SNOWSHOE SERENADE

 Alas! Alas! Life is full of disappointments; as one reaches one ridge there is always another and a higher one beyond which blocks the view.--- Fridtjof Nansen

There is a quiet hush in the trees. A reverberation coming through the pines of snow being crunched and breaths of cold mountain air being drawn. The slopes of the Sierra Nevada Mountains glisten a splendid wintry white luster. My wife, Debbie and I had hoped to get all the way up to Loon Lake. It's one of my favorite spots west of Lake Tahoe but found the roads clogged with snow and impassable even with a four-wheeled-drive. We had to settle for parking along the Wentworth Springs Road miles past Stumpy Meadows Reservoir in the Eldorado National Forest.

My senses awaken after the sleepy truck trip into the mountains. The fresh cool air touches my face and pours into my lungs, giving me, that great feeling of just being alive. Winter is the Sierra seems to do that. Naturalist John Muir must of had that same exhilaration when he wrote,  "It is on the mountain tops, when they are laden with loose, dry snow and swept by a gale from the north, that the most magnificent storm scenery is displayed. The peaks along the axis of the Range are then decorated with resplendent banners, some of them more than a mile long, shining, streaming, waving with solemn exuberant enthusiasm as if celebrating some surpassingly glorious event."

At the road, we strap our modern-day snowshoes to our boots. Gone are the days of old wooden tennis racket looking contraptions trekking through the snow. Today's snowshoes are lighter and tougher,  built with strong aluminum frames, durable material for flotation, and bindings that support all types of boots. Sleek in design most snowshoes are between 25-36 inches long with your weight determining the length your need. And it's as simple as walking. Most can go from beginner to practically an expert in a few steps.

We move quickly down the snowed-in forest road in out of the shadows of the mountain pines. Our shoes maybe be modern, but our method of travel is ancient. Experts say that snowshoeing is thought to have originated about 6,000 years ago, making it one of the oldest known inventions by humans. In his book, Snowshoeing, Gene Prater, wrote, "Without the snowshoe/ski, aboriginal people would not have been able to expand over, and occupy, the northern hemisphere." He stated that trappers, hunters and later pioneers found that their snowshoes were indispensable in settling the continent. "During the great westward expansion period," he wrote, "Snowshoes were equally as important as the ax and flintlock rifle in the zones where snow lay deep throughout the winter season."

In his story Burning Daylight, Jack London recants a tale of what it was like snowshoeing in the Yukon Territory during the Alaskan Gold Rush in 1893.  While our hike through the forest is an enjoyable wintry excursion, London takes its allure away with his stark description of the plodding through the drifts.

They plodded days upon days and without end over the soft, unpacked snow. It was hard, monotonous work, with none of the joy and blood-stir that went with flying over hard surface. Now one man to the fore in the snowshoes, and now the other, it was a case of stubborn, unmitigated plod. A yard of powdery snow had to be pressed down, and the wide-webbed shoe, under a man's weight, sank a full dozen inches into the soft surface. Snowshoe work, under such conditions, called for the use of muscles other than those used in ordinary walking. From step to step the rising foot could not come up and forward on a slant. It had to be raised perpendicularly. When the snowshoe was pressed into the snow, its nose was confronted by a vertical wall of snow twelve inches high. If the foot, in rising, slanted forward the slightest bit, the nose of the shoe penetrated the obstructing wall and tipped downward till the heel of the shoe struck the man's leg behind. Thus up, straight up, twelve inches, each foot must be raised every time and all the time, ere the forward swing from the knee could begin.

We find serenity in the trees. In the shadows, there is a chill in the air while in the sunlight sustaining warmth. It's an even trail leading down into a valley. Across the basin, we can see the remains of what a forest fire left behind, while in another spot we cross a treeless boneyard of its aftermath. The white of the snow concealing its disfigurement. As the sun begins to set through the blackened sticks of the forest are ablaze again in a smoldering winter haze.

It is easy to find our trail back to the truck. Instead of breadcrumbs, we had left giant footprints in the snow. We sense an urgency on the way back not wanting to get stuck on the roads choked- with snow in the dark. In the fading light winding through the trees and rock in the crunching snow, I can relate to the feeling Muir had when he wrote, “Long, blue, spiky-edged shadows crept out across the snow-fields, while a rosy glow, at first scarce discernible, gradually deepened and suffused every mountain-top, flushing the glaciers and the harsh crags above them. This was the alpenglow, to me the most impressive of all the terrestrial manifestations of God. At the touch of this divine light, the mountains seemed to kindle to a rapt, religious consciousness, and stood hushed like devout worshippers waiting to be blessed.”

It's a nice bit of tranquility, till a London like harshness interrupts when Debbie reminds me, "People die out here all the time,  we better get moving."

Renaissance Man: An Interview with Corran Addison

 

In the renaissance of water sports, South African Corran Addison has touched all aspects.  A canoeist and kayaker, a surfer and surfboard and kayak designer, he been at the foremost of paddling innovation. An Olympian in the 1992 Summer Olympics in Barcelona, Addison competed for South Africa in a number of world freestyle kayaking championships, winning more events than any other competitor in the years 1993 to 1999.  In 1987, Addison successfully ran 101-foot vertical drop into Lake Tignes in France at the time one of the highest waterfall kayaking attempts ever made.
Addison has not only made his mark as a competitor but a designer as well while working for Perception Kayaks,  Riot Kayaks, and Dragorossi. He is credited with the developing the planing-hull kayak a technology used in most modern whitewater kayaks.  In 2003 he moved on with an interest in surfing and stand up paddle boards in both a competitive and design.  He formed Corran SUP in 2012 and sold the brand to Kayak Distribution in January 2015.
Innovated and always controversial, Addison gives us his keen insight into the world of whitewater paddling in both SUPs and kayaking from where it all began and its bright future.

NC: You’ve been on the scene for a long time now and have seen a lot of revolutions. How has water sports, SUPs and kayaking changed in your lifetime?
CA: It has changed a lot in my life-time because of where I learned to kayak, in South Africa in the 1970s. South Africa was completely detached from the rest of the world because of Apartheid sanctions against the country. So when I started to kayak it wasn't like in the US, where you walk into a store and you could buy a life jacket, spray skirt, helmet, paddle and a boat and go paddling. I mean by the 1970s there were plastic boats in production in both the United States and Canada. By 1972 there were two companies making mass-produced plastic boats and before then you could still go and buy a fiberglass boat from any one of a dozen manufacturers in the United States and two to three dozen manufacturers in Europe who were producing fiberglass Kevlar kayaks.

So we had to design either a boat or find a mold somewhere and just figure out ourselves how to produce them. So the boats we were paddling were very rudimentary. We didn't even know about the Eskimo roll, didn't know what a brace was and didn't have spray skirts. We didn't know about spray skirts. That came years later. After we started kayaking, we figured out to cover up the cockpit and made paddles out of plywood and closet dowels. So in my lifetime kayaking has changed enormously from that to what kayaking is today.

But you could say that essentially if you took my commercial lifetime, my modern lifetime, when I started paddling in the United States and working for Perception in 1988, from then to now: Even in that almost 30 year period of time kayaking has changed. In many ways, it changed significantly and in some ways, it hasn't changed that much. If you consider the Perception Dancer as an example, by 1988-89 it was linear shell instead of a cross-linked shell with cockpit thigh brace seat, foot braces and center bracing in the boat. It didn't have a back band and the cockpit was small, but, it had safe grab loops that you could tie into in case of a pin. We had neoprene spray skirts and fiberglass and carbon paddles and things like this, so here again kayaking was relatively advanced.

In another sense, we haven't really moved forward that far either. If you look at the latest kayaks that are on the market they are still a rotomolded polyethylene with your basic seat, thigh brace and foot brace in the boats. The outfits have gotten a little fancier, it all moves around a little bit easier and you have to spend less time with glue and foam getting your boat fit. But, in many ways, the technology that we’re using to manufacture a kayak in 2016 is almost identical to the technology of 1988. That is pretty sad when you think about it. We haven't in thirty years come up with a better way of making a kayak.

On the flip side, you look at what boating was in the late 1980s in the United States anyway. An overflowing creek in the Southeast was considered the epiphany of what was possible to run. It was steep. It was shallow. It was rocky and people were getting pinned in there in their pointy low rocker small cockpit Dancers. The understanding of how to boof was still very limited. You paddled up to a drop as fast as you could and hope that your nose came up and you didn't hit something on the way down. And you look at what the kids are doing today, wherein 1988 if you were running a 20-foot waterfall you were something special. Today, guys are doing 8 or 9 loops in an afternoon over 50-footers. They will go to a 50-footer and run it a dozen times and run successfully. There is no luck involved. It is exact and it's precise. So technically what we are doing with kayaks has come along way, even if the technology of how we are making kayaks really hasn't changed much.

Rodeo or freestyling in the late 1980s was side surfing a hole and doing flat spins on the corners with some paddle twirls, eating a banana and juggling. By the mid to late 1980s, you had the guys on the west coast who were starting to figure out rolls and vertical moves, into staying in the hole or wingover as they called it. By about 1991, the first cartwheels were becoming relatively commonplace. In 1993 there fewer than 30 to 40 people in the world who were linking 15 ends in a row in cartwheeling and split wheeling and everything else. And you look at the aerial stuff that has come along in the late 90s and how it has exploded in the 2000s, being combined into multiple axis rotations and at the same time going six to seven feet in the air. It has come a long way.

NC: What big changes do you see on the horizon: are boards going to bigger or smaller in the future?
CA: Like anything form follows function. The surf shapes are getting smaller and smaller. The board that I surf on I can barely stand on. My ankles are on the water level. So the whole board is underwater which means that I'm paddling a board which has negative floatation for my weight. But it's a park and play. I can paddle out into the eddy line out on to the wave, but that's about it. I'm not going anywhere on that.

At the same time, the creek boards or boards for running rivers are getting bigger and in that sense, they are getting wider. They are getting shorter. They started around ten feet in about 2008, but the one I'm on now is 8 ½ feet long and went from 32 to 33 inches wide to about 35 to 36 inches wide.
For your average hardcore river running, creek boating, whitewater SUP slalom or boardercross: the tops are narrower, probably closer to 30 inches and they are about 10 1/2-feet long, which is an unspoken rule that most of the events. Someone came up with 10 1/2-feet and that where it stuck.

So it hard to say if they are going to get bigger or smaller. Form does follow function and it depends on what we are doing with them. But it going to interesting to see.

NC: You recently teamed up with Waterlust filmmaker Patrick Rynne, ripping up the river while paddling a SUP. Tell us about that experience?
CA: It was an interesting experience. We didn't run anything particularly hard. It was all relatively easy stuff that we were running. But it was great to work with a film crew who were absolutely on the ball. These guys didn't mess around. They were willing to put their several thousands of dollars worth of camera equipment in jeopardy. I almost knocked what they call the squirrel cam into the water a number of times when they got so close to me. I actually hit it with my paddle and almost knocked it into the water, and that would have been the end of that. They took their time to set some stuff up, which means lots of time sitting around waiting for stuff to happen. But their footage was fantastic.

So it was a real pleasure to work with those guys. Dan Devio is always such a pleasure to paddle with. He is really one of the better paddlers out there. I have paddled with him now for 30 years, and we have a great relationship when we paddle together. We just know what seems to be working and there is a lot of nonverbal communication that goes on. So I always enjoy paddling with him. So overall it was a great experience. I hope to do more like it, possibly with the Waterlust crew or other crews like it.

NC: So is there a future in SUPs and whitewater?
CA: I think absolutely yes! I'm speaking to the older crowd of kayakers if you live somewhere, where there is Class III or II section of river that is near your house and you have run this thing a 1000 times. You reach a point to where you're no longer getting any better and you don't paddle often enough anymore. The kids are all getting better and better, and you have just sort of been stagnating or even possibly getting worse than you once were due to life commitments and things like that. Age and achy bones and sore muscles.

And what SUP does is offers a challenge and that sensation and newness. That feeling of getting better every time you go, that was so attractive about kayaking when these people first started. You remember back when you first learned to kayak and every time you went out, you were better when you got home than when you when you left at the beginning of that day. There was this feeling of progression that was exciting and addicting.

And what SUP does is it brings that to people without having to throw in the element of death. In other words, you don't have to challenge yourself in Class V whitewater in order to feel like you're challenging yourself and moving forward. And that is a huge draw for people.

It's also generally cheaper than kayaks. It's nice to be able to go out and buy a new toy and it's not cost you a thousand, two thousand or three thousand dollars, so that is very attractive. I think there is a massive draw towards it and we are seeing it definitely in sales. It is arguably easier to sell a couple hundred whitewater paddle boards than a couple hundred kayaks. Now there is less competition of course, and that's a big part of it.

But, also I think now we're going to see some of the youth interested. This last year, I ran a section of the Rouge River of the Seven Sisters which is in notorious for giving people some beat downs. It's not super challenging Class V, but there is some potential for beat downs, there’s some potential for some pain and some hold downs and some swims. The World Class Academy, this massive group of kids, were there kayaking these drops and having a good time. I just happen to be there at the same time with my SUP running some drops. And it was an eye-opener! A number of these kids came up to me afterward and say, 'This was the first time they had ever seen a SUP that was legitimate.' There wasn't somebody just wobbling their way down a class II rapid trying desperately not to fall in, half the time on their knees or in a low brace, hunched over like an old man. I was running legitimate rapids and I was sticking some of them, not all them.

NC: What hasn't changed about water sports that keeps bringing you back?
CA: Mountains, rivers, movements.  I love my time in California, I spent 5 years living at the beach in California surfing every day. But when you're surfing you drive to where you are going to be. For the most part, you paddle out and you stay there for the whole session. You can paddle up and down the coast, but you generally have to do that on a bigger board and when you get to a break, your board is too big to be any fun. So generally speaking if you're a high-performance surfer you drive where you want to go, and if you do a 3-hour session, three hours later the view is like exactly the same as it was when you started. It never changes. I missed the feeling of getting on a river and going downstream, watching the banks pass by, seeing the mountains come by; that feeling of adventure you have from the movement of going somewhere. So while in California I was making these long drives to places to go paddling, either SUP or kayak and I realized that it would be much easier if I just moved somewhere where the kayaking is great. Kayaking is always good to me here in Montreal, Canada so that is why I moved here as a base. Already in the last few months, I've done more paddling than I did in the last 5 years. So I'm very excited.

NC: You have made this your life's work. Anything you are most proud of? How much has that made an impact on the sport?
CA: You know it hasn't always felt like work. That is the nice thing about what I have managed to do with my life. A lot of it has been fun. I look back on the days when I was with Riot and the team over there and the fun that we had. And when I moved on Draggo, I spent a lot of time in Italy, learned the language, made a lot of friends over there and spent a lot of time paddling in Europe. It was really exciting and fun.

So it hasn't really been work. Even though sometimes you have to work. You have to grind fiberglass and which is not particularly exciting. You have to get on the phone and call dealers and make sales. But it's a small part of it. The fun part is developing and prototyping new ideas and building these things. Going out and using the products and seeing the excitement on other people's faces when they try something you've done or you have built, and how much pleasure it brings them to be in a boat or on a board or something that you came up with, that has changed their life, that is very rewarding.

What I'm most proud of? The Olympic Games, it's hard to beat that. On the professional level, I mastered the concept of the planing hull for a whitewater kayak or freestyle kayak. If you look at what kayaking was before the first one that I did - the Fury - and what people were doing in kayaks within one year of having it (the first successful planing hulled boat) developed, The Fury did really change the sport. All of the boats that you see on the market today are loosely based on the base concepts that I came up with for the Fury. Obviously, design concepts have evolved. If you went back and got in a Fury today, you’d probably think it was a piece of shit, compared to what is on the market today. But the boats that are on the market today wouldn't be here if it hadn't been for that boat.

You wouldn't have people doing bread and butter if we hadn't come up with the blunt and the air blunt. So these were critical things. Many people are doing the moves that I either invented or spins offs of the moves I started; I came up with most of the aerial moves and spin style moves that are done in a kayak today. And even the ones that I didn't come up with came from the ones I did come up with.

So it is great to see where kayaking is and know that I had a massive part to play. There were other people involved of course, but I had my part to play in it, it was a fairly sizable part, and it's nice to look back on it and say "WOW!" I look at the sport today and I'm in a large way responsible for where it is today, and it's a really good feeling.

The kids today that are creeking or freestyle are at a level which is vastly superior to anything that I ever was, even in my prime. But, that's the nature of things. Sports move forward. The new generation is always better than the old generation. But, it's still fun to see that what they are doing came from what we came up with.


This Q/A with Corran Addison was originally published in Dirt Bag Paddlers and DBP MAGAZINE ONLINE. 

SKIING GETAWAY: NORDIC, ALPINE & KIRKWOOD

It's hard to give tips to skiers if I don't know how they ski, but I think the most important thing in skiing is you have to be having fun. If you're having fun, then everything else will come easy to you. --Lindsey Vonn

I'm a Nordic guy. There are not any mountains in Fargo and western Minnesota. Skiing there is slow and methodical. Pace yourself. There was no real hurry to get anywhere. Winters there start sometime around Halloween and can end just short of May. They didn't move fast then, and neither did I. It was different in summer of course. That was when I tried to jam  years worth of camping, biking, kayaking trips into a few short months. That was when I was in a hurry.
I spent a lot of time cross-country skiing. I enjoyed the pace. Skiing in and out of the pines, birches and maples along the lakes of Minnesota or the ice-covered Red River. Dress in layers and moving briskly, but not uncontrollably fast, up and down the simple hills and slopes. An easy snowplow to a stop before crashing into trees or bushes along the river. Certainly not hurling yourself down a mountain.

"You are one with your skis and nature." said Norwegian Fridtjof Nansen explorer and Nobel Peace Prize laureate, "This is something that develops not only the body but the soul as well, and it has a deeper meaning for a people than most of us perceive." A polar hero in Norway, Nansen, led a Greenland expedition on skis in 1888 and made an attempt to be the first to reach the North Pole in 1895. Nansen and Hjalmar Johansen struck out for the North Pole on skis after leaving their icebound ship The pair reached latitude 86°14′ North before they abandoned their attempt and turned southwards, only reaching Franz Josef Land. It would be another 14 years before Robert Peary would finally reach the North Pole.
That was the skiing I knew. No crowds, no chair lifts; only deserted trails, for a sport promising solitude. Out with long classic skis and a frost covered beard, I can recall being like those polar explorers, moving methodically along in frigid conditions over even terrain.

Downhill skiing film maker Warren Miller said, “If you don't do it this year, you will be one year older when you do.” Winter snows have returned to the Sierra Nevada Mountains after nearly a four- year absence. The slopes are covered with snow-pack and skiers. The projected El Nino is bringing a line up of snowstorms to northern California, a welcome relief after several years of drought.

At Kirkwood Mountain Ski Resort southwest of Lake Tahoe, the elevations shoot to the sky ranging between 7,800 to 9,800 feet. Located in a geographical predisposition to receive the lightest, the driest, and the most snow in the Tahoe area. It offers the best of both worlds to area skiers. A 2000-foot vertical drop in terrain with high angle groomed trails for the pros, as well as gentle slopping runs for beginners. Just down the road is the Kirkwood Cross Country & Snowshoe Center featuring 80km of groomed trails with spectacular scenery.

Now I haven't downhill skied in years, so I signed up for a session of lessons to hone my skills and up my confidence. Getting a lesson from someone trained to teach you how to ski will lead to dramatic improvements and a better experience than trying to learn a friend or spouse. My instructor, a young woman named Teal Barmore, quickly accessed my lack of skills and helped me get started with some basic techniques of skiing.

"You can't get hurt, unless you fall." Warren Miller said. That's whats going through my head when tipped my skis down my first slope. I expected to fall sometime during the day. Falling is of course part of skiing. Like humorist Dave Barry said, "Skiing combines outdoor fun with knocking down trees with your face." I stayed clear of the trees, but had trouble just getting off the lift. During my three-hour class with Teal,  I worked on my balance, keeping my legs squarely with my shoulders pointing downhill and trying not to watch the tips of my skis instead of looking forward. Teal suggested on looking about 10-feet ahead at all times. On one run she even proposed holding my ski poles out in front of me, like I was water-skiing, so I could focus more on what was in front of me. The most important lesson of course, how to turn, slow down and mostly stop, I practiced that technique right away pushing my tips together as I turned right and left  while moving down the slope.

The mountain, of course, led this dance and I was its rigid and out of step partner while working on my balance, agility, control and understanding of the sport. The next day,  however I felt more at home while trekking along the loop through the meadow with my cross-country skis. It is the first time I've cross-country skied since moving to California. I had to smile,  thinking it was a lot like skiing in Minnesota, except the for the  stunning view. A mist hung over the mountain dropping in and out over the peaks. And when the morning sun did break through the grey of the clouds,  the valley glistened in dazzling white. I chased my wife Debbie along the trails in and out of the snow-capped trees and through open areas only hearing the sound of our swooshing skis.

And that is a part of the beauty in skiing. The sound of the glide, that gentle 'hush" the ski makes whether going down hill or cross-country moving you forward and along. "I find music distracting" said Olympic skier Julia Mancuso, "It takes me out of my head. What I love so much about skiing is the peacefulness."

RETURN TO LOON LAKE PART III

Long ago when the Ah-wah-nee-chees were a young nation the rivers and lakes were the home to the Fish-women (Mermaids). These were beautiful creatures, having the tails of fish and the upper bodies of women. They could not leave the water, but would often sit on the rocks in the shallows, or around the edges of the deep pools, combing their long black hair, and chanting luring songs to the warriors. -- Miwok Folklore

Climbing up the road out of Georgetown, California; I curved in and out of the trees until hitting a stretch of blackened trees. A forest fire roared through the year before leaving devastation in its wake. I remember watching the news reports then and hoping that the firefighters would contain the fire before it reached the Loon Lake area. Climbing and winding through the smoke tainted toothpicks trees and grim reminders of blackened clear areas, I felt a great relief when I was in the tall green pines again miles from one of my favorite California lakes.

Loon Lake sits in the northern section of the Crystal Basin Recreation Area in the Eldorado National Forest along the western slopes of the Sierra Nevada Mountains. Nestled up close to the federally protected Desolation Wilderness, the recreation area is capped by the majestic granite peaks and traversed by lakes, reservoirs and streams spanning over 85,000 acres of forested rugged terrain along the Crystal Range.

Current Adventures Kayak School and Trips has hosted this two-day overnight one-of-a-kind camping experience in August for almost ten years. During the days, paddlers escape the heat while exploring the pine-scented Loon Lake. At night campers are treated to a night-time paddling experience to view the Perseid Meteor Shower. All the meals and paddling gear are provided, freeing kayakers up to only de-stress and unwind in the realm of nature.

Clear skies greeted me and the group of 20, mostly women boaters getting ready for their first trip on the water. I looked out over the pristine blue water and textured granite shore of the lake while unloading the kayaks.  At 6,378 feet, Loon Lake features 10 miles of boulder-lined shoreline with awe-inspiring views, however, last summer's drought had taken a toll on the mountain reservoir. It was about 50 percent of its normal level and the lake's crystal clear water was significantly lower. Our usual hidden-away paddling destinations and coves were now parched and dry. Our popular visit to the tunnel on the east end of the lake turned into a hike instead of a paddle.

The last on one on the water, I was following the group keeping my eye on their struggle and progress. It was a learning experience for some. Many hadn't paddled since their childhood days of summer camp, if ever at all, while some with kayaking in their blood speed ahead towards the distant mountaintops. We formed a long line across the lake connected by this same experience of peace and reflection. On the water, I melded into quiet meditation as I paddled along in pursuit. The natural surroundings of lakeshore, sky and water had raised my awareness and heightened my spiritually once again.

The lake might have been low, but the trip was full of laughter and springing with new friendships as the boaters paddled along the lakeshore. Each paddler shared the enthusiasm of kayaking with one another while embracing the beauty and calm of the day's journey. At dinner and the campfire afterward came more laughs, some wine and camaraderie.
"It's was a pretty good group," said Current Adventures Kayak School & Trips' Dan Crandall, "Most of them are doing something they have never tried before and enjoyed it. They all came as strangers and are leaving as friends. They will all probably end up paddling together. That's kayaking."

If you want to go contact:
Current Adventures Kayak School and Trips
PHONE: 530-333-9115 or Toll-Free: 888-452-9254
FAX: 530-333-1291
USPS: Current Adventures, P.O. Box 828, Lotus, CA 95651
info@currentadventures.com
owner Dan Crandall dan@kayaking.com

2015 IN REVIEW: PICTURES OF THE YEAR

 

 To the attentive eye, each moment of the year has its own beauty, and in the same field, it beholds, every hour, a picture which was never seen before, and which shall never be seen again.”  Ralph Waldo Emerson

"I can still see so many of the lakes, whose shores and hills are forever changed after the storm," said paddling guru Sigurd Olson, as he recalled the cast of lakes his canoe had taken him to in the Boundary Waters. He painted a watercolor of with his mind of each dip of the paddle, portage, and campfire, "It seems like yesterday… the early-morning bear on Brant Lake, that long portage from Hanson Lake to the South Arm of the Knife, that perfect campsite on Jasper Lake."

I have those very same feelings when it comes to my trips to the lakes, rivers, and ocean. The excitement and rush of the South Fork to the stillness of Loon Lake. Gearing up to race the American, and slowing down at Lake Clementine. The unknown of Tomales Bay, to the familiarity and comfort of my own neighborhood lake. Each and every day I recall with my own passion of the paddle.
Ojibwe Anishinaabe painter and paddler Mike Ormsby said, "When we come to add emotion to our paddling, we create a vision." Those places are now almost scared to me, calling me to return once more.

Rollins Lake

 My kayaking flows in abundance in my dreams and memories. Recollecting on the times alone, but mostly on the time spent paddling with others. In an interview with kayaker Byrant Burkhardt, he said, "When I paddle with others I get to enjoy the experience in ways I can’t alone. I love showing people familiar places to me that are new to them – it’s a chance to relive the wonder I felt my first time." I have enjoyed that fellowship this past year. I have had the good fortune of kayaking with Erik Allen and members of Bayside Adventure Sports, The Sacramento Paddle Pushers and Dan Crandall and the gang at Current Adventures Kayaking School and Trips and mostly my wife Debbie who is always up for an adventure. We all share the same passion of being outside on the water.

So as 2015 draws to a close I look back at some of my favorite places and people of the past year.  And in the new year, I look forward to even more adventures on the water, trail, and snow. Wishing all of you the same.  Happy Holidays Everyone!

Lake Clementine & Bayside Adventure Sports

Lake Natoma

Lake Natoma

Lake Natoma

Lower American River

Current Adventures

Lake Natoma

Lake Natoma

Lower American River

Loon Lake

Eppies Training

Loon Lake

Tomales Bay

OVER THE BOW: OTTER TAIL RIVER

The River is magical. It's full of wonder and mystery.  For thousands of year, The River has been carving its way through the Earth. As the water pours over the landscape, crashes against the banks, and cascades over the rocks, everything changes in its path. The terrain, the trees, even the wildlife is shaped by The River. Everything in the canyon is at the mercy of The River. --Michael Neale

Whitewater is uncommon in western Minnesota. The gradient of the land just doesn't drop that fast. On the eastern edge of the state, the gradient for some whitewater sections is measured in feet per mile, while towards the northwest end of the state it's gauged in mere inches per mile. The Red River of the North meanders some 550 miles between Minnesota and North Dakota and into Manitoba only falling about 230 feet along the way before flowing into Lake Winnipeg. A second-hand pool table will have more of a slant to it than a northwestern Minnesota river.
"This exceedingly twisty river is the ‘Red Lake River’; it is forty miles to travel through the distance is only twelve from point to point." In her diary, Lady Dufferin, wrote her experience while traveling on board the steamboat Minnesota in 1877. She and her husband Lord Dufferin, on their way to visit Winnipeg. "When we reach the Red River itself, we found the stream wide enough for us to go straight down it, less sinuous. but quite as muddy and uninteresting. Trees come down to the water’s edge and one can see nothing beyond them; behind stretches out the prairie, and every now and then we were just able to see how thin the screen of trees really is between the river and the plains."

The Otter Tail River is a Minnesota's eighth longest river, running through the western part of the state before pouring into the Red River.  It starts as crystal clear water while moving downhill as a narrow stream through several lakes and marshes. The oak woods through the hills offer opportunities for plenty of wildlife viewing along a tranquil river-way.  However,  just east of Fergus Falls,  the Otter Tail River picks up speed as it makes an abrupt turn towards the west, running through a valley filled with Class I and II rapids.
The earliest record of navigation was chronicled by United States geologist David Dale Owen, who traveled on what is now the Otter Tail River with his Metis companions in 1848. As stated in History of Otter Tail County, Minnesota, a two-volume county history published in 1916, "He told us in his report that he was proceeding leisurely on river, all unconscious of any rapids or any falls, a sudden bend in the river (Where the dam and Upper Bridge is now in downtown Fergus Falls) brought them so near the falls that they could not gain the shore, but were drawn over the rapids by the swift current." Their boat capsized and their provisions and scientific equipment were water-soaked. They dried out and camped in what would later become the town of Fergus Falls.

There is no chance to run those same falls today. In 1870, George B. Wright purchased the land for just over $100.00 with a vision of creating regional trade center. He built a dam on the river to power his sawmill. Having said that, another dam site east of Fergus Falls is still providing thrills of whitewater paddling along the river trail. Broken Down Dam has been crumbling into the Otter Tail River ever since it collapses over a century ago.  The dam and hydroelectric station that provided electricity to the town was improperly constructed over a spring. About a year after it was built, on a September night in 1909, something went seriously wrong. Dam workers fled the powerhouse as the lights dimmed and water seeped in from under the floor. Moments later, the riverbed gave way to the foundation of the dam causing it to crumble and break apart. As the waters rushed downstream, officials warned the town of the breach as the lights went out. Four dams further downstream were washed out and farms and homes were flooded. Miraculously no one was killed.

The dam is mostly forgotten now, except by area paddlers who challenge its rapids. There is a boulder garden stretch of class II waves before reaching the dam remnants. The dam is broken right through its center and the river tumbles and drops between its two massive concrete walls. During the spring runoff or after a good summer rain the stream rages into a fast-moving Class III rapid. It's a perfect place for a whitewater kayak, in a place where rapids are hard to find.

Over the Bow is a feature from Outside Adventure to the Max, telling the story behind the image. If you have a great picture with a great story, submit it to us at nickayak@gmail.com

FREEZE WARNING

  
He said I wanna see you again. But I'm stuck in colder weather. Maybe tomorrow will be better --The Zac Brown Band 

I was hoping to get one more day in. Just one more day on the water. The early winter weather had been typical and Fargo-like. The first snow had come early October, followed by another a week later. My days of paddling were quickly running out. My kayak world looked like a shaken snow globe. The dark waters of the Red River flowed past the banks of white snow in a dream-like setting. Along the shore, a thin layer of ice formed over the water. I can still recall the sound of my kayak's bow breaking through the ice. A reverberation of radio static and breaking glass echoed over the peaceful river. The Red was not a far cry from the Arctic.

"We hit a point where the ocean was all these pieces of broken ice," explorer Erik Boomer,  told Canoe and Kayak Magazine,  "It was just huge cliffs and bad ice, and the ice was traveling four or five miles a day, so a lot of movement. One idea we had was to jump out on a large piece of ice and sail it through a strait. So we hopped on some ice, set up camp, and joked about being on a big icebreaker ship."
He was recalling his epic trip with Jon Turk as they became the first paddlers to circumnavigate the 1,485-mile around Ellesmere Island, in the high Canadian Arctic in 2011. They skied and walked, towing their boats, about 850 miles, and paddled the remaining 600. "We both slipped in once—into the freezing cold Arctic Ocean. We made sure we always traveled real tight together and helped each other when we were seal launching off of a piece of ice, or climbing a piece of ice because there was always danger. And there was also danger of being squashed by the ice."

Ice would all too soon squash my plans. Thanksgiving weekend was mild and pleasant, with a little luck I thought, the weather would hold and I could paddle into December. But, a cold front rolled in freezing everything it touched. The river and lakes were entrenched with ice and snow, leaving the only memories, ghosts of days of the past season. Scottish poet Walter Scott had it right when he penned, "When dark December gloom's the day,  And takes our autumn joys away; When short and scant the sunbeam throws, Upon the weary waste of snows." My snow-covered kayak still loaded on the top of the van, was about to make its last and shortest voyage of the year... into the garage.

"One thing that we observed and talked about is how we were watching the ice change and the seasons literally go through these transitions," said Boomer, looking back on his experience in the Arctic, "It gave me a different perspective on changes and transitions. Changes and transitions are always difficult, you have to literally change your method working through it, but they’re bound to happen."

Now my boats have been loaded and unloaded off and on, and into the garage since last spring, but for me, there is something final about the last portage of the year. Lowering the kayak off the van's roof and onto the rack inside my single stall garage, I sandwiched it between two other boats along the wall. The van, only used for kayaking was then slowly backed into place in the garage as well, locked away for the winter. When the garage door shut, my kayaking was over until next spring.

"I actually don't even see my kayak when it's in storage. Your message prompted me to go out and confirm it's still where I left it!" said Heather Schmidt, who split her time between Fargo and Duluth, Minn, "What's painful for me, is seeing the water on the big lake so calm and seemingly inviting during the colder days. I don't have a wet-suit, so most of the year, paddling is out-of-bounds for me, but I still drive by the calm, beautiful water that is calling for a kayak to cut through its waters."

Withdrawal would soon occur. Psychiatrist William Glasser said, "We are driven by five genetic needs: survival, love and belonging, power, freedom, and fun." Glasser claims that positive addictions “strengthen us and make our lives more satisfying.” Positive addictions, like kayaking, enhance life. They also help us to “live with more confidence, more creativity, and more happiness, and usually in much better health."
When I stopped paddling for the season,  symptoms of kayak withdrawal seem to emerge, and from what I was told there was no cure.
"There is one thing I should warn you about before you decide to get serious about canoeing." warned paddling guru Bill Mason, "You must consider the possibility of becoming totally and incurably hooked on it. You must also face the fact that every fall about freeze-up time you go through a withdrawal period as you watch the lakes and rivers icing over one by one. Cross-country skiing and snowshoeing can help a little to ease the pain, but they won’t guarantee a complete cure."

It was an unusually long winter that year in Fargo-Moorhead. Not that that wasn't out of the ordinary. I had been there for nearly 30 years and only recall a few mild ones. At -13 below it hard to find anything but frozen water anywhere. The Red River had the look of a ribbon-thin glacier splitting the two cites in half. Historians say, they use to set up bleachers on the ice and have horse-drawn sleigh races along a section of the river. Only water trickles over the rocks of the Midtown dam producing a billowing layer of ice fog gaping between the two ice masses. On cross-country ski outings along the river, I would often ponder those paddling days.
"Winter is a time of promise because there is so little to do," said writer Stanley Crawford, "Or because you can now and then permit yourself the luxury of thinking so."

Canadian sea kayaker Harvey Chris Wittenberg, put this way, "Every year lands up being a little unique with different memories," he wrote in an email,  "In Canada where six months a year we are locked in with ice. Well, it makes you appreciate the kayaking a little more. It lands up being a time to reflect. Dream up bucket-list plans for next season as well as think about new equipment and setting goals for the upcoming season."

I'm a Californian now. I can paddle every day all year-long which I still find remarkable and almost unexpected. There is no ice or snow unless I want to take my kayak up into the Sierra-Nevada Mountains for winter paddle. The thought that had crossed my mind.

During my last winter in Fargo while in a long-distance courtship with my soon to be wife, I remember how she would send me shots along the American River, coaxing me to come to California. Folks paddling along on a sunny day, while I looked out my window saw the bleakness of winter. It was like looking at a menu and not being able to order anything but frozen fish sticks while counting the days down to spring.

"So it just sorta became normal life." said Boomer, summing up his 104 days in the Arctic with Turk,  "There wasn’t anything else, and that’s really what life is. You’re there. And I think in working through those challenges, I’m hoping to bring that into my everyday life—the adventure, the excitement, the specialness of every single day, and continually taking on challenges and having fun with them.”