roaring fork kayakers: September 2010

Its a good feeling when a very large mountain lion right outside your tent leaves. This is how I felt on one of the nights me evan, and candace spent in BC. After an intense game of go fish, we finally settled down to sleep at our campsot near mamquam falls. I awoke in the night due to my gypsy therma-rest deflating. I lay awake listening to the BC wilderness outside. After laying for sometime I noticed very faint footsteps just a few feet away. My mind ran.... Bear, no the footsteps are too soft(but still sounded prominent). It only could be one thing really; most our worst fears of being out in the wilderness is the danger of mountain lions or cougars as we call them up here in the northwest. I lay frozen to the ground. After concluding that yes there was indeed a cougar right outside my tent. I decided to simply wait it out and hope that it wouldn't attack me. After laying there still with adrenaline pumping through my veins in that oh so primitive survival mode that we all get when in danger, I waited and after several instances where i could literally here the cougar sniff my tent feet from my head the cougar had seemed to leave. I no longer heard and soft cat-like steps outside my tent. I then fell back asleep and woke with the sun shining through my tent. I got up, unzipped my tent and greeted the day. The nagging thought that a cougar was very close to my tent was confirmed when just outside my tent, and all around the camp there were very large catlike footprints. We arose, cooked some breakfast and I asked Evan and Candace if they had heard the footsteps outside our tents, they both had slept through it. It was further confirmed when Candace walked down the road, and with the sides of the road being heavily wooded and lush heard something following her. She called us and we came and threw some rocks into the woods to possibly scare it. We got back to camp, packed up our gear as fast as possible and peaced out. Close call. We then proceeded to the Squamish Adventure Center and checked flows on the internet. Candace searched cougar instances in Squamish, and found that a couple had a stand-off with a full grown cougar right exactly where we were camped. Here is the article
After escaping narrowly with our lives(exaggeration) we headed up to the Ashlu Box Canyon, one of the best kayak runs in the world in my opinion and had a great day.
All photos by Candace Sanders... some of the sickest shots eva!

Looking downstream at 50/50... one of the hardest rapids to style that ive run.

EG doing his thing and making a frothing stout look easy. As usual

Evan with one of the sickest lines i've ever seen. Its a rare occasion that 50/50 gives you a line you can really stomp out and be proud of. EG hit this one perfecto and did a massive flying boof.

A pre-stout brown keeps everyone happy and regular.

Me dropping into the froth only to be rejected and plug deep.Out of the 5 times I have run this rapid, twice I have had great lines and three times I have gotten beasted... im thinking next time i have a high chance of styling it if it were to live up to its 50/50 nature.

Finally it happened, that moment where it all went the way you could hope. The brief instance in time that makes me so happy to where I can officially say I want to be a kayaker till the day I die. I finally hit a really sweet line. Here I am leaning it over, only to bring it back and boof it out.

Airing it out- probably the best feeling around.

The next day we headed back to the Box and met up with Bryan Smith, Tim Loubier and Kevin who brought something special for us to play with.

Oh yea! the Phantom HD gold. up to 1,000 frames per second in crystal clear HD. Be sure to check out the footage once Bryan gets done color grading and editing. here is a small teaser.

Reel Water Phantom Tease from Bryan Smith on Vimeo.

We then did some Laps on 50/50 and the small drop just above the Bridge. It was a rad day here are some sweet pics.