Gauley Season of the Century! (Season of the Dries) by Clay Wright | Oct 25, 2018 | 2016 Rock Star Competition, Internationalisation, Playboating, Rockstar 4.0, United States, Whitewater, WW Disciplines30 +years of loving the Upper Gauley and I’ve never seen a season like this! So good – I’ve barely been there? There are very few kayaking days that can compare to a play-date with the Upper, but here’s what I’ve been up to instead: Mill...
Making the most of the end of paddling season! by Vincent Family | Oct 24, 2018 | 2016 Rock Star Competition, Family Zone, Playboating, Rockstar 4.0, Whitewater, WW DisciplinesThe BC paddling season has been an interesting one this year. It started with amazing news that the snowpack was 150% of average, after an amazing winter of lots and lots of snow, which had everyone super stoked for a long and plentiful paddling season. Spring run off...
Hometown Throwdowns by katelyngreen | Oct 15, 2018 | 2016 Rock Star Competition, Event Coverage, Events, Playboating, rivers, Whitewater, WW DisciplinesThis past summer I was able to put together two really successful Hometown Throwdowns at my local playspot called Tville on the Farmington River. Hometown Throwdowns are grassroots paddling events that are all for fun and are meant to get people excited about paddling...
Kayak trip packing: not your usual list by teamjk | Oct 8, 2018 | 2016 Rock Star Competition, Playboating, rivers, Trip Reports, Trips, Whitewater, WW DisciplinesWhen you go on a road trip to paddle, you definitely want to have everything you need so that you don’t have to be either freezing your tail off, kayaking barefoot, or even hand paddling! Overall, you want to be able to do everything you came to do without being held...
Spontaneous Stakeout! by teamjk | Oct 5, 2018 | 2016 Rock Star Competition, Family Zone, Playboating, rivers, Whitewater, WW DisciplinesA few months ago when stakeout was winding to a close, there were still a few humongous waves in that people were surfing. I had been seeing floods of posts (haha get it, “floods”) from different paddlers about them traveling around Canada to find the best big water...
The Best Day Ever! by teamjk | Oct 4, 2018 | 2016 Rock Star Competition, Family Zone, Playboating, River Running, rivers, Whitewater, WW DisciplinesToday was the best day ever. Today was big water beatdown Thursday, and it was epic! For those of you who don’t know what this is, it’s basically where all the keener’s do something that scares them. For many of us that was getting owned by the...
How to Blunt by Maddie Kimmel | Sep 28, 2018 | 2016 Rock Star Competition, Instructional, Playboating, Whitewater, Whitewater Instruction, WW DisciplinesThe blunt is an 180 degree turn where your bow leaves the foam and the stern is higher than 45 degrees. It is worth 50pts in a comp and is a great building block to other tricks. The blunt is also commonly linked to other tricks such as the blunt-mcnasty. It is...
European Championships by Tom Dolle | Sep 13, 2018 | Event Coverage, Events, France, Internationalisation, Playboating, Rockstar 4.0, Whitewater, Wrap Ups, WW DisciplinesThis year, the European Championships were in Bratislava, Slovakia. It was my first time going there and it’s such a sick place! There is a whitewater park with 2 channels, one for Slalom and another one where the hole is. The interesting part of the European is that...
Rockstar 4.0 Small was worth the wait! by Vincent Family | Sep 11, 2018 | Family Zone, Playboating, Reviews, Rockstar 4.0, Whitewater, WW DisciplinesWith all of the hype this summer about the Rockstar 4.0 (Medium) and how HUGE it goes, I was really really excited to get my hands on a Rockstar 4.0 (Small) today! Sidenote: big thanks to Stephen W and Kristine J for making that happen. I had tried a medium a few...
THE ROCKSTAR 4.0 ROCKS!! by Jacob Walker | Sep 8, 2018 | Playboating, Reviews, Rockstar 4.0, Whitewater, WW DisciplinesThis weekend I got to paddle the new RockStar 4.0, and it really does live up to the hype! My first impressions just from sitting in it was that there is a little bit more volume in the middle of the boat because the knees are raised up higher. Personally, I think...
Stephen Wright’s Freestyle Fundamentals video #4: the Lean Clean by stephenwright | Sep 7, 2018 | Instructional, Playboating, Rockstar 4.0, Video, Whitewater, Whitewater Instruction, WW DisciplinesThis video teaches you to do the ULTIMATE freestyle fundamentals skill drill: the Lean Clean. This exercise will help you learn to do so many freestyle tricks: cartwheels, splitwheels, stern squirts, blunts, back blunts, air screw take-offs, pan ams, back pan...
How to bring food on the river with Samantha!! by Jacob Walker | Sep 5, 2018 | 2016 Rock Star Competition, Family Zone, Kid's Kayaks, rivers, Video, WhitewaterSamantha, my little sister, and I got to talking about how she likes to bring food on the river. We decided to make a short video of how she packs her snacks! I love Jackson kayak because they are the only company that really promotes kids kayaking. My little sisters...
