Big Air Ramp Building Weekend.

A group of people from Professor Paddle went out to the Wenatchee for the weekend, to make preparations for the annual PP Ball. The main task was building a big air ramp, for the competition, at the festival site. We did however, get in some boating. I guided the play stretch, at 15k, on Saturday, and Sunday, carnage. The river was 21k, I swam out of my kayak, ended up in the raft, and we flipped the raft at the top of Snowblind, freakin' huge. I was sufficiently freaked out, but it's all good. Here are some pictures!!

View from my tent, on Saturday morning, it got to 99 degrees that day. Awesome.

Mr. Brett Barton throwin' up a peace sign.

We share the waves in Washington, even with rafts. =S

Dinking around with the camera.

May I reiterate? We share waves here.

Happy Runoff Paddling!
Ashley

Wenatchee Weekend!

First weekend on the water!!! So good! I made the trek to the other side of the Cascades, and spent a weekend on the BEST river in the PNW. Drove over Friday night, was held up longer than I wanted to be, so I didn't get to paddle that day. Met up with Tobin Dailey, Michael Gordon and a bunch of people from the UPS Kayak Club. We camped at the "super secret spot". An abandoned area several miles out a sketchy logging road, in the hills above Leavenworth. Absolutely gorgeous. The next morning, we jumped on the play run, SO GOOD. I didn't get any pictures, so here is one that one of the guys took, up at the super secret spot.


SYOTR!
Ashley

Another Whitewater Season!!

It's been a long time! I haven't been in a boat since December, been skiing instead. But the time has come, the snow is melting, and I'll be back on the river soon. Thought I would post a couple pictures to end the ski season, and start the boating one. Enjoy!

Alpental with my Dad, over spring break.

Alpental again!

Epic crash off the top of Vista @ Mt. Hood. It was hilarious.

Riding the lifts on a gorgeous day at Meadows.

Playing with the camera in the car, after skiing.


Night skiing at Stevens, it was gorgeous up there.


50 degree spring slush park rat day.


We had a ton of huge dumps this year. So good.

Glades have to be one of the best things to ski, ever.


Jordan Vandermeer, flying high in the Rose City Park, last day of the season.

SYOTR soon!
Ashley

First Time On The Kalama

Ran the Middle Kalama today on the way back to school. Great fun, easy rapids, not enough water, lots of sunshine. In other news, I've been running the Skykomish too much. =) I will be back in Seattle in two weeks, meaning lots of boating. In the meantime, enjoy the pictures.

Yotes goofing off.

Gorgeous canyon!

Yotes, and my paddle, in the canyon.

Silly sunny self-portraits.

More canyon shots.

Yotes and the sunshine.

Yeah.... There was ICE in the freaking eddy.

REAL FREAKING ICE. Brrrrr.

Suuuurfing!

It's been a little while since I have updated, thought I should let ya'll know what I've been up to! In the last three weeks, I've run the Sky twice, the Middle Middle once, and kayak surfed for three hours at Oswald West. Ocean surfing is amazing. I can't believe that I had never done it before I moved here. More to come later tonight, gotta run to class. Plus. It's cold!

Pray for rain!
A

SF Snoqualmie and The SKY!

Fall is here in the beautiful PNW, and it's been raining like crazy! All the local runs have come up considerably, and although they are dropping again, the last week was a treat. On Wednesday I went up to the South Fork of the Snoqualmie River, to be the photographer for a couple friends on a park and huck adventure. Limpwrist Falls sits just west of the famous-for-rock-climbers Exit 38, barely hidden by a pile of blastrock. This gorgeous beast is a 50 footer, and it was pumping. Scott Waidelich ran first in his inflatable kayak, followed by Dave Morallis in a blue and white Pyranha Burn. Both completely styled the drop, stomped both of their landings. Check out the pictures!!

Dave Morallis approaches the lip of Limpwrist Falls, South Fork Snoqualmie River.

The waterfall, in all its glory, Seattle's backyard park n huck!

Dave in mid- huck.

Scott Waidelich beginning the plunge.

After the 50 footer, we headed further up the pass to a Seattle creeking classic, Fall In The Wall, more commonly typed as FITW. The run is one and a half miles long, 360 fpm. It's totally a novelty run, and I wish I had taken a creekboat, but instead, I got to tramp around in the woods, watch the boys, and look up at the fresh snowline. =) Later on that evening I caught up with a group of guys at Twin Falls State Park, and we ran the class II+ section on the same river, we barely made it off the river by dark, and my fingers were freezing, but it was completely worth the time.

Friday I headed to the Sky with Scott, to catch the tail end of the rain. It was awesome to be on the river, a gorgeous day, but I was feeling sick and called it quits at Boulder Drop. Darn. Good day on the Sky nonetheless. Now I am off to move into the dorms, in Cannon Beach, Oregon. I might not be boating as much as I was all summer, but I'll be updating every time I do! More post room for videos and all that fun stuff! =)

Paddle Happy!
Ashley

Thompson Weekend!

Hit up the Thompson River this last weekend. The river was a blast. The wind sucked, and the weather was crazy. But overall, the run was incredible. We drove up to Skihist Provincial park, and camped there the first night. When we woke up in the morning, we could see a fresh snow line, just a few thousand feet above our heads. Hit the Thompson, I chickened out of running the Cutting Board rapid. Jaws was absolutely phenomenal though, 15+ foot surging waves, it's an amazing thing to come over the crest of a wave and see the guy in front of you completely disappear into the trough of another one. The upstream wind at the end of the run was crazy, and we were completely beat at the end of the day, but honestly, the Thompson is an amazing river, check it out if you get the chance.

Scott Waidelich in mid bounce on the Frog.

Scott surfing the Frog, he was the only one of our group to successfully catch the wave this weekend.

Scott catches some air in the Cutting Board.

Adrian about to get enveloped by the swirly water in the Cutting Board.

Picture from the road. Sunday was a caravan of rafters and kayakers, and the canyon is absolutely gorgeous.

Adrian getting swallowed by one of the swirly waves in the Cutting Board.

Justin gets some sweet looking air in the Cutting Board.

The author, goofing around with the camera while waiting for the boys. :)

Life, love and lots of rain,
Ashley

First Time on the Tieton.

Hit up the Tieton River this weekend and had a blast. It was WRRR (Washington Recreational River Runners) weekend, and there were people galore. The little old lady on the bridge above the wave said she counted over 500 people in the morning half of the commercial trips on Sunday morning. That means that over the course of the weekend, there were approximately 2000 people on the river. Holy crap! There was no avoiding rafts either, you had to maneuver around them, but hey, good run nonetheless. The main stretch of the Tieton is technically class III+, because of its completely continuous nature, but no single drop is harder than class III. The majority of the stretch is class II/II+, run-it-however-you-want boogie-water. Lots of big waves, lots of catch-on-the-fly surfing, lots of sunshine. Did a run on Saturday right after breakfast with Scott Waidelich and James Amandus, took us about three hours, plus a good long session at the play wave, the pictures are from this part of the day. After the first run, we debated doing a second, but since it was already mid-afternoon, we opted for a pnp at the bridge, and hung out there for a couple hours. During this session we discovered that if the person on the wave looked up and opened their mouth, beer could be consumed via a can on the bridge. Too bad we didn't get pictures of that... I managed to get one awesome surf, and a couple mediocre ones, despite how tired I was from the morning. The next day Scott and I ran the main section again, with a bunch of IKs and rafts. IK vs. hardshell carnage ensued when I was trying to make an eddy, right behind Joe, who un-announced, of course, decided to surf the wave right next to the eddy. I promptly smashed my face into his bow, flipped, and rolled up with a nice fat lip. It actually still hurts a little bit. Made for a good laugh though. Finished the run trouble free, and headed back up to camp. We packed up and attempted to head out, but when we stopped to drop off garbage at the store by the bridge wave, I noticed a group of kayakers surfing, which turned out to be a group of friends that I had not seen in quite some time. After about 10 minutes of watching them surf, I was talked into jumping back into the water, and had a nice little sess right before leaving. I'm still tired. =)

James Amandus tears up the back surf at the bridge wave.

"Ashley! I'm going to pop up! Get a picture when I do!!"

He really meant it when he said he was going to pop up....

James and Scott Waidelich styling the double duty under the bridge.

Paddle Happy!
Ashley

Lower Sky @ 400 something CFS. Not good.

Lately I've been teaching a friend, Nick Weighall, how to paddle. He's been out on the Powerhouse, in the lake twice, and park and practice, (lol) on the Sky. We ran the section from Railroad Bridge, down to Big Eddy, at way too low water, scraped down the entire thing. It was awesome practice though, he stayed upright the entire time, even when I took him through stuff that I thought was going to flip me! Practiced some rolls at Big Eddy, he hit two, swam a couple times, desipite my being next to him. I got a couple bow stalls, half a rotation of a cartwheel, and a couple stern squirts, demoing the '07 Jackson Star. Awesome boat by the way. Gorgeous awesome perfect weather.

Nick Weighall, looking way too dry, smiles below the Railroad Bridge rapid.

Teacher and student, gorgeous weather, allllll smiles!

See that? GORGEOUS day, and everyone was working except for us. Teehee.

We had quite the float down a flat stretch, so we decided to take underwater pictures. I managed to open my eyes, with contacts, and this was the result.

Nick hanging out in the eddy, just about to work on his roll.

Falling over!

Swimming around after missing a couple rolls....

Working on my bow stall, it's almost vertical!

When you swim, you have to empty out your boat, but apparently Nick doesn't mind.

I was just goofing off with the camera while waiting for shuttle, came out with a pretty nice picture, eh?



More goofing off....

Yep, I was bored.

Nick's pile of wet gear.

Paddle Happy!
Ashley