These past two weekends I have been fortunate enough to run a couple of Introduction to Creeking weekends for the Aquabatics Kayak School.  These are new to our list of courses this year and have been super popular (16 people over 2 courses), and the feedback has been excellent.  We are super stoked and look forward to our final creeking course for the season later in June.  Below are some images from the second course plus a couple of Cataract Creek images from a personal trip late last week.

CATARACT CREEK

Birds eye view of Zig Zag Falls on Cataract


Johan first time on Zig Zag ready for a hit


Blair preparing for a nice soft landing

CREEKING COURSE(S) - AQUABATICS 2008

This course is basically designed for strong Class III boaters looking to step their boating up a notch into the world of 'creeking', this often overused term has been thrown around a lot of late and due to it's rising popularity has seen a large increase in people paddling stuff that maybe a little out of their league.  This program focuses on boat control in creekboats (as opposed to playboats), on river communications (verbal and non-verbal), safety, scouting, leadership and rescue along with key creeking skills such as the boof, eddy hopping (boat scouting), throw bagging, basic mechanical advantage systems and more.......basically a good base for the skills required to enjoy this paddling discipline safely.

DAY 1:  KANANASKIS RIVER
The first evening is spent on the Class II+ Kananaskis River, working on boat handling, river running tactics, posture and most importantly boofing.

DAY 2:  HIGHWOOD RIVER
The Kananaskis session leads onto a medium volume run on the Green Ford to Ings Creek section of the Highwood River.  The first half of the day sees us really drill in on paddling techniques, river leadership, safety and rescue, the second half offers up some excellent Class III+/IV rapids which require the group to implement their newly learnt scouting, safety and leadership.  Check out the photos below for some images from the Highwood.















DAY 3:  ETHERINGTON CREEK
After a day of controlling creekboats in medium volume water, day 3 sees us head to the ultra low volume Etherington Creek.  This is a short, steep run which gives the crew a feel for some non pushy steeper creekboating, including the 15 - 20 foor Mindbender waterfall.  Clients put all the skills learned over the past few days into practise on this run, which is a super cool experience.  Essentially by the end of this course we aim to have people thinking about making wise decisions, setting up appropriate safety and having a good feel for selecting lines on Class III/IV runs.  Check out some images of the team on Etherington below.

















For more information on these courses check out www.aquabatics.com or contact Simon at courses@aquabatics.com.

Blair Trotman - Etherington Creek


Blair Trotman - on line on Etherington Creek


Simon same drop, same creek


Dropping into the last feature after the Mindbender drop


Matt Burton, "I don't know where my boat hs gone??"


Blair on a tight little drop - Sullivan Creek


Matt - probing the 'plug' line


A birds eye view of Mind Bender waterfall - Etherington Creek


Hercules and Titan 'juicing' - Cataract Creek


Mid portage on Zig Zag - Steve is getting ready to jump (white helmet)


Big and Burly - Leviathan in High Water


Simon only seconds before his royal beatdown in the hole at the bottom

Hope you enjoyed the pics, more to come soon, including Lundbreck falls video footage from Max and Sam.......

Final waterfall on the Wairoa River


Rollercoaster Rapid, Wairoa River


(l to r) Pianika, Nikki and Lisa, summit of Mt Ngaruhoe


Luke and Pianika taking in the sunrise


Not much needs be said about this

Mt Tongariro, Mt Pihanga and a sea of cloud


The scree running descent, always a hoot.

Red Crater and Mt Tongariro

Michelle Basso - Left Line 'Mission' Waterfall - Tana River


Mark Basso - Tossing the Salad - Ragati River


Simon Coward - Polishing off 'Canadian Club' - Mathioya River


Mark Basso - Run number two on 'Meat to the Vapor' - Maragua River


Mark in the thick of it - Canadian Club - Mathioya River


James Savage - Mid flight on the 'Mission' Waterfall - Tana River


The boys portaging - Rubangazi River


Mark Basso - Super slidey fun - Ragati River


Simon Coward - Dropping into 'Bamboocha' - Ragati River


Simon Coward - Enters a canyon in the jungle - Rubangazi River


James Savage - An interesting camera angle on 'Mangina' - Ragati River


Simon Coward - First descent of 'Tarzan' - Rubangazi River


Mark Basso - Practising his Oregon tuck - Tana River 

After a super successful commercial climb and bike ride of Mt Kenya I found myself wih 4 days to kill and a couple of solid paddling partners keen to get stuck into some first descents in central Kenya.  So a rapid (excuse the pun) mission was born.  James Savage, Mark Basso and myself headed out to run some favorite creeks in the area along with discovering some new classics.

Our four day assault saw us add an extra 5 or 6 top class slides to the already awesome Ragati river, a repeat run on the classic Maragua River, an epic adventure run on the Rubangazi, a sweet scout of the lower Maragua gorge, some time on the lower Tana and more.

Prior to the trip Mark and I also completed the first and sceond descent of a long unrun rapid, previously known as 'cricket' now known as Canadian Club on the Mathioya River.

I am now in the process of compiling an online river guide to central and western Kenya, this will have pictures, brief river descriptions and the all important logistics, expect to see this in the next couple of months.  For now I will leave you with some cool pictures from our few days boating in Africa.

www.adventuretrippin.com

Pictures Thanks to Mark Basso, Michelle Basso and James Savage.

James Savage 2nd full descent of "Energizer' - Ragati River


Simon Coward - Pregnant Goat - Maragua River


Michelle Basso - Mathioya River


Simon Coward - Canadian Club - Mathioya River


Mark Basso - Bamboocha Slide - Ragati River


Mark Basso - First Descent of 'Mangina' - Ragati River


James Savage - First Descent of 'Bamboocha' - Ragati River


Mark Basso tucked for the hit - First Descent 'Shoosty Booty' - Nyamindi River


Simon Coward - The old favorite 'Meat to the Vapor' - Maragua River


Simon Coward - Powerhouse Rapid - Maragua River


James Savage - Laft line 'Big Willy' - Maragua River


Mark Basso - Pregnant Goat Rapid - Maragua River

Visit Marks blog at www.liquidbeta.blogspot.com for more images and river information

Chris Niergarth - First flat spin on Santa Claus......

Photos Courtesy of Nikki Winters

Well, as you can see from my posts the Sheep River has been good to us this year.  Got Max and Sam from the Junior Development Team out there for a run the other day and got some cool pics of Sheep falls.
I promise we'll run something new soon, just enjoying having good water levels ont his close to home run.......

Max Kilian running the small hole below the falls


Sam Coutu on edge mid boof; Sheep Falls


Max getting ready for some air


Matt Burton, Kiwi paddler preparing for landing

Max runnning the fun warm up ledge at Bluerock

Matt with boofing into some stunning Alberta scenery

June 21st, 2007, the longest day in the Northern Hemisphere.  What better way to spend it than an evening out paddling.  Got a bit of a crew together for a blast down the Sheep River.  We put on the river kind of late, had a pretty big group so let's just say we utilized nearly all the minutes of sunlight.  Here's a few pictures.......

BLUEROCK LEDGE, JUNE 21st, 2007; 8:30pm - Kevin, Murray and Paul (top to bottom)

Simon boofing Sheep Falls


Matt preparing for landing


Tiger Jaws


Matt on his first drop in Canada, Tiger Jaws.


Punching the last hydaulic on Tiger Jaws

Sam running the 'eyes closed' line on Sheep Falls.