By:
Ben
Coleman
By Aeon Russo The Dagger Nomad has been my most trusted chariot on every stout I’ve stepped up to because of its responsiveness, forgiving nature, and reliability. The Contour Ergo outfitting makes me feel as if the kayak is an extension of myself and the impacts are way softer than you could ever imagine. When I drop in, the Nomad gives me the confidence I need to turn off my mind and tune into the flow. Top 10 Reasons Why the Dagger Nomad Stomps the Stouts 1. How smoothly it transitions to vertical. All you need to do is relax, plant a stroke, and tuck up when you’re about to plug ‘er deep...
By:
Chris
Loomis
Cancer is lonely. Young adults affected by cancer know this all too well. One of the biggest contributors to feelings of loneliness for young adult survivors is the lack of belonging. It can be hard not knowing if there are others out there like you, dealing with the unique challenges a cancer diagnosis presents during the “formative” years of your life. On September 26, 2013, just two weeks after my 24 th birthday, I was diagnosed with Burkitt’s lymphoma, an aggressive form of non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma. Just mere months after graduating from college, I was to be sidelined for the next 6 months...
By:
Brendan
Wells
I know it's a bit late, but here's a post from a few weekends ago. Rush told me that over the weekend, there would be a helicopter filming some of my favorite rivers and waterfalls around my home town of Trout Lake, Washington. I was super excited to see a new perspective on kayaking, especially on the rivers that I have grown up with and have shaped me into the person I am today. We started out the weekend by driving to one of my very favorite drainages that runs off the east side of Mt. Adams-- the Lewis River. The all too classic Upper Falls was at a perfect level and something like...
By:
Hannah
Kertesz
I arrived in Medellín on Thursday night (11/6) and the next day I was hiking through the jungle towards my first Colombian river - el río verde! We drove 2 hours outside Medellín to a village called San Francisco. Not exactly the same as the San Fran we all know. The streets are narrow and more populated with donkeys and horses than with cars. Jules met up with his friend who owns a hardware store full of machetes, etc and arranged for a shuttle driver. We packed in with the driver and continued down a dirt road through San Fran, pushing through the herds of donkeys. We came to a fork in the...
By:
Tom
Janney
We had to divert back to the takeout and jam into one vehicle but luckily Rolf was able to get us a shuttle driver saving us 2-3 hours of driving. We made it through the maze of backroads to the hike in spot just past ross crossing at 4pm and down the hill we headed through a nicely groomed trail thanks to Darin Mcquoid. We were geared up and shoving off at 5:30pm, all of us had done the run and felt good bombing most of the first big drops. Jim got out to scout the biggest drop on the run since it had been 5 years since he had been down but besides that we stayed in our boats and made good...
By:
Jason
Beakes
“Flow” is a state of mind – achieved when athletes feel completely engaged in their performance, lose their perception of time, concentrate on the moment (without distraction or dilution), and, perform at extremely high levels. Essentially, these are the moments in sport that we as athletes, coaches, and consultants are all striving to accomplish. Not only has the Flow state of mind been linked with outrageously positive accomplishments in sport, it is also the state of mind that has been shown to offer us meaning in our lives.” Racing kayaks down hard whitewater is one of the finest ways to...
By:
Laura
Farrell
Last month I was lucky enough to attend two awesome whitewater festivals, Gauley Fest on the East Coast and Feather Fest on the West Coast. As expected, both festivals delivered with amazing rivers, great friends and fun dose of debauchery. And as...
By:
Anna
Levesque
Setting the correct angle can mean the difference between a ferry that feels hard and sloppy and a ferry that feels easy and precise. It can also mean the difference between struggling to be on-line and hitting your line effortlessly. I've witnessed...
By:
Chris
Gragtmans
I was amazed with the amount of interest in the raffle Green Boat to benefit AW. People were stoked about the one-of-a-kind Storm color, and it was cool to pull the winning ticket and award Sir Matt Redmond with his new boat. His buddies carried him...
By:
Christie
Eastman
I am all about meeting new people to paddle with, but not so excited about putting on a Class IV-V waterfall run with a complete stranger. I could tell by the awkward silence that the rest of the group was also feeling hesitant, especially since we...
By:
Anna
Levesque
As usual, Girls at Play staff is volunteering to be safety kayakers and guides for the day and in exchange, this year, we are suggesting that each person donate on a sliding scale between $25 and $50 (whatever you can afford, keeping in mind all of...
By:
Anna
Levesque
Because we put all of our beginners in the original Mamba I was nervous about the new design and whether it would be just as good. Now that I’ve had the chance to paddle and teach in the new Mamba this season I am a convert! The new series featuring...
By:
Tyler
Bradt
Graves Creek One of the best creeks in Montana this only gets run by a few groups every year. This year I teamed up with my long time friend Jonny Meyers to go harvest some Montana goods that neither of us had paddled before this year. Jonny and I...
By:
Tyler
Bradt
The last couple of months I have been towing around my sweet new $300 1959 camper trailer from race event to race event hitting the scene and getting back into shape. I have been recovering from my back break at Abiqua falls about a year ago and a...
By:
Chris
Gragtmans
Snowy started this project by interviewing the whole Dagger team to see what it is that that they want in their dream freestyle boat. Somehow, he aggregated all of this information and began design on the boat around several core concepts: Ease of...
By:
Aniol
Serrasolses
This last days around the Voss area have been absolutely insane!!! Haven't stopped kayaking for a single day since the day I arrived to Norway, the 28 of may… yes my body is tired but I can't stay away of the water.. this is just too good!!! some of...
By:
Laura
Farrell
Because I think Taylor Cavin is one of the funnier people I know (and his description so well put), I am going to let his boof.com post introduce this blog... "At 4pm on Saturday, June 16th an intrepid group of swash-buckling crusaders, loaded their...
By:
Aniol
Serrasolses
I have jumped on his van and we are roadtripping all around norway, during this few days we have paddled over 9 rivers and competed in the norweigan cup at trøndelagsrunden where I took the first place with two good runs...The weather is cold but...