de contacto.
Mi dirección de correo electrónico está williekayak@gmail.com.

People of Canada and the US!
If I met you in Mexico and you want to keep in touch, please leave a comment or email me with contact information. My email address is williekayak@gmail.com.

I've just returned from 6 days and 5 nights in Puerta Vallarta. I met amazing people and had a kickass time. I probably averaged 4-5 hours of sleep per night -- there was just a lot to do.

Samba Vallarta is one of the smaller resorts. The staff are terrific.


We got skunked bottom fishing. Well, we caught over a hundred fish too small to keep...does that count as "skunked"? A pleasant boat ride is never a bad thing, though:

I got in probably 10 hours of surfing, stroke work, and conditioning in an Ocean Kayaks Frenzy while I was there. Air temp was mid-80s all day, and water temp was high 60s (Fahrenheit).


Photo uploading to Blogger just failed on me, so more to come!

Pictures on Riot Team website

Luke made a trip report of a Canyon Creek (Washington) run from a couple of weeks back, and a version was posted on the Team Riot website. I'm in a few of the pictures. This one, at Big Falls a.k.a. Big Kahuna, is probably the best one:

Lake Merwin

Johnny of the lake. Test of Picasa "Blog This" feature.