Kernville Festival, Brush Creek Race, and a Sunday Clinic!

April 25, 2005

The first event of the west coast tour for Jackson
Kayak went great. Kernville, California held many events over the weekend.
Stephen Wright, Corry Volt, and Dan "Skippy" Simenc all challenged
each other for the top three spots. Each competitor had two minutes to
show off their stuff. The freestyle through the rapid allowed for super
clean cartwheel, tricky woo, orbits, loops, phonix monkey, and a helix
from big wave surfer Rush Sturges. Skippy took first with nonstop moves
with Corry and Stephen in second and third. Paul Armes had the biggest
loop of the comp in his All Star. Everyone was cheering on the local kayaker.
In the women’s freestyle Tracy Brabant and myself went head to head with
our cartwheels and an entry rock spin at the top of the rapid. In 2002
EJ helped me with my rock spin at this same event. As I was paddling down
I was reciting to myself, "paddle all the way on top of the rock,
then spin!" I spun all the way around, giggled, and then started
my cartwheels. We each won one round. I edged ahead by three points for
first with Tracy in second. Once the event finished we were off to our
second shop visit of the tour at Sierra South.

Sierra South is one of the coolest paddling shops around.
It has a cool atmosphere, lots of friendly staff, and some sweet gear!
We had a chance to chat with some of their staff to demonstrate all of
the new JK outfitting, discuss boat designs, and give updates on the arrival
times for the new boats. Sierra South is lucky to have Paul Armes as an
employee. He is one of the most knowledgeable kayakers around and brings
energy, experience, and a passion for kayaking to the shop. They have
a large fleet of demo boats and offer kayak lessons as well. It’s also
located right on the banks of the whitewater course here in Kernville.
Definitely stop by if you’re in the area, or check them out online at
www.sierrasouth.com .

We awoke Saturday to a free morning and great levels
on Brush Creek. After stopping-by Sierra South to borrow a few demo boats,
we headed-up the river with our friend Eddy Hake. None of us had ever
run it before, but had heard GREAT things about the creek. We arrived
to hear that the level was great (around 4′), so we hiked-up to a bit
to do some scouting. Eddy and Stephen decided to run the creek, while
Devon was kind enough to shoot some pics from the road and run shuttle.
We bombed down the run, and it was everything we had hoped: exciting,
mostly clean, continuous, beautiful, and the perfect thing to do on a
Saturday morning! After our short run, there was an unofficial Brush Creek
Race, which will hopefully be included as an official event in next year’s
Kern River Festival. The video from the event was shown at the awards
banquet that night, and it looked INCREDIBLE. Eric Giddens took first,
with Skippy in second, and Mr. Corey Volt in a close third.

The afternoon brought a great time for all of the event
sponsors to demo their gear in the park. Stephen and I took a load of
Sierra South’s Jackson Kayaks to the park for demos. The Kernville Park
is a great place to demo kayaks. People would try Fun, get to the end
of the course, walk back up, and then try out an All Star. It was great
place for people to try out all the gear. A big thanks goes out to Terry
Valle for organizing this demo day.

On Sunday morning, it was time for another Maximize
your FUN! Clinic. We had 3 students ready to learn and a great section
of the Kern River at our disposal. Chris, Robert, and John all had a blast
learning Strokes and Concepts, bomproofing rolls, playboating, and river-running
techniques. Chris picked-up the lean-clean drill amazingly fast in his
Super EZ, Robert was a strokes and concepts master, and John’s river running
skills improved exponentially. It was a great time, and I’m excited for
the remaining clinics in Sacramento, Portland, and Hood River.

As Stephen conducted his clinic Tracy Brabrant and
I ran shuttle and ran a section of the Kernville with two of my friends,
Longley and Kelly, who I have not seen in years. We had a great day on
the water as they both paddled Jackson Kayaks. We wound down from the
event by having dinner with Chris from the clinic and his wife and daughter.
We are off to the American River Festival!

Devon and Stephen