Cascades, Whiteoak, and lots of girls

Photos

By Boyd Ruppelt

So last weekend I had the incredible opportunity to tag along with Jackson Kayak’s own Samantha Brunner to help with a women’s specific river running/ intro to playboating clinic. I got to paddle the Nanti with 14 women at once!… with barely another guy in sight! To make it even better I was greeted with open arms, big hugs, and huge smiles times 14! woohoo! This was probably the most enthusiastic and motivated group I’ve ever paddled with or taught… Sam did an awesome job instructing and representing whitewater women in general. The improvement in the girls throughout the trip was AMAZING!!! They were all varying in skill levels so improvement was difficult to judge but they all went after it hard, surfing and playing everything in sight!

Sunday we felt like peaceful day and some creeking action so we did the closest thing, the Nanti Cascades and Whiteoak Falls, before cruising our way back to Memphis, School (yes summer school), and responsibilities… The rains a couple days before left the cascades at a reasonably fun, but low level…. After a few laps down the cascades we went up to Whiteoak Falls, just upstream, for some slightly steeper action. Sam showed off her mad photography skills and motivation, even climbing a tree to "get the shot"…

The new Hero handled all this GREAT. I’m in love with this boat! It handled the rocky stuff great and performed well through the tight slots, slides, and drops through the cascades. It carves around rocks and into eddies fast and smooth, and left me with a perma-grin the whole way down! Enjoy the photos!

Boyd 🙂