Valley Mill Kayak School and Boat Shop's Jim Buley, and Team JK Mike Mathwin take the Dynamic Duo down the Fish Ladder!!

Here is Jim’s story.

Hey EJ!

I thought I would share some pictures of me and Mike Mathwin’s run of the
Fishladder Rapids of Great Falls yesterday. We put on kinda late, and had to
race to keep the light, but still managed to get some pics out of it-
(thanks to Blake McCoy for taking these shots).

I sat in the back and Mike was in the front. It was Mike’s first time in
the DD. He is a lefty when it comes to rolling, and I’m a righty, so we had
to compromise on which way we were to roll- IF we flipped, but we never did
roll, only had a little brace on the 2nd slide.

The level was a little over 3.2ft I think, so the 5th slide gets a little
scrapie, but the hairy part of the run is the turn in between the 4th and
5th slides. It’s a quick left turn with a lot of shallow, nasty, concrete
rock with who knows what in it, but the DD treated us very well. The boat is
surprisingly maneuverable even though it’s 12 feet long. The DD is also very
fast when you put two experienced paddlers in it, which is nice when you are
punching through holes, like the ones at the bottom of the 5 Fishladder
slides. I barely got wet in the backseat.

Mike told me it was the most fun he had ever had running the Fishladder at
that level. The DD does have a way of spicing-up familiar runs. We had an
absolute blast! It was so much fun! All we could talk about afterwards was
how much fun it will be to introduce new people to kayaking using the DD.
Maybe not on the Fishladder though.

Happy Paddling!

Jim Buley, Director

Valley Mill Kayak School