When I first moved to Oregon I didn't make the trip down to the Wild & Scenic Rogue for quite a few years.  I was busy with school, and then trying to start a practice.  I was also quite pleased with how close Idaho is--for the whitewater paddler, there are few summer destinations more pleasing than Idaho. One time I applied for a Rogue permit in ( Read more... )

It's been nine months since I posted here?!  That tells me I'm overbusy.  I generally post when I have time to reflect and no time for reflection is bad ( Read more... )

Do unto those downstream

as you would have those upstream

do unto you.

-Wendell Berry

"If you don't do it this year, you will be one year older when you do."
-Warren Miller
 

This quiz is designed to help whitewater paddlers assess what class of whitewater you have the skills to run with success. For each question, pick the answer that is most true for you now, not historically. Rigorous and honest self assessment is difficult, but it may be your most important skill for longterm enjoyment in a risky sport. If you ( Read more... )

The river and everything I remembered
about it became a possession to me,
a personal, private possession, as nothing
else in my life ever had.  Now it ran
nowhere but in my head, but there
it ran as though immortally....
In me it still is, and will be until I die,
green, rocky, deep, fast, slow, and
beautiful beyond reality.
--James Dickey in Deliverance 

SCORING FOR THE WHITEWATER READINESS QUIZ

Take the grand total of all the numbers you wrote down while taking the quiz and subtract 11.  Done.

How this works in a little more detail:
For each 1 you get 0 points.

2 = 1 point.

3 = 2 points.

4 = 3 points.

Consider this:

Lowest possible score: 0.

Highest possible score: 33.

SCORE RANGES

• 0-7 Beginner, still.   ( Read more... )

The Edge... there is no honest way to explain it
because the only people who really know where it is
are the ones who have gone over.
- Hunter S. Thompson

I am just back from a lovely day on the river, though I was somewhat psychological about it.  We paddled "the Farmlands" a class IV section of the White Salmon River in Washington.  The last time I was there I had a bad experience--I nearly drowned.  The time before that was even worse--somebody died.  These events have had a definite impact on my ( Read more... )

“Women have their place
in this world,
but they do not belong
in the canyons of the Colorado”

-Buzz Holmstrom in 1938

I ran across this quote while reading a current piece about sexual harassment of women in the whitewater industry.   I worked in that industry for a long time, but I had the good luck to begin at the Nantahala Outdoor Center which was ( Read more... )