EJ- Two Weeks of Coaching/Teaching at Wilderness Tours/Ottawa Kayak School

I got off the Grand Canyon, spent an incredible night eating like a king and hanging out with Tony and his family, and friends at the Caesar’s Palace in Vegas, and then was on a 7am flight the next morning to Syracuse, NY with Dane. The RV, complete with Rocksey and Target (Dalmatians), was waiting for us there. I did the drive to Watertown, NY and hung out with Tommy Gunn that night, and then finished the drive to Wilderness Tours in the morning.

I started off by coaching Keeners (keen and eager teens) for a week. We ran the middle and main channels, learned to do flatwater, wave, and hole moves, while burning up any energy we had on the river each day. This is and incredible program for any kid from 13-18 years old to paddle with the best, on the best water, with incredible coaching by top paddlers. Dane loves this program and can’t get enough of it.

Over the weekend I had a two day course and it went really well. Great group and lots of progress. That rolled right into this week which had 8 students from Georgia, North Carolina, Washington State, Ottawa, Israel, and Ireland. It was quite the mixed bag of backgrounds! I am just about to start the final day of this 5 day clinic today. We have just about done it all this week. Multiple lines on Phil’s Hole, the middle channel playing each feature, the main channel just surviving with some playing, and today is up to them which channel we’ll run.

Dane has been helping me all week long and is doing a great job! He is much more conservative with the customers than I am, and advises me often to not take them down certain lines. I haven’t listened to him yet, and he is usually quite pleasantly surprised at just how well they do in stepping it up to meet the challenge!

Tomorrow I start my 1 week of training for the World Cup. After the past two weeks, I have a reasonable base laid down, but this next week will be for one purpose, to get ready to compete

See you on the Ottawa, and if not, see you in Europe!

EJ