This weekend at FIBARK, join me, Ruth Gordon, for a two hour intro to playboating clinic to help raise funds for breast cancer research and awareness.

You’ll learn everything from basic strokes and concepts to front surfing, spinning and beyond. Your donations will go directly to Susan G Komen for the Cure.

Saturday June 20^th 3pm – 5pm (meet at the boat ramp)

For further information please contact me directly at ruth@jacksonkayak.com

This story starts off years ago on the shores of the Futaleufu River. It was in the small Chilean town of Chiaten that I met the likes of three avid kayakers from Boulder and their lovely ladies. Marty, Matt and Benny and their respective partners had traveled south to try their hand at some South American big water. Over the course of a week I was privy to paddle, party and chill with this solid group. Even though I knew how small the kayaking world was I never would I have imagined that our paths would cross again. Oh, how wrong I was.

Today, Marty works for JacksonRec so he and I are on the phone a lot and we see each other a few times a year. Benny recently moved to Reno, NV where I’ve been spending lots of time so I run into him occasionally on the shores of the whitewater park. Matt I see annually at the Lyons Outdoor Games and this year was no different. Well except that I was in need of Matt’s expertise and he was there to help.

You see about six months ago my dog Fiji started to limp. And then she started to tripod. Our mountain bike rides were cancelled and running down the shores of the river was out as well. Fiji was diagnosed with a partial CCL tear (similar to a human ACL tear) and surgery was recommended to resume full mobility. With such a high price tag little Fij was going to have to wait.

Upon hearing my story Matt Booth stepped up to the plate. He went above and beyond the call of friendship. The next thing I knew I was meeting the owner of an animal hospital and he was explaining to me that he wanted to help. As I sat there in awe of his kindness, he said to me, ‘just pay it forward.’

Fiji is now recovering well from TPLO surgery. Thank you Thank you Thank you!

I just finished up a busy weekend at the Teva Mtn Games. The event is chalk full of different sports: biking, running, climbing and kayaking to name a few.

The most notable occurrence I found at this year’s Teva games was the female participation in the freestyle event. 15 women from across North America and around the world came to represent. What I found surprising was that many of these ladies I had never met or paddled with. In a small industry I found this quite amazing. More astonishing was the level of ability these women held. They all had mad skills; looping, cartwheeling, airwheeling. In chatting with the new characters in the eddy I learned that most had decided to compete to help create a bigger field of women in the sport. Plus, they thought if they were ever going to compete they had to start somewhere. Competing in front of thousands of spectators is no easy feat… let alone for someone who doesn’t compete very often so Kudos to all of you: Anna, Jamie, Kristine, Crystal, Eva and anyone I missed.

More Highlights:

1. Stitzmark… or was that Skidmark?

2. Chair massage and foot massage – yeah for the booths

3. Free Schwag

4. Excellent cupcakes – cream cheese icing: yum, yum!

5. Bladder wave – how cool is it that they can change the feature

6. Freestyle walking, or were they running? Mostly they were just jumping and it was cool to watch.

7. Quickie Nicky’s dinner on the go

8. Sweet Basil

9. Big air – did you see it? I think it registered at DIA

10. Lucky boys in new boats

Photos can be found at www.worldkayak.com, www.jacksonkayak.com

Apologies for the delay, I seem to have gotten caught up in the rain. Not really but it would be a good excuse since it’s been raining like crazy in Colorado! They should call it the wet state.

After leaving the ladies in Moab I busted over to Buena Vista and the CKS PaddleFest. There are many reasons I love this area; people, proximity to whitewater, trails etc. BV is a beautiful little town with the new urbanism community of South Main. My good friends Katie and Dustin Urban allow me to poach camping in their backyard; riverside (Sweet!). I love catching up with this gang after a winter away. And it’s fun to see the growth of South Main from year to year: this year the major new addition was the Brew Pub (boasting excellent wood-fired food). Paddle Fest weekend was combined with the BV Pro Rodeo so after clinics and helping in the shop it was competition time. The feature was a small hole but all tricks were possible. I didn’t paddle my best and spent most of my time paddling up the eddy (oops). I could only be happy with third since I didn’t paddle very well.

Exhausted it was off to Steamboat for the Paddling Life Pro Invitational for the Monday. The Paddling Life event is a horse of a different color. A one-day, two event masterpiece: creek race in the morning, freestyle in the afternoon. Winners are best overall. Tanya Faux won the ladies category for the fourth year in a row. I found success in another place this year.

Driving up to the creek there was talk of high water and I could feel my stomach start to tighten. Scouting the lines I convinced myself I shouldn’t do the race. I didn’t need to. What if something happened? With the support of some good friends (thank you Andrew Holcombe) I did a practice run. Phew. And in the end I ran the creek for the race, though based on my time you would say I was more of a floater than a boater. My goal was more to ‘get down’ than compete. For me, that was success; to overcome an uncomfortable situation, face the fear instead of flee from it.

Wrapping up my time in Steamboat I paddled Pink with locals Dan and Sarah, who were ripping up their backyard hole (hope those backstabs, blunts and mcnasty’s are still going huge!). Big thanks to them for hosting a bunch of paddlers after the event.

No pictures due to rain L