Maybe you’ve heard the roar of Lava Falls echoing up the canyon or maybe you’ve just heard about it. Any trip down the Grand Canyon comes down to the climactic moment of rowing Lava. But there is plenty of time to practice before you get to Lava at Mile 179.7 and there are specific rowing techniques that are important to know for the Colorado River. A river with the longest and most storied whitewater rowing history in America. Quick History of Rowing the Grand Canyon John… Read More
On the last day of the June 1, 2016 Rowing School, Tamie Stonke, one of our students, came up to me and exclaimed, “I have been rowing for 14 years, how come no one has ever taught me this stuff?” This is the third year I have been fortunate to be an instructor in the Northwest Rafting Company Class III Rowing School. Three years ago my wife Susan and I were talking to Zach Collier the owner of Northwest Rafting Company in his Hood River office.… Read More
Earlier this month I attended the Upper Clackamas Whiteater Festival. If you for some crazy reason have never been, you should go next year. It has the relaxed friendly atmosphere of a county fair with lots of competitions on the water and a great community of dedicated boaters. One of the best features for rafters is the fleets of demo rafts and catarafts brought by the manufacturers. A supremely helpful crew of volunteers drive boats on flat bed trailers to a put-in upstream and then pick… Read More
Up until last year, I had run the Futaleufú River exactly once. A whole lot of people know a lot more about it than I do. But there are only a small group of us who knew the Futaleufú before it became THE Futaleufú. As part of the crew on the first raft expedition on the river in 1985, I had the good fortune to make its acquaintance when it was just a beautiful blue river disappearing into deep mountain gorges, near a town of the… Read More