2016 IN REVIEW: PICTURES OF THE YEAR

San Francisco Bay with Bayside Adventure Sports

In everyone’s life, at some time, our inner fire goes out. It is then burst into flame by an encounter with another human being. We should all be thankful for those people who rekindle the inner spirit. -- Albert Schweitzer

I have to admit when it comes to kayaking, I could be classified more as a fanatic than just plain enthusiast. I think about paddling all the time day and night. I dream about my next trip on the river and visualize my last trip to the lake. I consider a day that I don't get out on to the water as almost a day lost.

Professional paddler and filmmaker Rush Sturges wrote on Facebook, "I go to sleep thinking about this river and I wake up excited to paddle it.  People ask me if I ever get bored?  And I never do at these levels. This is the first section of the Little White we call "Gettin Busy" at 4 feet today. It's fast, technical, and steep. But when you're in control of the flow, there's nothing better."

On Lake Tahoe with Cole Carlson

Lake Natoma with Taylor Carlson

I can picture myself in the same way. Anytime I cross any river bridge I look down wishing I was there.  Like Sturges pointed out, there is nothing better than being on the water. So as 2016 draws to a close,  I look back at some of my favorite places and people I had the good fortune of kayaking with this past year. My two sons who both came out to California for a visit this past summer. It was thrilling to take Cole on his first trip down the South Fork of the American River and both got to on an overnight trip to Lake Tahoe. Father and son camp-outs are always special no matter how old they are.

Any day on the water on with Dan Crandall, Kim Sprague, John Weed and the rest the gang at Current Adventures Kayaking School and Trips and The River Store, is always a great day. If it was just a job to them they would have quit it a longtime ago. But, it is their passion for kayaking that flows through them like an untamed river. They are deep in experience and share their thirst of paddling with first-timers and veterans with assurance, confidence and conviction. After paddling with them, you only have one question. When can we go again?

The Lower American River with Current Adventures.

And only to go again and again with Erik Allen, Brian Hughes and members of Bayside Adventure Sports. God created the Earth to RIDE IT. CLIMB IT. CATCH IT. EXPLORE IT. PROTECT IT. I'm hoping for some more trips like the one to Angel Island along with many day trips to some area lakes and rivers.

But mostly I couldn't do any of kayaking without the support and encouragement from my wife Debbie. Always up for an adventure, she shares my same passion of being outside whether on the water, snow or trail.

Lake Jenkinson with Debbie Carlson

In Chasing Niagara,  a film directed by Sturges and produced by Red Bull that focused on Rafa Ortiz’s journey of being the first person ever to go over Niagara Falls in a kayak, Oritz offers this lesson. “I don’t really believe in regretting things, you know?” said Rafa Ortiz. “I believe in that anything that has happened in my life is for a reason and you know there is definitely things that have happened in my life that I would, you know, if I could I would think that I want to change but I think that anything that happens is for a reason and it just makes me who I am.”

Like Oritz, these experiences made me who I am. So as the year comes to a close, I look forward even more adventures on the water, in the years to come and wish you all the same.

The Lower American River with Bayside Adventure Sports

Eppies training on Lake Natoma

Eppies training

Kids Class with Current Adventures

Eppies Race Day

Barking Dog Rapid

The Rainbow Bridge

Lake Valley Reservoir

Loon Lake

Loon Lake with Current Adveentures

The Shoe Tree on the Lower American River

Sunset on Lake Natoma

TEXTING SAGE: AN INTERVIEW WITH SAGE DONNELLY

"This is a moment I’ve been dreaming of since before I can remember,” Sage Donnelly told the crowd on the Ottawa River after winning the 2015 ICF Canoe Freestyle World Championships. The 15-year-old kayaking phenom has a knack of dreaming big and creating remarkable memories. Along with winning the ICF title, she has won the 2013 GoPro Mountain Games, her hometown Reno River Festival and placed at the GoPro Games’ Steep Creek Championship the past two years and was voted in as Canoe & Kayak’s 2014 Female Paddler of the Year. She has been picking up steam ever since. The Carson City, Nevada paddler, competes in both freestyle and slalom kayaking events and is now vying for a spot on the US Olympic Team all while living with type 1 diabetes. 

“It makes it harder," Sage told Canoe and Kayak Magazine, "But, I take it as it comes and just kind of work with it.” Sage is connected to the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation, an organization seeking a cure for type 1 diabetes and providing support for those living with the condition.

“I do try to show that I don’t let things stop me, and I hope that inspires others to not let things stop them from achieving their goals,” Sage told Canoe & Kayak Magazine,  “My big motto is ‘Never give up on your dreams. You can become anything you want to.’”

An Outside Adventure to the Max favorite, we had a chance to get in a few questions with Sage about her busy year. 

OAM: It has been a big year for you. Trying to make the Olympic Team and getting a driver's license. What is next?

SAGE: I still have a super busy year ahead of me! I'm currently flying back to Oklahoma City, from LA where I was doing a diabetes commercial. Next up, I have the second Olympic Trials in Oklahoma City. I then drive to Colorado where I have three Freestyle and Creek Racing Competitions. Right after I'm finished in Colorado, I head to Poland for Jr./U23 Slalom World Championships in July. I will probably stay in Europe through August competing in slalom across the continent. 

OAM: You have had a young start. Do your remember your first time in kayak? 

SAGE: I don't remember exactly my first time in a kayak because my parents pretty much raised me on a river. I was put into the front of a two person boat with my dad in the back when I was two-years-old and started running rivers in my own boat when I was 4-years-old.  So, all of my early memories are of me in a boat or around the water. 

OAM: Young people seem to have little fear Are you fearless?

SAGE: I'm definitely not fearless. Since I've been doing this for 10 years I have developed a very good sense of my ability. However, I still do get scared, but when I do, I always try to work through it. I always break whatever I'm doing down into smaller steps and take into consideration what the consequences are.

OAM: How have you overcome your health issues thyroid disease and celiac disease and why doesn't it hold you back? 

SAGE: Well, along with Celiac and Thyroid Disease, I also have Type One Diabetes, which I would say is the hardest to manage. It's always a constant struggle of trying to keep my blood sugar levels balanced while training. I was diagnosed when I was 3-years-old, so honestly, it's just part of my life. Yes, it is a pain to have to do extra stuff to take care of myself, but I just take it as it comes and no matter what, never let it stop me from achieving my dreams.

OAM: Is it hard to be normal teenager doing what you do? 

SAGE:  I have no sense of what being a normal teenager is. Haha! I've been home schooled all my life and I travel around in a van competing over 9 months out of the year.  But I do still hang out with my friends and am super lucky to be able to do what I love with my friends all the time! 

OAM: How do you go to school?  

SAGE: My mom and dad are teachers, but I do all the work myself with them checking and helping when needed. I do all normal subjects that any kid my age would do and I'm currently doing college books for a curriculum. I'm also going to test out of high school when I get home from my summer travels and start online college classes.

OAM: Who are your influences? 

SAGE: I have so many amazing role models to look up to in the kayaking community, but I would have to say my biggest are Claire O'Hara, Adriene Levknecht, Jessica Fox, Rush Sturges, Nouria Abou-Newman.

OAM: Your home is Carson City. But where do you like to kayak most? 

SAGE: I would have to say my favorite places to kayak are the North Fork of the Payette River (Upper, Middle, and Lower 5 sections), the Ottawa River, and the US National Whitewater Center in Charlotte, NC! 

OAM: In whitewater kayaking you are an up and coming star, but do your get a little star struck paddling with some of the greats?  How does that feel? 

 SAGE: I get star struck quite often actually. It just incredible to be able to boat and compete against all of the people that I used to watch when I was younger and think "I want to do what they're doing someday" and to be coming up to that level and be around them and talking to them is just really awesome and inspiring! 

WATERCOLORS

Kayaking is my intimate relationship with water. I feel vulnerable and at the water's mercy. Sitting in a boat, only millimeters of carbon and fiberglass keeping me dry and protected, I am connected to the forces at play. I feel every ripple, every current and the slightest breezes. I am exposed to all elements and my inferiority is constantly being thrown at me. Whether I am paddling the fjords, exploring the surf, following the river, or just riding the ocean swells, I am nothing but a tiny speck riding on the back of a giant. A giant that can’t be conquered. A giant that forces me to adapt and prepare for the unexpected. A giant that reminds me of the control I don't posses. For me, kayaking is a meditation of humility...Daniel Fox

I introduced myself at the Bayside Adventure Sports paddle and SUP outing last weekend. How much did you paddle last year, one asked. "Ninety-one days last year," I said, "Not as much as I did the year before. I did 131 paddling days that year. But, every year I make a goal to paddle one hundred days during the year."

I have thought about that a lot this week. That equals a few hundred times of loading, unloading and loading my kayak. Millions upon millions of paddling strokes, and mostly, rushing home from my jobs to get on to the water. We all know the cycle... Sleep, work paddle. I pulled it off this past week, getting five days of paddling in the last ten days with plans of going again tomorrow.

"I go to sleep thinking about this river and I wake up excited to paddle it," posted on Facebook whitewater kayaker and filmmaker Rush Sturges, "People ask me if I ever get bored and I never do at these levels."

I feel the same way, like many of us, do. I spend my time trying to balance work and paddling. I like to work but I can't wait to go paddle again and again. It's where I want to be,  seeing the light and the water reflecting an image of my Nirvana. To spend time with my friends and family in amazing places and seeing those places from a perspective that you wouldn't get to otherwise.

Paddling philosopher Sigurd Olson once said, "Water reflects not only clouds and trees and cliffs, but all the infinite variations of mind and spirit we bring to it."