Learning

Irene on May 5th, 2013

Hand rolling your whitewater kayak is a really useful thing to be able to do, whether it’s because you broke a paddle, got it knocked out of your hands, or threw it to the side after securing your boof on a 90-foot waterfall.  Ha!  Oh wait, I forgot  – not a joke for some people.  [...]

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Irene on April 20th, 2013

Since a lot of people are taking whitewater kayaking classes and learning how to roll right now, I’m posting a video or two that I think teach it reasonably well.  I’m saying reasonably because I didn’t learn how to roll from a video so I really don’t know how these will go over, however I [...]

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Irene on August 18th, 2011

If you’re a beginner to intermediate whitewater kayaker around the Seattle area and are looking for people to boat with you might want to check out this sticky thread on Professor Paddle for beginners to organize runs. I always tell people to join the Washington Kayak Club too, because even if you don’t see runs [...]

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Irene on June 6th, 2010

Shane Benedict from Whitewater Instruction has some nice whitewater kayaking how-to videos on Vimeo, here are two that I found on boofing. This one talks about boofing in general: Here’s one that talks about how to boof into an eddy: There’s more on their Vimeo page, here’s a link to all of the Whitewater Instruction [...]

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Irene on March 19th, 2010

I was surfing around some of the Seattle area whitewater kayaking sites this morning and was reminded to give a shout out for a great beginner whitewater kayaking class offered by Northwest Outdoor Center, it’s the Whitewater Fever course that I took nearly ten years ago and I highly recommend it. (Don’t be like me [...]

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Irene on January 12th, 2010

I did a really fun trip on the Upper Green Gorge last Saturday, my first time down (thank you Claire Hews, for leading the way and showing me a clean line through Mercury!)  Afterwards Claire pointed me towards this nice instructional video from the Nantahala Outdoor Center on how to execute a good water boof, it’s a [...]

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Irene on November 29th, 2009

When it comes to how to go from kayaking Class IV to Class V whitewater, needless to say, I’m NOT the person to ask.  However, I’m borrowing from this thread on Professor Paddle, where my friend JP posted some great comments in response to our friend Connor’s question about how best to do it.  (Connor and his [...]

Continue reading about Whitewater Kayaking Tip: Going from Class IV to Class V

  Last weekend I took one of the most fun kayaking trips ever, on the Wenatchee River by Leavenworth.  It was running around 4900 cfs, so not enormous, but the waves are definitely a lot bigger than what I’ve seen on Class IIIs on this side. Anyway, something happened on the one rapid, Snowblind, that [...]

Continue reading about River Reading, and Why We Wear Helmets (Yes, Those Are Related!)