Bend Magazine's The Circling Podcast with Adam Short
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Join Adam Short as he has conversations and shares the stories of those in our community who make up the soul of Central Oregon. Those who are helping shape the growth of our region, ensure opportunity for more and maintain what we all love about where we live; the beauty, the adventure, the way of life.
Though most of our content and guests are local, the insight, perspective and value learned of each episode can be applied in your own community, no matter where you call home.
Bend Magazine's The Circling Podcast with Adam Short
From Yoga to Rapids: Stand-up Paddleboarding
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Join us for an episode that promises to inspire and thrill as we sit down with Lori Skiles, the passionate owner of Paddleboard Oregon. Lori takes us through her incredible journey from her first paddleboarding experience in San Diego to creating the Paddle Strong program that blends fitness and yoga. We explore the serene magic of stargazing paddles and Lori shares her involvement with the Bend Yoga Festival. Lori's story is more than just a personal journey; it’s a testament to the physical and mental benefits that stand-up paddleboarding can bring to anyone willing to try.
Ever wondered what it’s like to navigate the roaring rapids on a paddleboard? Meet Andy Worcester, Kevin Hanna, and Peter Wheary, three friends who have turned this adrenaline-pumping activity into an art form. They share their tales of navigating the McKenzie river, overcoming injuries, and the tight-knit camaraderie that only whitewater SUP can forge. This isn’t just about the thrill; it’s a narrative of personal growth, overcoming fear, and the value of friendship. Their stories will not only entertain but also offer invaluable insights into the whitewater SUP community.
As we wrap up, we delve into the essentials of whitewater safety and skill progression. Whether you’re curious about the latest gear, the importance of practice, or the camaraderie formed on the river, this episode covers it all. From the therapeutic nature of paddleboarding to the sheer joy of shared adventures, our discussion highlights both the serene and the exhilarating aspects of SUP. Tune in and discover how this versatile sport can enrich your life, offering both peace and adventure in equal measure.
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You know, we camped at Paradise and watched the water. We were going to run the next day and it's a lot different looking at it than once you get on it. And we got on it in that first. You know, five or ten minutes. Both of us individually were wondering what we were doing.
Speaker 3You know we had stepped over our boundaries here On episode 55 of Bid Magazine's the Circling Podcast, I explore the diverse world of stand-up paddleboarding, from serene meditative yoga sessions on calm lakes and rivers to the heads-up and heart-pounding excitement of navigating whitewater rapids. Hear about two disciplines of stand-up paddleboarding that just might make you consider starting a stand-up paddleboard quiver. To begin, we hear from Lori Skiles. Lori is an experienced and certified stand-up paddleboard guide and instructor and the owner of Paddleboard Oregon offering stand-up paddleboard lessons, rentals and guided adventures, stand-up paddleboard lessons, rentals and guided adventures. Lori shares about the unique value found in stand-up paddleboard fitness through her Paddle Strong program and shares about the unique challenge of practicing yoga on a stand-up paddleboard. Lastly, lori shares about the incredible experience of group stargazing while paddling, offered through Paddleboard Oregon all summer.
Speaker 3Long After we hear from Lori, we shift gears as I sit down with three of the most down-to-earth, low-key friends who have developed a passion for the adrenaline-fueled realm of whitewater. Sup Andy Worcester, kevin Hanna and Peter Weary are just a few of a small population of suppers who are re-experiencing and tackling the fast-flowing and often turbulent rapids on many of our region's most popular rivers, blending fitness, agility and courage. Join me as we uncover the beauty, diversity and thrill of these captivating stand-up paddleboard disciplines Lori, andy, kevin and Peter hey. Thanks you guys, this was a fun one.
Speaker 3The Circling Podcast can now be found on Patreon. Visit our page and learn how a percentage of your financial support will support local nonprofits and the continued growth of local community podcasting. Become a member and learn about this unique opportunity at patreoncom. Forward slash the circling podcast. Lastly, remember to stay tuned after the show credits to hear from this week's guests as they contribute to our blank canvas community art project that explores the magic found in art embedded with meaning. So settle in as we hear from Lori Skiles, owner of Paddleboard Oregon, on her first memory of getting on a stand-up paddleboard.
Paddleboard Oregon
Speaker 4Oh gosh, you know what it was in San Diego years ago and I just fell in love with it. I had kayaked, ocean kayaked, and growing up in Newport, oregon, you know, we have done all sorts of water sports surfing to, you know, ocean kayaking to river kayaking just on the little Sox River and things like that. So, yeah, I just absolutely fell in love with it and just thought that balance is always good and I just thought everybody and anybody can do this and it's not such a new sport. But there are people out there that haven't tried it, especially Bend being a destination, you know, for the summers we have families that come over and want to get out and do an activity together. And SUP is a great thing for all ages, you know pretty much anybody can do it. It's great to share, you know, with people that have never tried it before. And so many different things you could do with the paddleboard especially. You know I'm certified with Paddle Into Fitness and you know we do our little SUP fitness yoga classes around and in pools and all of that. It's really fun. We have paddled with Paddleboard Oregon.
Speaker 4I started here eight years ago and it started with just a little kiosk at Eagle Crest Resort because we lived there and it was just easy my son helped me and there's a little area access to the deschutes right down here at Eagle Crest. It's a really narrow stretch of the river that's really pretty. We offer here in the Bend area a lot of different tours, lessons, rentals and such on a kind of smaller level. But we do offer a weekly Paddle Strong class. It's a kind of a fitness on the paddleboard with yoga infused. So you know we really focus on balance. Flexibility is big. You know stretching Yoga poses and holding that. Just getting into a warrior pose on a paddleboard as opposed to on land too, it's pretty challenging. Works on core strength, for sure. We anchor out in the river or the lake and begin with, you know, just some stretching and meditation and going into some. You know fitness type. You know chair poses and planks on the paddleboard. Planks on the paddleboard.
Speaker 4I feel like there's nothing better than being out in nature and having a water workout like that rather than in the gym, especially in the summertime, hearing the birds and the sun on your face. There's nothing like it. So yeah, the Paddle Strong has become really popular and I actually teach it during the wintertime with a friend over on Oahu. I substitute teach for her. She has yoga floats on Oahu so I keep, you know, keep my skills up to date, but offering it here, you know, even for visitors coming to Bend that want to do something different.
Speaker 4You know we're going to be on the river at River Bend Park on Tuesday, thursday mornings and then also out at Juniper Preserve, also known as Longhorn Golf. We have their saltwater pool is really wonderful. So we're doing classes on Sunday mornings, paddle strong classes there, which is really good, fun, good workout and a great way to start your day. We'll stand on liquid. My buddies Rob and Q and all of those guys over there. They've helped me design our boards which are specific for yoga on the paddleboard and we have our whole fleet that are 32 inches wide so they're really sturdy and really stable for you know, sitting on the paddleboard for somebody that has never done it before, you know to coming up to just a tabletop position and getting kind of used to. You know that being comfortable with paddling just on your knees to a kneeling position and then up to, you know, curling your toes and coming up to a standing position at. The wider the board, obviously, the better, in the center of gravity. Anybody and everybody can do it. You know kids love it. But Stand On, liquid boy. They have such a great variety. I've got all their inflatables to touring boards to. You know, our rigid all-around boards, our rigid all-around boards that I just really loved their brand and their products. So, yeah, I think that's what I fell in love with and thought what a great thing, when the sport was new, to come up with a company to share it with, especially here in Bend, when we have so many visitors coming and such a great community that are all outdoor enthusiasts and just want to get out on the waters, the lakes, the rivers, even out to the ocean.
Speaker 4We also offer. We're involved with the Bend Yoga Festival. We're doing our Paddle Strong and Sunset Evening Paddles just for adventure, for those coming attendees, coming to the yoga festival, which is just an amazing time and that's the beginning of June, and then throughout the summer we do our Stargazing Paddles, which is really fantastic. We have NACWA lights that we attach to the bottom of the paddleboard and we launch from River Bend Park and paddle upstream where there's less light pollution. You can take an anchor, you can just continue to paddle up towards Healy Bridge and towards the small rapids up there, and it's just the most magical time in the evening and under the stars, you can anchor and just lay on your board and you know your toes in the water. There's nothing. Lay on your board and you know your toes in the water. There's nothing quite like it.
Speaker 4Especially, you know too bad that we didn't have that up and going when we had the the um Northern lights here, um, but um, that's one of our, our real popular ones, um, that that we have going throughout the summer and we enjoy it so much, and everybody else else, um, that's tried. The nighttime paddles is is really, you know, um always amazed at how many stars there are over in central oregon. I'm laurie skiles with paddleboard oregon, based here in bend, beautiful bend, oregon. Um, you know they can find us on instagram under paddleboard o Oregon, or Facebook, and then we also have a website under Paddleboard Oregon, and so, yeah, that's what I took to it. I've got a trailer full out here and ready to share it this summer.
Speaker 3All right, this is the first crack. All right, all right, boys, cheers, cheers. This is the first crack. All right, all right, boys, cheers, cheers. This will be fun, so you guys go way back.
Speaker 6We do actually, we all go back almost 20 years.
Speaker 3Yeah, 20 plus Babysitting co-op. Yeah, tell me about this. That was here in Bend.
Speaker 6Yes, a couple of our wives got together and formed this co-op to save money so that we all had newborns and, or I guess, infants or whatever who was, it was kim and marnie and kim and marnie, and then brianna and then you're. You guys were just moving here, yeah, so we would just trade off. They had this system that you get credits for watching someone else.
Speaker 5Totally.
Speaker 6And it was more if you went to their house or I don't know it was this thing we didn't.
Speaker 7The wives put together the formula yeah, we just showed up when we needed to.
Speaker 6Yeah, we just over the years formed, formed a friendship of outdoor stuff, yeah.
Speaker 1Started biking and skiing, biking mostly.
Speaker 6Yeah, and then some Wednesday night antics up on well, a snow pit and snow cave and then the cinder cone, and then it kind of evolved from there. What was it? Probably nine or so years ago when we started dinking around, it was when the wave opened, well, but we started, we were badasses up at Meadow Camp.
Speaker 1Yeah, that's right, I forgot about that.
Speaker 6We would paddle up from Meadow camp to this little riffle and literally had no white water no, it was just a pour over you'd stand up, paddle yeah yeah we were just just playing around like this oh, we're getting our balance off of flat and and just general moving.
Speaker 1And then the discovery, the discovery that you could face up river and if there was a little teeny baby, baby rapid, it would hold you.
Speaker 3And that was like we we conquered it, you know what year was this roughly god before, the way it was before the park, yeah, so so yeah probably nine, nine or so years ago. Yeah, like Like 2015. Yeah, 2015.
Speaker 6Yeah, and then the park opened. And, kevin, I think you started by boogie boarding down there.
Speaker 1I went down there the night it opened Before it had to be remodeled. Correct Before the safe passage.
Speaker 6When the safe passage was less safe, when the safe passage was more dangerous Correct.
Speaker 3See, that thing was like a cheese grater.
Speaker 6Oh, it was brutal it was debauchery.
Speaker 5People come out bloodied and oh yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1I went down there that night, it opened and there were, you know, a few surfers struggling trying to figure it out and there was a lady on on a boogie board and uh, I thought, well, I can do that. And I came back the next morning with the board that I had for the kids and and started started riding the green wave, the main wave, um, and I remember you came up pretty early too within that first week and ripped, your ripped your uh fins off. That was the last we saw your fins.
Speaker 1And uh, that was kind of the beginning and all you know a lot of the dangers of the safe passage. We played around on there a little bit.
Speaker 6Yeah, but then we just we started trying to surf the lower wave and we were on these big ass boards and costco inflatable board. Yeah and then then we'd start running the rapids in the main channel. I was like, oh, this is.
Speaker 3This is pretty cool. Did you guys stand up just for recreation prior to this?
Speaker 6much yeah, yeah, it's mostly flat yeah typical go out to elk lake. Yeah, you know uh, the upper deschutes, you know, out by sun river and um, and. But I'd seen, I'd seen some photos. You know, I knew that there. I knew that there were ex-kayakers that were starting to do it and I remember seeing a uh, you know picture of a guy on the rogue and just seeing stuff like, okay, this is, this looks interesting.
Speaker 1Um and I met paul down at rea when he was working at rea.
Speaker 6Yeah, that's right. So sup paul was the big one of the main guys early on. He was for uh hala boards and he was based out of here for a while and we'd run into him down at the park and you know he was kind of the main guy Uh, and so that we started getting going and eventually spent a little money on a decent board. Well, we kind of had transitions.
Speaker 1Yeah yeah, Originally we were on the huge long boards like just flat water boards had no business being on any sort of inflatable.
Speaker 6yeah, inflatable yeah, mine was an old foam, kind of a actual surf surfboard type. Yeah, um, kind of good for a lot of things, not great for anything.
Speaker 1Um, and then I got and andy has some some river background at that point yeah, I've been doing some rafting, you know.
Speaker 6So I spent enough time on a river and it was doing, you know, kind of coming out of rafting. My family had transitioned out of rafting but we still kind of wanted that thrill, the whitewater thrill.
Speaker 1The river experience.
Speaker 6And so it was probably so. The park opened, what? In October of 15, I think, something like that and I think by that fall was our first time we went over, so we would spend some time running the rapids down the park and then we went up to uh the bridge yeah, yeah like by healy bridge, and playing around and then we progressed up to the last rapid of the Big Eddie Run, which we call the rodeo.
Speaker 6I don't know who named it that, and the first time we did that, we're just like. What the hell are we thinking?
Speaker 4Like I dropped in. It was pretty terrifying. It was pretty terrifying this class two wave.
Speaker 6That's really benign and we're like, oh my God, you know, and I think it was seven attempts and then we cleaned it or whatever.
Speaker 5Wow.
Speaker 6And what'd we do from there? From there we went over to the McKenzie.
Speaker 1We did yeah, so that's that lady. Jennifer K. Jen K had talked about that, the stretch on the McKenzie that we knew from Rafton, and so we decided to go try our luck. Yeah, and so we decided to go try our luck.
Speaker 3Yeah, why do you guys do this? Like, what do you love about it?
Whitewater Paddling Enthusiasts Chat
Speaker 1Oh, Jesus, yeah man. I mean the thrill, for sure, the ability to learn, you know, because we were novices, infants, we had never seen anybody do it, we didn't know how to do it, and so that improving was quite the thrill, the process, the process of getting better and figuring stuff out. Do it, we didn't know how to do it, and so that that improving was quite the thrill. The process, the process of getting better and figuring stuff out. And you know, having a little, a few wounds.
Speaker 3But I think it's healthy to suck at something. Yeah, absolutely right.
Speaker 6The failure rate, yeah was a hundred percent of the time.
Speaker 7Steep curve yeah and you know we're all get closer to that thing. We're all you know now we're mid fifties, but we're starting this in late forties. So we've been really good skiers, really good mountain bikers, but we're not getting better at that.
Speaker 5It's all downhill.
Speaker 3Here is something where it's like you're getting better every single time, you're doing it Totally, yeah, yeah, there's something I love the adventure and the newness of something that is an outdoor adventure, and by far I mean so. I've been on two multi-day whitewater sub trips. I did the Snake River from the Hell's Canyon, put in to right above I think it's Pittsburgh Landing and then we did the Oahe from Rome down to the lake and it was a rodeo man.
Speaker 4It was a lot of swimming, a lot of learning.
Speaker 3I wasn't a huge stand-up paddler like you know, occasionally Sure. But yeah, man, I realized very quickly on that Oahe trip that you're not so much, that your paddle is not really a paddle, it's a third leg, right. Absolutely You're just kind of push-pull, you know, and that's what I really enjoyed at both of those trips there's a lot of strategy right, I mean just like if you're on the river and you're positioning and you're, you know where do I want to be here, Predicting?
Speaker 3There, like if you're on the river and you're positioning and you're you know where do I want to be here.
Speaker 6There I'm where I want to be. That's super fun. Yeah, yeah and there's. I just think you see the river different too I mean we look at it from a different. I mean, obviously there's certain things that are really fun on a board that aren't so fun on a kayak and there's certain things that, like big, pour over holes. I don't like to hit those because those are just wrist sprainers totally, they just slam you down where they.
Speaker 6We were paddling with a guy last saturday. He's a pretty good kayak and he's like I love whatever. You guys kind of missed then I I knew it was good for me to go right through you know, and vice versa, and so it, but you just see the river differently.
Speaker 7Yeah, um, from the perspective, which is, and just seeing the whole environment differently. I mean, prior to this I've I mean we've all done this but mountain biked the McKenzie a zillion times, and when you're on the river, it's like you're in a brand new place that you've never been to before.
Speaker 1Yeah, man, and oftentimes by yourself. Just our group. Yeah, which is nice. Yeah, the water is oftentimes by by yourself, just just our group. Yeah, yeah, it's nice.
Speaker 3Yeah, the water is special for that reason. I mean, there's times I feel that way on the stretch of water in the old mill when there's, you know, a ton of people everywhere else, and yeah, there's people out there, but you have space, you know.
Speaker 4Yeah definitely.
Speaker 6Yeah, for sure.
Speaker 3And you guys have all been here a while. Huh yeah.
Speaker 1I got here in 2000. 20 plus.
Speaker 7And go around and just kind of introduce yourselves, tell people what you guys do in the community. Yep, I'm Peter Weary.
Speaker 4I run Greenloop IT.
Speaker 7Solutions Been here since 2003 and was the last of the three of us to get going with this, for various reasons. We'll tell that story next Standby on that.
Speaker 3Yeah, let's see Cool man.
Speaker 6I'm Andy Worcester, moved here for good in 99. I'm from the Portland area, so I'm an Oregonian, just like Peter. I work at Mountain View High School and just kind of work with social behaviors. Nice yeah, doing that for quite a while.
Speaker 1And I'm Kevin Hanna and I moved in 2000 here and got a small business kind of between Madras and Redmond a route business. Route, business Route business Like Running jukeboxes pool tables and ATMs like that.
Speaker 3No way.
Speaker 1Interesting.
Speaker 3How'd you fall into that?
Speaker 1Craigslist. Believe it or not? Yeah, it was in the business section of Craigslist and someone was selling their business Someone was selling said, uh, local business makes money, and uh, so I called and that started the process of conversations.
Speaker 3And how long ago was that?
Speaker 106.
Whitewater Stand-Up Paddleboarding Adventures
Speaker 3Wow, you've been at it a minute, yeah, and have you grown it? I have. No way dude yeah so what do you like? Who are your local customers in that? That's super interesting. I've got everything from laundromats, pubs and restaurants and dispensaries.
Speaker 5Yeah, all the kind of retail presence Right Any place that might need Places where people gather.
Speaker 1Might need either an ATM or some sort of amusement. Is there competition? There is, yeah, yeah, a lot of the competition is from the Valley. Yeah, it's cool that you're local. Much bigger established places from the Valley.
Speaker 3Yeah, it's cool that you're local, so there's much bigger established places from the valley. That's cool, man. I love that story. I mean, it's a Monday afternoon in May. What would you guys normally be doing? Just out of curiosity.
Speaker 5Hanging out with your 20-year-olds.
Speaker 3Do any of your kids do whitewater? Stand-up no.
Speaker 7Owen's done it a couple times, my son's done it a couple times. My son's done it a couple times and he's gotten into the inflatable kayak. So, my wife and him will do that yeah.
Speaker 3I'm still best friends with, oh man, at least three, if not four, guys I grew up with, and our parents started a babysitting co-op.
Speaker 6Oh funny, oh yeah.
Speaker 3So you know it's a uh yeah, man, it's. It's. It's fun to have people that you go that far back. Exactly. You know it truly is family. Yeah, yeah, that's what that was when I was reading him. I forget which one of you guys shared that, but that's a cool way to meet each other and just get to know each other over the years and go through the trials and you know, of parenting and marriage and all the stuff, man.
Speaker 6That's real life. All of our kids are in different areas and different lives, but they're still connected. They still have this you know they have this bond Totally, my son. I think I used to get the just cause you like.
Speaker 3it doesn't mean I have to dad for sure, and so we all have a little bit.
Speaker 6Yeah, he hasn't. He hasn't taken it. I he'd be good, but he had a. He had a scare on the McKenzie. He got sucked under our raft one time and that kind of ended his river time for the for that part of his life. So you know know we'll get it back. But yeah, he'd be amazing because he's he reads water really well.
Speaker 3Right, it's just that it kind of freaked him out, which understandably so man, totally you know, and and we'll, I mean I'm I'd love to talk at some point about, you know, the, the risk mitigation that goes into these trips. Yeah, yeah, um, because you know, I mean it's a wild river right even through, even through town.
Speaker 1it's running water and the water is not the problem, it's the rocks.
Speaker 6The rocks right.
Speaker 1And that's where we've learned a lot.
Speaker 6We always talk about like you go to a. If you're skiing or mountain biking, you come up on a tricky section. You stop, the water doesn't stop. So sometimes you can eddy I mean we've scout a lot, though we're pretty we are I would have to say I think we're pretty careful, especially if we're on a new, if we're on a new river if we don't know a rapid, we will scout If there's a road or if we have to pull over. But we take a lot into consideration Definitely. I mean we've had our lumps.
Speaker 7You know, even every time you run the river it's different. There can be logs that weren't there before different things different flow. Yeah, um, let's hear this story, okay, so you guys started off with the and and, just for context this is your first time stand up whitewater paddle.
Speaker 7Right. So the backdrop is I had I'd had some back issues that there wasn't any particular thing, but lots of mountain bike crashes and skiing crashes over the years and finally my back was just done with me and kind of got to the point where I couldn't do anything, had back surgery that didn't work, and so I was laid up for a year more or less doing I was walking. They've joked around, call me long standing.
Speaker 6It's a new Olympic sport. I can stand.
Speaker 7So had just finally gotten back to starting to do things, I was back at the rock gym, had an accident broke both my heels. It's like just as I'm coming back from this thing.
Speaker 4I'm now down again.
Speaker 7And, you know, cast in a wheelchair for a couple months. Meanwhile, these guys have embarked on this stand-by paddleboarding thing and they're really trying to talk me into it. They're like come on, you know you've been through all the other adventures together. You are going to love this. It's going to be so fun and I'm just like I need activities that don't break me anymore. Like I'm half trashed here, like it's never going to happen.
Speaker 6You guys are barking up the wrong tree well, in some of our early days we're not the best.
Speaker 7We're justified, yeah, yeah kevin at one point is like let's just, you know, andy and a buddy of his, they're running right below big eddie, just come out and we'll, we'll, hike along the river. You're good at walking, yeah you can walk? Yeah, you can walk, we'll check out check it out how this'll go, check it out and we get, we park the car, get out and and I'm thinking this is going to you know, we're going to ease him into this.
Speaker 1It's going to just baby steps to ease him into this.
Speaker 6He's going to see the thrill of.
Speaker 7And the first thing I see is Andy walking towards the parking lot, white as a ghost, blood gushing down his leg, yep, and he'd had a little off and I mean it was a big chunk of flesh out of his leg.
Speaker 3And it's like this is what I'm talking about. This is not Do not be. It is a full contact sport.
Speaker 4Matt.
Speaker 5It is it is, it is.
Speaker 3Like yeah, we, I was wearing, we were wearing. I felt like I was skating vert when I went to do that. I mean, like pads Figured out, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 7So that's you know these guys starting out. You can talk more about it, but yeah, they really didn't. This was uncharted territory for them.
Speaker 6So they're starting out really not on the right boards, not the right equipment.
Speaker 7Probably made a few judgment errors, I mean.
Speaker 6But it took some bad hits.
Speaker 7At one point he's got a punctured lung, seven broken ribs.
Speaker 1This is another thing that wasn't selling me on this part, yeah, we had sold you.
Speaker 6It was, just the evidence wasn't. Yeah, I had a little mishap Second time on the North Saniam. I was with Kevin and another guy from Portland and ran through Carnivore and there's a big tooth in the middle of Carnivore Rapid and I landed on it and shattered like just broke seven ribs on impact through my PFD. I'm wearing it. I mean I have two inches of foam on my back.
Speaker 3Oh my gosh.
Speaker 6And yeah, I went in and just I heard the crunch, I heard it and I was just like, oh shit, you know, I'm like, I'm underwater, I'm trying to get a look back to Kev, like. I'm not okay, so basically. So then of course everyone's like well, clearly you idiots are done with this.
Speaker 7I'm like oh hell no, he's in the hospital. He's still talking about well, when I get back out there what is it going to take for me to get healthy?
Speaker 6And because about there, what?
Speaker 1is it going? To take, for me to get healthy, because about five minutes earlier there's another rapid Spencer's and he cleaned it just for the first time. First time is a big class three as high as high could be and then, within 10 minutes, as low as low can be, that's how it goes, man.
Speaker 6That's how it goes you take your lumps and we learned we need more pads, we need better boards. Yeah.
Speaker 3Were you still on those kind of? We were still on those shorter kind of crappy boards.
Speaker 6And then so we both ordered the Hala Atch-A-9-6, which is our go-to board today.
Speaker 3Designed specifically for this adventure For running big water yeah, give people a little bit of a description between the differences and and kind of geometries and shapes and design between a whitewater stand-up board and just your typical recreational like lake stand-up paddle well, I mean the rocker, yeah so the boards that we run are nine feet six inches long.
Speaker 6They're six inches deep. They're inflatable. 36 inches wide, super wide, super wide, super thick, very, very stable right and and the ones that we're on like two or three seasons old. The newer ones have even more rocker, but so the rocker is kind of the key like like, like a kayak or like skis even yeah so the shape and the rocker lets you punch through rapids, holes and stuff like that.
Speaker 1And what they don't do well is playing down a straight line Right. Terrible.
Speaker 5You can't do that on a lake like a normal board.
Speaker 1Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 7And they also have a retractable fin, so if you hit a rock, yeah, the fin goes up in the fin box, the fin goes up in the board which is key for a lot of the rivers around here because you've
Speaker 3got shallow sections. Yeah, lava doesn't slide too easily. Yeah, there's always like a grip of fins down by the whitewater.
Speaker 6For sure, yeah, yeah. So we got. Once we got on those boards, it changed everything.
Speaker 7It did, and then you got the right pads yeah got pads that covered, more we got introduced.
Speaker 1Right around that same time we got introduced to what we called the varsity crew. Yeah, and these guys were around the Northwest and elsewhere, colorado, okay.
Speaker 3So other communities, other communities. You guys were a GV. Well, they were team hauler riders.
Speaker 1They were for sure, early stage pro paddles, which sounds kind of funny to say, and all of them had class five kayaking experience Right, and so this was their new adventure on these paddle boards, and so we got to see how the big boys do it, and they were all prepared in ways that we weren't.
Speaker 6But remember, one of those riders was this woman, nadia. Well, yeah, and she was by far the best paddler of all because she was the smartest, like she would, we'd watch her lines. I'm like, oh yeah, you don't have to punch everything, right, and it is okay to drop a knee, and so that was part of it too. We started learning that there's no shame in dropping a knee. There's a little shame.
Speaker 7There's a little bit of shame.
Speaker 6Depends on which knee you drop, but there are times when it's like, oh, I'm going in, and so if I can stay on my board. I don't hit rocks.
Speaker 5And.
Speaker 6I've never, been hurt just being on my board. I've only been hurt hitting rocks, and I mean truthfully and since once we kind of figured it out, you had one the other day, actually the night of the photo shoot, you took a hit, but other than that I mean we've been pretty much injury free for a few years.
Speaker 1And we're prepared, and we're prepared, we've got all the right gear, all the right protective gear. We know which rivers that we can do, where on those rivers, when, to do them all those things.
Speaker 7And even how to fall. How to fall Any sport too. It's like you get good at falling. If you can fall on your board. You're much better than off yeah.
Speaker 6I started working on a move the last couple years. I call just hooking the spurs, so typically you fall backwards. You hit something. You either go forward or backwards, right, and so on some of the bigger waves. I was finding that as I lose my balance to go backwards, I would just drop, drop my butt, hit the board and then throw my legs underneath and grip it.
Speaker 5Yeah.
Speaker 6And then I would stay on and then it's just an easy hop back on.
Speaker 5Yeah.
Speaker 6And so, again, it keeps me from swimming. Yeah, not every time, but it so you look, learn those things along the way. How can we get smarter just to stay on the board.
Speaker 1Yeah, a lot of those skills were learned at the wave. The wave, yeah, that if, if you, if you find a pocket of people that are that are doing this adventure, a lot of them have a wave close by because, in, you know, a few months you can learn the skills that would take years of doing river trips. Right, right, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Whitewater Safety and Survival Stories
Speaker 6So the countless hours of just getting a beat down Just failing and failing, and failing Just humiliating down there.
Speaker 1In a safe environment, though. Yeah, well, except for all the kayakers heckling us. Well, yeah.
Speaker 6Oh, you know, you're not really surfing.
Speaker 4You're just kind of glorified balancing.
Speaker 6Yeah, well, you're sitting jackass. Oh, the love at the river.
Speaker 5Yeah, yeah well now they're all really nice.
Speaker 3Yeah, in all, in all honesty, like it's pretty harmonious down there considering all like like you know, I I regularly talk with, I have friends of mine about that and just the uniqueness of especially at the green wave, which you know, which it's so different than ocean surfing or even I mean the, there's something about everybody has this defined time on the wave and you can't you know that changes things right. So yeah, it's cool. My kids are down there all the time, man.
Speaker 3It's a good community yeah, for sure it is good. So are you guys like when I would go on on these couple trips? I would put like, um, uh, I wouldn't wear a leash and I would use a what do you call it one of those noodles. I'd put it around my paddle so if I lost my paddle it would float. Do you guys use any of that kind of stuff? Or do they make floatable paddles that float, or you just don't?
Speaker 7drop it first.
Speaker 6Rule never drop your paddle, it is last resort, and they do float the ones that we all use they're pretty light, they do float, but it's kind of that. I they're pretty light, they do float, but it's kind of that. I mean that's why you get banged up fingers because you fall and you hit your hands because you're not letting go and I mean we've never. If we have dropped a paddle, it's been short.
Speaker 3Yeah.
Speaker 6It's in there and we're usually able to retrieve our own, or we're always watching out for each other too, yeah, of our own.
Speaker 3or we're always watching out for each other too, yeah, if we're going through anything, anything dicey, you run it one at a time well, we keep a, we we keep it pretty tight, yeah, keep it close enough, yeah, but far enough.
Speaker 5But you want to.
Speaker 7You want to be able to scout and see, and you know, you know if you've been on a river, you know how fast if something does happen yeah, things can go wrong really quickly so you want to be close by?
Speaker 3are you guys doing mostly like day trips? Do you do any like multi-day?
Speaker 6we have yeah uh, but most of it, most of it most of its day trips, mackenzie, yeah matolius um pack saddle run on the north santa yam um.
Speaker 7But we've a multi-day or awesome, I mean they're great just like, like rafting yeah, you gotta have a support support boat. You gotta have a raft with your crew that's what we would do.
Speaker 3We would just tag out, you know, sure, two rafts and three board, three stand-ups, but six people, and we would just kind of rotate.
Speaker 6Yeah, it's fun we did a couple of years ago. We did the North Fork of the John Day. I still had my raft at the time, so we grabbed another guy to be our mule and run the raft and then we were on our boards. I've done the lower.
Speaker 7That was actually a crazy trip because it was I mean, there was a wind event here, Like if you're a farmer anywhere in that area, it trashed your irrigation, but it was bizarre, Like we're. This is like day two.
Speaker 5Yeah.
Speaker 7And we entered the section of the can. It's, you know, blue, full bluebird. Go into the section of the Canyon and the storm just comes upon us and you can see it coming and there's like a green dot and the top of the sky and you see, a hundred foot ponderosa is on either side of the sky and you see hundred foot ponderosas on either side of the river just snapping. Snapped in front of snapping down and he's in the front and I just see this body just go I could see it coming up.
Speaker 6I could see water coming up the walls of the canyon water and and this storm was coming at us and we were trying to get to a campsite, it's like I'm like, oh god, so I start paddling up. And then I'm like, oh crap, I got to go over the side and I got blown off my board. And then at one point I'm trying to get back to make sure that you know, looking back up, and my board got it got thrown out. I mean I'm pulling it out.
Speaker 3So we do wear leashes't.
Speaker 7have those yeah no, his board is like flying like a kite above his head and attached to his back yeah, and then I look up and you just got completely blown off.
Speaker 6It was like someone came up and hit him and just took him off as the wind and storm came down this canyon.
Speaker 1It hit us one after the other, Boom. It knocked everyone down in a violent way. It was intense and then it was gone.
Speaker 6And then it was gone. And then it was gone, Flipped a kayak flipped a couple of rafts that were tethered on the shore. And demolished a couple of campsites, some people had seen it and got off the river.
Speaker 7In retrospect, it was like where you wanted to be was the middle of the river because trees aren't falling on you. But their tents and campsite was destroyed.
Speaker 3Yeah, it gets real quick, man it does yeah sure you know it. Uh, nature can go from an rei catalog to like chaos, right, you know yeah, we had, we were in, we had another one on is that the white salmon.
Speaker 6White salmon yeah.
Speaker 7And that was a crazy day. So Kevin had a little incident Was that a rib. Another rib thing. So he's you know, and that one you're in a canyon.
Speaker 5You gotta get out.
Speaker 7You gotta get out. So we assessed him.
Speaker 5He was in pain but he could you paddle out of my knees function, so we're making our way down.
Speaker 7There's a portage around a waterfall portage for people.
Speaker 3Listening means you get out and walk around because it's kind of mandatory, yeah, yeah not kind of it is unsafe. Yeah, usually to Usually.
Speaker 7To run it. Yeah, yeah. So we're making our way around that. We're just getting back into the water and kind of look up just in time to see a family in their raft oh Lord, going over the waterfall.
Speaker 6And these people were in like water ski vests and flip flops. Oh, no, yeah, not prepared, they were not whitewater.
Speaker 7Not prepared at all.
Speaker 1They were not prepared at all they had heard about this, but they thought they were still a mile away or whatever.
Speaker 7So the mom and the daughter are first Throw a line to them, so they eat shit.
Speaker 4They're all ejected. One of them is just recycling, they're just recycling.
Speaker 1As we watched this unfold, this was like one of the stories we're going to, you know.
Speaker 6It was actually terrifying. It was terrifying to watch Because the kids there's three little kids in- this boat and no one's prepared for the proper.
Speaker 7PFD. The mom and daughter go by, throw a rescue line to them.
Speaker 6Lands right in front of them.
Speaker 7They don't see it like wraps around her neck.
Speaker 5So when it?
Speaker 7gets to the line I just have to let go of it and they just disappear. This guy is still recirculating. The dad and the boat are now floating. They just floated freely away. Finally the recert guy. It released him. So we all got on our boards, got the raft, got the kids got them all back together.
Speaker 6I mean he's hurt, he's, so we got to get him on his board and steady, and then yeah, that's called the swiss cheese effect.
Speaker 3Yeah, yeah, where everything goes wrong at the right time, you know and then you, you end up with these really tragic yeah, so we we caught up with them, and they got all like the dad was down river, but then the the family was in there in this little pullout.
Speaker 6We're in this Canyon, though, and there's where there's probably 30, 40 foot walls, yeah. So you're not getting out and and there's really, there's no road. It's below the bridge where the last road, and this one girl was like I'm not getting back in the raft.
Speaker 7Yeah. Yeah, you kind of have to. They're freezing.
Speaker 6It's like, all right, let's get this wet stuff off and start warming up, we get them squared away and then we hesitantly got the dad back to the raft because I don't think he was too welcoming, no, and then it was probably, with about a mile or two to go, one of the last bigger rapids. And you know we're, we're all at this point. We've had two incidents, so now we're mentally kind of fatigued. We got to hurt Betty. We just saw what we thought was going to be more of a recovery, but it ended up being okay and so we're tired. And then I remember this one cause it was this rapid that bends hard to the right and I was like Kevin, follow me, cause he's on, he's on his knees, trying to make sure that he doesn't get hung up on this left side. That's got this rock, with us recirculating the eddy and I know you were watching to make sure that Kevin got through and guess who.
Speaker 7And so I missed the line. I end up in this recirc thing, and it was. I mean, it was terrifying from the standpoint of really quickly realize, realize I'm gonna run out of energy fairly quickly, like not in a half hour, but in like 10 minutes I will be done. And you're just spin around, it's flipping your board constantly and the the wall next to this was just sediment rock. So you grab one and it just pulls out. So it's like I couldn't get out on that side. And then Andy was finally able to get me a line and pull me across out of it.
Speaker 6But again, it's just one of those. It's definitely not a I would recommend it as a solo sport, but I get about that though I mean. So yeah, we've had some incidents, but we've also done hundreds of runs that are just euphoric, with no incident.
Speaker 3Well, you could probably say the same thing about whitewater kayakers? Oh, of course, you know like everybody that when you're in that environment enough times, statistically you're going to have some stories, or mountain bikers or even other sports For sure yeah.
Speaker 1You're going to have some stories, or mountain bikers or even other sports For sure yeah.
Speaker 3That's why it's all about risk mitigation right.
Speaker 7Right, you can't eliminate it.
Speaker 3Yeah, I mean, I don't know about you guys, but in this community and I've been here as long as you guys as well, and it's just, people seem less, they're more out of touch with the reality of how quickly stuff can go wrong because everything gets promoted. Is this instagram reel where it's like yeah, the best, you know the best snow the best stability, the best river run the best mount. You know like you name it. You don't see the shit that goes wrong no, no, and that's the.
Speaker 3That's the truth, you know, and I just feel like growing up there was more emphasis on that, like you got to be prepared for before you, don't you know? Yeah, but I mean that's where.
Speaker 6I mean we, we paddle together a lot and we're a tight group. I mean we, we've been friends for a long time so we know each other pretty well, but we also, we just keep an eye on each other.
Speaker 3Yeah.
Whitewater Stand Up Paddle Boarding Discussed
Speaker 6And that's the main thing, like we run the McKenzieenzie. We've probably done the mackenzie at least 50 times together, but we still. We don't take it for granted. We do keep an eye on each other we do check solo we never go solo. We check the flow, we check to see if there's especially the further up river you go there's more risk for for our wood, and so we always check those types of things and and I don't know.
Speaker 6I mean so yeah, we've had a few nasty incidents, but we've all like I say we've also because I don't want that to be the focal point, because they're well not going back to, like you know, when you ask like why do we love so much? Because it's freaking awesome yeah, I mean it's just yeah like there's an intense rush when you, when you do hit a rapid and you do clean it and you do stick it and you turn around and then your buddy's right behind you.
Speaker 3Yeah, there's nothing. I mean, I've never piloted a raft or a catamaran or a kayak down whitewater, I've only ever piloted a stand-up paddleboard.
Speaker 6That's awesome.
Speaker 3Every other thing I've been a passenger on yeah, yeah, I mean, but technically you're going for a ride.
Speaker 5Oh yeah.
Speaker 7What's fun about it, like I said, is that like getting where you need to be, to let the river put you where you want to be. That was that's exactly right. It's getting to where you. It's the setup, yeah, because you can only control some once you're in it yeah you know your input.
Speaker 5It's out of your control.
Speaker 7Minimal the power of the water is doing what it's going to do and if you're in the right place, it can work out great. And if you're just a foot to the right or left. That can be terrible. Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1And as Andy was saying we watched this pro rider, nadia, and she was the one that introduced us to that concept. Instead of just powering through right down the center of the biggest hole because that's what you would do on a raft or whatever else you know she designed a plan spontaneously as she was reading the water and, you know, if you could just follow her on every river, we would go on. It would be amazing.
Speaker 3Dude, she like choreographs it.
Speaker 1Absolutely.
Speaker 6Oh, she was so graceful too, that's sick.
Speaker 3Yeah yeah, that's pretty dope to see people do stuff in nature that he was the next level.
Speaker 1Yeah, no doubt about it, that's going super cool.
Speaker 7And I still have these visions today, but especially early on the first few actual river runs, being right behind, and usually that would you know, Andy would be in the front, then Kevin and I'd be behind Kevin and you'd watch him go through a section and the board is just all over the place and the body is just locked in like perfectly smooth and it's like how is that human? Like, how are you even staying on the board? How is that possible?
Speaker 1But somehow, I still experience that If I'm watching someone else right in front of me, even if I'm on the board. It's unbelievable that the board and the skill and all the competency coming together allows us to do it, because it doesn't seem like you could stay on top of the board.
Speaker 3Well, it's so much micro adjustment, man yeah. You know it's a micro adjustment. Totally yeah it was last weekend.
Speaker 6We were on the uh, you get, these guys weren't with me, but we're on the mckenzie again. It was higher flow and uh, cameron was there and he's a guy's a legit kayaker, and afterwards he's like he was saying that same thing. He's like it's so cool to watch your board. The nose of my board, he said, was all over the place, but my head and my it's just like skiing. It's pointed straight down the fall line of the river and that's how we stay on it and like the paddles in the water.
Speaker 6It's more like you say that third leg it's like it's, you know, and people have different styles.
Speaker 6There's some guys that'll just just, they just go hard through, but and I'm more kind of a brace, kind of a I brace and then paddle just push, pull, yeah, feather just keep myself on there, but and, and sometimes I'll be looking down and I can see it like the nose is just going left and right and the chops are coming at me like I've been, you know, eight years into this like, oh, there's no way I'm getting through that. And then, and then next thing, I turn around and then I'm watching peter come to it or someone else and it's, it is. It's just intense, yeah, and you're talking about the setup and the thing that's cool is the flow changes the river so that the same run we do on the McKenzie at a lower flow. You don't need the setup ahead of time as much, you can just slice and dice it.
Speaker 6But, like last weekend, if you missed the setup, you're going wherever it takes you and there's nothing you can do you can't fight the river, you have to be thinking ahead of the normal setup time, right, and so that's what I love about it is it changes every time we go over there, two or three hundred CFS and it's a different run.
Speaker 1We've learned to take the water's power and use that, as opposed to in the beginning. You're fighting. We were trying to fight it and muscle it and overpower it and through our experience and watching people that are better than us, we've learned how to use the power of the water to kind of navigate us and allow that to lead us.
Speaker 6That's maturity right there. There you go, wisdom Too many birthdays.
Speaker 3I mean, it's true, though right it is, it is yeah.
Speaker 1Yeah, and that you know some of these other riders, these high level riders. Some of them were young males and you watch their style and their style is more power right through it and this you know 110 pound something. Yeah, little woman, you had a very different strategy, you know, and it was beautiful to watch and we learned a lot. Yeah, little woman, you had a very different strategy, you know, and it was, it was beautiful to watch and we learned a lot, yeah.
Speaker 3What are some of the other, like um, are there other communities? Of what other communities? Where is this popular? I mean, are you guys kind of the, the, the main local crew, would you say, or are there other people that stand up whitewater? I think so, but I know there are more guys out there.
Speaker 6I know we've run into and more and more people are kind of starting to like. I saw a guy get out of his kayak the other day down at the park and then he got on another holla board. So I think there are more people. There's a pretty sizable crew in the Portland area.
Speaker 5Oh yeah.
Speaker 6Portland.
Speaker 7yeah, Colorado is big because that's where the main Makes sense, yeah.
Benefits of Stand-Up Whitewater Boarding
Speaker 6You know, you got Hala, you got Bad Fish. Those are the two main manufacturers that are making whitewater-specific boards. So Steamboat's got you know out there. East Coast actually has a pretty sizable population as well.
Speaker 4And then you go to Wenatchee.
Speaker 1Yeah, Wen well um and then you go to, then you start thinking yeah, what actually he's got there a couple guys up there, um, so there there are pockets around, especially where there's a river wave.
Speaker 3Yeah, they're manufactured like what we have here or a natural uh wave. Do you guys ever, do you guys ever come across natural waves on your runs and and like session them?
Speaker 7oh, yeah, yeah, yeah and it is funny because I think that's fun, man, the portland crew doesn't have a wave, we do so we tend to run rivers like we run the river. Yeah, we have all. We can spend all the time we want surfing around right right at the wave. So we yeah, we'll do that, but it's like a small chunk of it versus Portland guys Anytime they see anything anything you can hold on to like. They all want to play around in that.
Speaker 6The boards we're on are not great for surfing. Okay, those big boards, they're really not great for surfing, they're great for punching waves.
Speaker 3And those are the hollow. Those are the hollow hatches.
Speaker 6Now they make a 7-Eleven.
Speaker 7It's a shorter board that we've recently added to the quiver.
Speaker 6You guys are so in for life.
Speaker 3Dude, those are perfect Like the flows are lower.
Speaker 7You've got, you know it just adds a little more excitement to it a little more playful again, going back to kind of my injury story. But I think if you cannot slam into the rocks or drown which you know, if you're smart that's not gonna happen but mostly it is extremely healthy, injury preventative sport. I mean, it's uh, it's legs and core. That's what ends some shoulders with paddling and your best posture is, you know, good upper body posture and you're kind of squatting, so it's builds the right muscle, unlike biking. You know it's great for your legs but you're hunched over.
Speaker 7It's kind of horrible for your neck and other things or any other sport I can think of. There's parts of it that are really good for you and parts of it that trash you.
Speaker 6The boarding is 100% good for you if you're not hitting rocks, yeah, again, take the rocks out. It's low impact. No, impact. I mean, I've said this numerous times, but I have core strength in my 50s that I didn't have all through my. I mean probably my 20s just because, you're 20s but 30s, 40s.
Speaker 6I didn't have that and this this is has brought, and as far as like going back and forth from skiing to white running whitewater on a board, there's nothing better. The two cross over. So well, yeah, um, and you know the other thing too. It's we joke all the time like as we age even more, like we'll be running the McKenzie well into our 60s from paradise down. It's a class two run, and if I, our joke is not even a joke, but like if that's all we can do for the rest of our lives we're golden.
Speaker 3Yeah, so you don't have to go run class three rapids to have fun doing this. Arguably, I would have most fun on little one or two wave trains. Slashing giggles, man, you know, just like, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 6I mean we've done.
Speaker 5You know, we've done big rapids and they're scary and fun.
Speaker 6But you don't have to have that you don't have to be scared to have fun.
Speaker 5No, not at all.
Speaker 6I think like for me, big Eddie is one of the scary ones that I've actually run the whole thing and I, you know I've cleaned it once and swam it probably eight, nine, eight, nine times. Yeah, I don't know that I'll. I don't know that I need that anymore.
Speaker 4Oak.
Speaker 7Springs is another one.
Speaker 6No, it's not a fun swim. Oak Springs is a really potentially scary rapid. So then you start thinking well, what, what do I get from that that I can't? Just get on a nice splash and giggle wave train.
Speaker 3So you start looking at that too absolutely, man, because, like you said, so much of it is just you're experiencing this the whole. Yeah, you know natural environment in a different way right, yeah.
Speaker 1so with your, your, with your people, yeah.
Speaker 7With your people. A couple of years ago we did the North Fork of the Flathead River, okay, and that was a three day trip and you've got a national park to your left. You've got bald eagle.
Speaker 6I mean it's just amazing, Nothing more than a class two.
Speaker 7It was? I think it was 50, 58 miles.
Speaker 6That we did. Yeah, it was three or four days of howling Three days.
Speaker 7The water was not challenging, but it was a blast, I could do that. That will never get old.
Speaker 3No, no, that doesn't ever. What do you guys have planned this summer? I mean, it's like river time right now. It is.
Speaker 6This is kind of the best time for you know you got your spring runoff going.
Speaker 3Have you gone on any trips Just to McKenzie, just to McKenzie?
Speaker 6I tend to take off for the summer.
Speaker 4Oh yeah.
Speaker 6Because both my wife and I work for the school.
Speaker 5Yeah.
Speaker 6So I'll spend the summer out in Colorado. No way, it won't be around too. There aren't too many rivers where I'll be, but I'll get a few in there. Where are you going?
Speaker 3Top secret.
Speaker 6Yeah.
Speaker 3If you know it, it'd be weird.
Speaker 6But there's this little funky town called Ward, which is up out of Boulder. Okay, it's a long story, but my uncle has a 160 acre homestead, no way, and so we have a cabin. He was kind enough to give us one of the leases on the cabin, so so we I spend the summer out there.
Speaker 3That sounds amazing, it's pretty. Yeah, what do you do?
Speaker 6uh, not a whole lot just yeah, I mean they're actually. There's a saying up there. When people say, what do you do at the ranch, I'm like about what? Yeah, no, no, we hike a lot wander. I split a lot of wood. Yeah, my wife and I, we Decompress. Yes, we do Totally man.
Speaker 6It kind of exudes relaxation, but yet we're always tired. So it's, yeah, it's really cool. You know, we just we wander, we wander a lot. Yeah, there is a, there's a wave wave, there is a surf wave about 45 minutes. I want to check out this year. And then there's a couple of runs. I was actually talking to cameron about a couple potential runs on the upper colorado and then he mentioned the blue river out there too. So I do want to explore, yeah, some, but it's it's hard because I don't know anyone out there that paddles. Yeah, I know there's a ton of people that do, so I just got to find some folks.
Speaker 1Some people, yeah, and we all have different roles in our little group here, and Andy is the default organizer and so in the last couple of years. He's been gone for the summer, so our trips have slowed down a little bit unfortunately.
Speaker 3What other roles do you guys play on the river? Like who's the most likely to just say, screw it and go? I think we would all be like, yeah, let's just go.
Speaker 5Let's just go.
Speaker 7Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 6I think if it's, I think, if the timing's right, we'll all go. But if it's, you know, I think, I think, if it's, if you're talking about like, if you're looking at a rapid, that's a little dicey.
Speaker 3Yeah, you guys all have a pretty good barometer.
Speaker 6Yeah, I think we're kind of an all in. Respectfully cautious, I think we're either an all in or it's a no go. Yeah, kind of a crowd Go, no go. That's a good way to go.
Speaker 7I mean it's kind of and that you know, if it's like, look, sketch, like if there's a chance of avalanche, oh, let's just not do that, and so kind of same thing with the river. There's a time and a place and we're all fine swimming and taking our lumps, but there's a time where it's like, yeah, that's just not good.
Speaker 5We're not, definitely not doing that, and we are all on that same.
Speaker 4I think that's part of why we work well together because we're never battling over that stuff.
Speaker 1It's like same risk tolerance and there's no pressure, primary motivation.
Speaker 7Yeah, there's a, there's egoless right, yeah. If one person's not feeling it.
Speaker 6Then we're like, all right, let's just walk it or let's just let's just do a different run, yeah, and there.
Speaker 7There are definitely those times as you get in up to your. Okay, on a good day this is kind of my max run I'll do and I think we've all done enough things. We know today's not my day. Yeah, and I'm not going to push it.
Speaker 1Smart we drove out to. I think it was the Saniem after the fire, right.
Speaker 5Or was it the McKenzie?
Speaker 6It was the McKenzie and it was flooding.
Speaker 1And we were all prepared, ready to go, and it just wasn't safe.
Speaker 7Full of burnt logs Logs were floating down the river.
Speaker 6Huge, not today, not going to happen.
Speaker 1It didn't take long at all for us to decide individually and as a group Not today.
Speaker 6Not today.
Speaker 3Is this growing like stand-up whitewater to the point where, like it's pretty niche-y?
Speaker 7It is, it is.
Speaker 1It probably is growing, but it's not. There's not a lot of growth.
Speaker 6I think in the earlier days. I mean, you know, the upper Clack Fest just went off last weekend and they have a sup race. I know in the early days out in Colorado they'd have like some of the gore games and stuff like that. They'd have some ragtag, just crazy races and things like that. I don't know if so many people are interested in the racing aspect as opposed to just running the river parts.
Speaker 3Yeah, I kind of would Feels a little bit more like just because you could doesn't mean you should do that. This seems like not a like comp sport.
Speaker 6Yeah Right, you know it doesn't appeal to me to like. I don't know, maybe it could be fun. I guess if it was a fun stretch of river and you're drinking some beers, you just want to go in there. But you know, without a rushed start and you're bumping into people.
Speaker 1I think back in the day there were some competitions at the. Whitewater Center in North Carolina and I was actually there a month ago and there were a couple SUP paddlers and you could see how fun that would be to have a bunch of guys doing some sort of event, but it's not, like you said, not really conducive out in the wild to have that One thing.
Speaker 7That and this isn't sub-specific, but it's just a cool gathering of whitewater peoples. In the fall, they fled the Tietan River for about a two to three week period of time, and so you show up in this small area and there are hundreds of kayakers and people running cats and now a good crew of whitewater suppers Saturday.
Speaker 6I think we had seven of us.
Speaker 7Seven.
Speaker 6That's rad and our group.
Speaker 7So that's, that's a super fun, that's intense Cause it's, you know, the rivers that fled stage. So you, it's different, because you don't want to be on the sides, because that's trees and roots, because it's not the normal level of the river and it's just fast, very fast, but relatively safe in a way, because you have so many people around you that could rescue if you needed to. And people are paying attention. It's overall it's not-.
Speaker 1Kind of a celebration, end of the year celebration, it's like people are really they're having fun, but they're smart river people and there's a lot of experienced paddlers on that river.
Speaker 3I'm pretty hyped that the crew in Ben that's doing this is over 50.
Riverboarding Gear and Skill Progression
Speaker 6I know, except for Jordan. Jordan's's our, he's our apprentice. That's a good thing you need.
Speaker 3You need someone young, that's right, you need something young so that younger people are, might be more interested in giving it a go yeah, yeah has jordan. Uh, tell me about how you guys met jordan jordan.
Speaker 6I used to teach together at mountain view and he's got a river background, he's got a raft, and then he did some hard shell kayaking and so then we were just like, yeah, come do some day trips. He got an IK and then he was kind of looking. You know, I think he was looking at us on boards thinking that looks more fun.
Speaker 7Both old fuckers can do it.
Speaker 6Exactly. And so we put him through the regimen and, of course, he's 20 years younger than us, so he picked it up really quick, yeah, which is, you know, inspiring and frustrating at the same time. But he hasn't. He's not here, so we can trash him all we want because he hasn't passed us yet right yeah, he's too tired.
Speaker 7We can call him.
Speaker 5Yeah, no, but he we can call him, yeah, no but he's good.
Speaker 6He's really fun to paddle with. Same thing. You know really river savvy and we all just you know he fits right in with our crew. Yeah, as far as safety and ego and things like that.
Speaker 1And was willing to kind of go through some of the steps that we encourage him to go through. He puts the time in, and because of that he just had nothing but success.
Speaker 3Yeah, so talk more about that Steps that you encourage, like as a beginner, kind of like yeah.
Speaker 1And there's the gear, which is a critical piece protective gear.
Speaker 3Yeah, so talk about what that is.
Speaker 1Well, it's like what you talked about yeah, Helmet either that is well, it's like what you talked about. Helmet yeah, either full face or or regular helmet.
Speaker 6Elbow pads, knee pads, shin pads um protective footwear what we were, the girdle like pads, kind of the thigh pads totally um, yeah and uh, and you know the wave.
Speaker 1Once again we can come back to the wave. The wave allows you to get those reps in to have that experience, so that when you're out on a river, you've seen it before, you've felt it before, you've experienced it before. Yeah and so you know, Andy and I, when we went out to McKenzie for the first time, we did Bruckerts down. Yeah, we did Bruckerts twice, twice, and we thought okay, we're ready to go man.
Speaker 6We can move upriver.
Speaker 1Yeah, because it's basically just moving water, a couple class ones.
Speaker 6Yeah, there's a couple hits. A couple hits, but not.
Speaker 1Yeah, very friendly. And then we went up to Paradise Down, and I remember and we've talked- about this a lot.
Speaker 7It's different. You know we camped at.
Speaker 1Paradise and watched the water we were going to run the next day and Camped at Paradise and watched the water we were going to run the next day and it's a lot different looking at it than once you get on it. And we got on it in that first, you know, five or ten minutes, Both of us individually were wondering what we were doing. You know we had stepped over our boundaries here.
Speaker 3Yeah, too late. Yeah, once you're on it, you're on it.
Speaker 6You got nine miles to go.
Speaker 1But once we got the right gear, the right board, all those things and and you you know, step by step get to to the paradise, run and, and you know, jordan has kind of followed that, yeah, and that.
Speaker 6So yeah, we do we spent a lot of time down at the wave and then we move up to that, the rodeo, that last bit I'm like okay, you know, if that's feeling good, then then we can play around a little bit. We actually then would go over to the brockerts run and then the next phase would be the stooges right below, uh, the notch of big eddie, because that's actually a really challenging technical class two section.
Speaker 6So if we, you know, if you're feeling pretty good after brockerts, then we maybe play around on that and then hit paradise and then keep moving up and yeah, and again it's just putting the time in, though, and I think I think, unfortunately, a lot of I think people do see it like oh my god, that looks really fun and what they don't know, and not to sound cocky or anything, but we've put thousands of hours in. Yeah, you know, I mean yeah it. We look really good on these boards, but there's the time We've had a lot of failures. Yeah, the time has been put in to get to the point that we can run pretty much most of the McKenzie clean yeah.
Speaker 3And it's a stepwise approach.
Speaker 6Yeah, the build right yeah.
Speaker 3That's the other thing that goes overlooked, because no one would see that behind the scenes Correct right behind the scenes, right and most things, whether it's ski, snow, I mean skateboarding, surfing like most of these, like bmx, like really high consequence scenarios are not like homeboy just rolling up right, it's like you know, I mean yeah and I think you've got it airbags to you know? I mean yeah, and I think you've got to Airbags to you know Exactly Progression.
Speaker 1And the progression has to also your ego has to be able to support that. Yeah, you know, because you know we've had Jordan is the one and Peter as well that have put in the work, swallowed their pride and now are competent, riding a lot of river. We have a few other buddies that you know they didn't enjoy it as much. Yeah, I don't know if they were expecting it to be a little faster or what, but it is a process and it doesn't just happen.
Outdoor Water Safety and Footwear
Speaker 7Yeah, and I think that's one of the keys. If you think you want to do it, I would say yeah, you can play around a little bit to see if this is in your ballpark. Do you like being on the river? If you don't, great. If you do and you decide this is something you want to do, like commit for three months that you're going to spend a few days a week getting over that hump.
Speaker 5Otherwise you're just going to get, otherwise it's just going to, you're going to dabble, you'll get.
Speaker 7oh, I think I'm getting it. And then if you back away, you come back. You're starting all over again. It's like you got to get over that initial learning curve to the point where it's like, okay, I can do class ones and I'm not gassed immediately because, I'm spending so much energy just staying on the board so much energy just staying on the board.
Speaker 6Yeah, the fitness aspect, I think, is probably what surprises most people, is how, you know, I got off on Saturday, we did Frizzell down and so it was just shy of 14 mile run, a little over two hours, and I was gassed, I mean I was tapped. Yeah, because especially at the higher flows, like that.
Speaker 7You're working the whole time. You're working the entire time.
Speaker 6And so when, if you know, I, we always people well, how do you rest? I'm like, well, you really don't, except when you rest parts of your body. So if I'm trying to rest my quads, that means my calves and core are taking the hit, and then and then and then your feet, like your feet, get really sore. So I'm trying to find ways to flex my toes and get that in there.
Speaker 3Yeah, what do you guys wear? What's the ideal footwear Like what's worked, what hasn't worked over the years?
Speaker 6Not flip-flops.
Speaker 7Yeah, you definitely want something that's going to protect your foot. I think we all basically wear the same things which is winter cold. We're wearing these like high top. They're water NRS boots.
Speaker 3They're like neoprene but it's like a hiking boot sole, so you like it's better than just a neoprene booty. Oh yeah, it's got a little more support.
Speaker 7Yeah, that's good, and then in the summer they are, you know, less support but, it's still a water.
Speaker 6Typically, I mean, I have a couple of couple different pair, just mostly just different kinds of water shoes. You know a lot of little drains but it's got to have a good sticky sole. But you definitely want a sole, you want a shoe right yeah, just because you're you're in a river and that's you're either going to get out and you know you're on the shore, or whatever, so yeah, are do any?
Speaker 3is there any retail presence of whitewater standup stuff in town?
Speaker 6Uh, just that. There's Tumalo Creek. Uh, jeff's got some. He, he. I know he sells challah. Okay, um, I don't know about stand on liquid. I don't think they make anything. I think it's probably just, uh, probably just Tumalo Creek, yeah, um, I, I know that they do carry challah, yeah, but yeah, it's not again, it's not a huge.
Speaker 7It is a really small, not a real profit for these guys.
Speaker 3Yeah, I think those trips I went on were probably they were way before COVID, probably like 18, 17, 18.
Speaker 6Okay.
Speaker 3And I think it was on the guy that was a HALA ambassador that used to live here.
Speaker 6Okay.
Speaker 3One of my best friends bought a couple boards off him. Sure, and they're the old HALA pretty long though. Yeah, yeah yeah, but yeah because back when he got them, inflatables weren't that popular Right yeah. You know, everybody was still toting around like solid boards.
Speaker 6Yeah, yeah, and then a few years after that, and now it's everywhere, right, well, I think obvious reason inflatable technology changed, and totally yeah, peter hall, the guy founder of hollow, you know he just had a vision to to make a whitewater board yeah and he did a really good job yeah, that's cool and cool. And they've evolved too. I mean, they used to have a pointed nose and less rocker.
Speaker 5Yeah.
Speaker 6And then he got to the stomp box, and so now you look at them and they're-.
Speaker 3Yeah, they're short whites. Yeah, yeah, it's pretty cool. That's really cool. Do you guys have a club name? We don't.
Speaker 5No, no, we should come up with one.
Speaker 4I know, yeah, you need some swag, yeah I know, you know some trucker hats and stickers I want to see some, like you know something, sticker smashed down at the wave.
Speaker 6We always joke though, because we're probably in more random photos along the McKenzie oh right, we go underneath like Belknap, hot Springs, that footbridge and there's always people out there taking pictures, snapping videos, people on their back, decks on the.
Speaker 1Mackenzie. It's pretty funny. It's still a novelty, you just don't see it.
Speaker 7Especially people that are used, like they know that river and they're like what are you doing?
Speaker 3Those people are back in Delaware showing all their friends, right, that's funny, man. What about safety? Like other than like equipment? You know you guys are backcountry skiers. I do a ton of backcountry snowboarding. You get proficient to some degree but it's always, you know, recommended that you keep your beacon and kind of snow science skills up. Do you guys do much kind of like maintenance, like exercises on the river, practice and throwing your ropes? I mean, those are skills in and of themselves. Is there, do you, or do you, do you guys recommend like, is there a course that people like where do people learn about that stuff? That are new to that want to get on the river, even if it's just down at like the wave?
Speaker 5just to kind of learn water safety.
Speaker 6Sure Is there, I don't need are there programs Swift water rescue.
Speaker 5Yeah.
Speaker 6And there are courses. There aren't, there aren't a ton. I would say and we probably don't practice it as much as we should. I think a lot of our safety goes into our planning.
Speaker 5Yeah.
Speaker 6And I mean kind of going back to what we were saying if we don't feel right about a river, we won't run it. If the flow's off, if there's wood, but we do a lot of that before we even go. Um, and I, I, yeah, I think that for for us, because we do spend so much time together, we do paddle together a lot we.
Speaker 7I think we're able to kind of predict things kind of know yeah, who's going to be doing what? Right, it is a good good yeah we probably should do more than we are.
Speaker 6The most that I've done has been with my wife and son.
Speaker 3It's like the most you've done, the most trained, like practicing stuff.
Speaker 7It's like we're going to pull over. We're going to practice throwing Like I know you can throw a safety rope, I know you're going to throw it in front of the person. I know you're going to do that, but when you're with other people you can't assume that.
Speaker 4So it's like we're going to do this a couple of times. I just want you to see that when you throw it at me it actually ends up 10 feet behind me.
Speaker 1Well a perfect example is like the white salmon. You threw that perfectly.
Speaker 6And she was not experienced enough to even even recognize that someone might do that. Yeah, no idea what to do, and therefore the this, the lifeline, became a hazard as it wrapped around her neck and so clearly they did not they did not if we do, if we do a new river or if we have other people that we're not used to yeah, we'll do a safety debrief?
Speaker 3yeah, we'll kind of go through that um, sounds similar to kind of how we back backcountry ski absolutely when you're with your people.
Speaker 6That you know but let's keep it tight. We don't ever I think it goes back to though we don't ever take it for granted. Yeah, yeah, you know we're playing around the mckenzie at low flow. It's like okay, but it's still the McKenzie, and the McKenzie is freezing. It's freezing cold and there are a lot of rocks. So even at a slower flow that we find kind of, we call it the slice and dice.
Speaker 6We still don't take it for granted. It's still the McKenzie, it still has its hazards and we still keep an eye on each other.
Speaker 3Why do you call it slice and dice?
Speaker 6because it's the flow's so down, so low there's so many rods and so a line that you would take at the current flow.
Speaker 3You gotta cut through and it's actually really fun. It takes it's like a slalom course. Absolutely it's a very different experience.
Speaker 6It so right now the flows are cranking. It's like, okay, just pick your line.
Speaker 1You just have to avoid a few obstacles, otherwise point it and go.
Speaker 5That's cool guys.
Speaker 6But I think, yeah, safety though. I think it's ingrained in us. I mean we have been hurt enough to know that I don't like being hurt, I don't like being scared. I mean, a little scared is okay, but I don't want to be scared for one of my buddy's safety or one of my own. But so I think, again, going into it, we just really keep an eye on each other.
Speaker 3Well, you're just experienced outdoors. It just comes with a different thought process. When you're around it enough, I think you just naturally kind of take into consideration potential possibilities that you could wind up in a jam. You know, I don't think that. I don't think probably the best way when I'm outside of my natural environment, which would be any big urban area yeah, Right, you should mow it over by a car.
Speaker 7Yeah, well, I mean, it's just a different. It's just a different environment, different environment.
Speaker 3Yeah, for sure, yeah, cool boys.
Speaker 7Well, what?
Speaker 3different. It's just a different environment. Different environment, yeah for sure, yeah, cool boys. Well, what else? How is the?
Speaker 1winter anything you know this is. You know what do you do with this?
Speaker 6paddling is really fun yeah, let's talk about winter. That's the other thing that it's done is it's opened up different options during the winter we're not well. Me personally, I'm not as cranky as I used to be because when the skiing sucked.
Speaker 1I was just just an ass, and so now?
Speaker 6if the skiing is not great, or even if the skiing is the thing about. So we love the McKenzie. That's our go-to ride. But you know, you can go up to Bachelor and some days it's just like you hate to gripe because we're still skiing, but it's like there's so many people, the lines, the lifts aren't running, the lines are, you know, or the storms it's blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. You go over the McKenzie. There's no lift lines, there's no traffic getting to it. We put on.
Speaker 4We rarely see anyone.
Speaker 6And it's amazing, it's always a win.
Speaker 7It can be snowing.
Speaker 5It can be raining, although it doesn't rain on the McKenzie, which is weird. It's just so weird.
Speaker 6We've been over there so many times and it's always beautiful, but yet you're in this lush forest, rain forest.
Speaker 7But I mean, we've all said this too. It's like been plenty of times freezing, skiing on the mountain, we're on cold water and it's snowing. We're never cold. You know how to dress. If you have the right equipment, it's really comfortable even though it looks like.
Speaker 6Oh, man that one of my favorites was dragging our boards through two feet of snow, crossing the deer creek bridge to put in, and there's snow through most of the run on the mckenzie. It's absolutely gorgeous and it was a beautiful sunny day, yeah do you guys?
Speaker 3are any of you photographers not?
Speaker 5no, not anymore, yeah, I love it. You guys, you're any of you photographers Not?
Speaker 4anymore, yeah, I love it.
Speaker 3You guys, you're just out there doing your thing.
Speaker 6We're trying to increase our social media presence, I would say, don't I?
Passion for Whitewater Adventure
Speaker 5know, I would say don't Just do what you're doing and you know, keep it tight yeah.
Speaker 6Super sick Now it's. Yeah, there's not a lot of footage of us there really isn't, which is fine yeah. Like I say, it doesn't help for our ambassadorship and the company's aspect.
Speaker 3Are you guys ambassadors? No, no, I like to joke that we're unofficial. It seems like you should be.
Speaker 6I applied, I did put in an application for it once, but I literally have no social media accounts.
Speaker 7Well, so that's the thing right, so tell us about your social media.
Speaker 6I'm like I have none.
Speaker 1Okay, well, what can you do? That's the end of the process. But the flow People like the flow Totally. So yeah, we're kind of more just you know, whatever there's not a lot of documentation of what we've done.
Speaker 7Yeah.
Speaker 1Everyone saw. Maybe a snapshot before putting in, but yeah.
Speaker 3Be fun to make a cool documentary. Someone that wanted to like make a cool like 15 minute little documentary of you guys. Old guys on boards, I mean the age is kind of you know, doesn't matter, but just the you know.
Speaker 1you describe the McKinsey with a bunch of snow on it Like that's enjoyable to watch you know it's crystal clear water, Regardless of whether or not you're interested in like stand-up whitewater paddling.
Speaker 3It's just a that's visually absolutely different which has been really fun to watch it's and that's.
Speaker 6I guess it's a year round thing. The flows are good during the winter. Summer the flows all go down, fall. You got your nice weather spring. Right now this is a good time for higher flows to catch a little bit more of the bigger water rush. And I mean, and that I guess and I kind of going back to that, like your original question, what do you love about so much is like it's it never sucks. Yeah, it's never. You know it's.
Speaker 3It's never icy, it's never you know there's never crowds, yeah.
Speaker 6The river's. The river's always flowing at some capacity.
Speaker 7And, at least for now, I feel like we're still progressing. Yeah, we're still getting better at reading the river.
Speaker 5Yeah, right.
Speaker 7Getting making better choices better lines better paddling. I don't you know?
Speaker 1That's really fun and we've all had different health things through the years that take us out for a little bit. Right, we've all had different health things through the years that take us out for a little bit and come back and you just don't jump back in. You got to kind of work yourself back into shape, into skill, into confidence to go out again.
Speaker 7And I think that's you know. Looking at, like you were asking earlier, what do you guys have planned for the summer? It's like, well, we don't. Or the spring, like we don't have anything big. There's different kid things, family things, like it didn't really work out so we're just doing day trips, but there'll be some big trips ahead and it's fun to think about that and plan like what is that next thing gonna be? And it's gonna be partly about the adrenaline rush, partly about an amazing, beautiful area partly about hanging with your boys and it's just a really cool.
Speaker 7It adds a lot of the things that we all love camping, staring at a fire. That's a good part of it, maybe drinking a beer or two, maybe you know.
Speaker 6But and then, and, yeah, and then, and, and, like I say, going back to that, that uh, flathead trip up in montana, I mean the thrill was the crew, the, the group of people we had, yeah, and it wasn't. It wasn't the whitewater thrill, but every day on the river it was, was like we all were just like, oh my God, this is amazing. You know, and we had a, we had a, very we had. It was split between SUPs and kayak and and IKs, but so it doesn't have. You don't have to have the whitewater rush to get out on a board or or any other craft, and just make it a really cool experience.
Speaker 7And the whitewater helps and that rapid's the same whether it's two people or 10, unlike mountain biking, which is like I don't want to go with 10 people. It's going to be great for the guy in front, big dusty, mess pig pen for it's like it's a good point.
Speaker 3Yeah, that's a super good point.
Speaker 6Yeah, it's cool and it doesn't the, you know, like the day-to-day conditions, you know, especially like this time of year, you know, oh, it's a bluebird powder day out, bachelor, until the sun comes out for an hour and then that stuff's gone to make, whereas the, the flow changes. But that just means the experience changes. It doesn't make it necessarily better or worse.
Speaker 6It's just different. And you know, right now I'm really digging the high flows. It's just thumping and it's super fun, it's really fun. But I also, I look forward to later in the year, when it's slowed down and we get into the slice and dice and that you know we've got those other smaller boards that make that a different type of experience.
Speaker 3Yeah, man, there's something too that's just so unique because it's the flow. You know, the energy and the hydrology of a river moving is so different than a lake. There's something about man just putting the energy.
Speaker 5It is there.
Speaker 4There's no denying it, kind of hypnotic.
Speaker 6It is. It's therapeutic for me.
Speaker 3Yeah, it is there, there's no denying it Kind of hypnotic it is, it's therapeutic for me. Yeah absolutely. So like I know what you guys are up to. I get it. That's why I wanted to sit down and talk, because you know there's a lot of things that can compete for your time, where we live.
Speaker 3And when dudes that have been here a while and know all those options have chosen this one thing and they're just kind of on the DL and like we don't. You know, I love that you guys don't have you're not trying to blow it out with social media or because it just it speaks to the authentic passion that you have for it and I knew that coming into this. I was just excited to meet you.
Speaker 5Yeah, that's cool man Right on yeah.
Speaker 3Was there anything I taught? We didn't talk about that we should. That you guys want to throw in there.
Speaker 1I mean, I guess just you know if someone wants to put their toes in.
Speaker 5Yeah, there's.
Speaker 1Sue down at Tom Malo.
Speaker 6Yeah, there's a little intro class. I think they're still doing that.
Speaker 1No way we're down at the Wave. Anybody that wants to come down there and Just say what's up. We've all got extra boards and all that.
Speaker 3I love that.
Speaker 6And I would say just do it, just try it. You just don't know.
Speaker 5And for some, like Kevin was talking earlier- for some it's like eh, this isn't my thing but I think there for others where it's just like that's kind of like prone battling when they finally talked me into this and I I don't think I had a wetsuit or anything.
Speaker 6We went out in February and they bundled me up. I'll never forget we we had beers on a Friday night and it was one of those weird 65 degree.
Speaker 1We had basically decided we're not going to get him.
Speaker 3You know my last Post-Calcaneal practice.
Speaker 6It was one of those warm weekends and I remember because you guys, you and Amy had come over, we had beers. I'm like, dude, this I mean mean the flow of the, the wave, it's, it's entry level, it's, it's easy, it's not going to be freezing ass cold, you know. And you, uh, you came down.
Speaker 6I mean we were, you know, pretty much in tears afterwards because it was like this moment of getting him back out and then you know, and then kevin was going through some health stuff and we got everyone back out together and it just it, I could see it in you, for it was like oh yeah this is this is going to work.
Speaker 3This is going to work well. Yeah, it seems like this would be a big. If it wasn't in your lives, it'd be very noticeable. Yeah, whitewater, definitely yeah.
Speaker 1And there's been sections where it hasn't you know. You're talking about different health things that we've had and it's crushing.
Speaker 5Yeah, where it?
Speaker 1hasn't? You know? We're talking about different health things that we've had and it's crushing to not be a part of it, to know that my boys are out there doing it and I'm not there.
Speaker 7It's tough, I mean one nice thing about the river, and we've talked about this okay, we'll paddle the McKenzie into our 60s. You can go to an IK or you can go to other things and still be on the river.
Speaker 3What's an IK?
Speaker 7Inflatable kayak oh, inflatable kayak yeah. So, there's been different health times.
Speaker 5Where it's like I can't do the board but we can do this Totally so that'll carry it into as long as I want to be alive.
Speaker 6Yeah, exactly. Well, how?
Speaker 1old is that crew that we see down there? Oh my God, yeah, mckenzie, kimberly and them. They're in their 70s.
Speaker 6Yeah anywhere from mid-60s to mid-70s, and they're still running they're still running it. They're still running IKs and shit like that. And they're you know, we're all having the same fun. We all come off the river with the same smile. Yeah, Different craft and different yeah.
Speaker 1But same smiles.
Speaker 6Same smiles yeah.
Speaker 1Yeah.
Speaker 3All right boys, that was fun.
Speaker 6Yeah, thank you, yeah, thank you.
Speaker 3Maybe one of these days I can tag along.
Speaker 7You got our contract? Yeah, you should. We can get you a board. No, we do.
Speaker 5We both. Well, we've got.
Speaker 3I'd love to go do the McKenzie. Yeah, love to go do the McKenzie it's been a minute since I did this I did the snake was scary. Yeah, that's a big one.
Speaker 5You know that was my second time running that and it was big and you know I was swimming a lot.
Speaker 3There was a noticeable difference between the Oahe and the snake. The Oahe was was amazing. Have you guys ever been on that?
Speaker 4I have not.
Speaker 3You got to do it, whether you're on a stand-up or a raft or whatever, but it is. I mean, it's insane it's two and a half hours from here and you feel like you're in the Grand Canyon.
Speaker 5Yeah, river life is good living.
Speaker 6It's a good thing.
Speaker 3I love those multi-day trips where you get off, you set up camp Sure, you got, like you know, three or four hours and you just go out exploring.
Speaker 6Yeah.
Speaker 3No one's around.
Speaker 6No one's around. I always say it's the best between car camping and backpacking. Yeah, because you have everything you need.
Speaker 7The remoteness- of backpacking when you have all the luxury of car camping and then you have that next day adventure on the water, yeah it's fun.
Speaker 3I expect a club name here fellas.
Speaker 5I'm going to hold you to it. We're going to work on that.
Speaker 3You need a club name, so our paddleboard company is called Stillwater, so Stillwater Prone Paddleboard.
Speaker 7Club.
Speaker 5Okay.
Speaker 3Do you guys know what prone paddleboards?
Speaker 7are. Have you seen those before? I've maybe seen you, yeah.
Speaker 3They're like you paddle it like a surfboard.
Speaker 7Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 3But then you can hop up and knee paddle.
Speaker 5Knee paddle right.
Speaker 3So you get, I mean in terms of a workout. I mean I work in orthopedics as a profession, so I see shoulder injuries, all day, I'm sure gotcha. And I. My son is a big swimmer and he's a good surfer. Because he's so strong swimming, I want to get better surfing the second half of my life within what's realistic being 45 and being a mediocre at best surfer my whole life. But if you can't paddle, you're not catching waves, you're not surfing. And you know, you're just paddling. Yeah.
Speaker 3So I started doing this for that reason. And there's one guy now there's two manufacturers, it's kind of like Stand Up Whitewater, it's super niche-y. So I called this guy, joe Bark down in LA, because it's popular in the ocean, and I introduced myself and I just said hey, joe, I live in Bend, oregon. I kind of want to get a few of these boards in our community because I think if there's anywhere it would pop, it's here. So this was during COVID and there was limited inventory. But he took four of his boards that he had reserved for friends and family and sold them to me. Oh nice, got them up here. We had them sold within like two weeks to buddies, just like this Very similar story.
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Speaker 3yeah, and we just started paddling and now we meet most monday and friday mornings at six we do like these races together, like the uh hood river downwinder and like that, go down to tahoe and starting to do some like go out to otter rock and do some bigger ocean paddles which is scary but it's pretty dope dude like. For those same reasons, like the adventure of it right yeah, well, this is fun guys.
Speaker 3Thanks for doing it yeah, I hope it's fun bullshit um, have you guys ever listened to any of these episodes of this?
Speaker 6podcast. I have never listened to a podcast.
Speaker 1No shit, we're pretty disconnected.
Speaker 6I know, when you called me, I was like podcasts.
Speaker 5I've heard of those things.
Speaker 2Yeah, that's funny, I'll remember. After work, mama would call in all of us. You could hear us singing for a country mile.
Speaker 3Hey, thanks for listening to Ben Magazine's A Circling Podcast. Make sure to visit benmagazinecom and learn about all the outdoor adventures in our area, as well as upcoming featured community events, local artist profiles, our dining guide and more. Remember, enter promo code PODCAST at checkout for your $5 annual subscription. $5 annual subscription. Our theme song was written by Carl Perkins and performed by Aaron Colbaker and Aaron Zerflu of the Aarons. We love mail, so please send us comments, questions or art to thecirclingpodcast at binmagazinecom. Support the Circling Podcast by becoming a member on patreon at patreoncom. Forward. Slash the circling podcast and learn how your financial contribution will help support local nonprofits while also supporting local podcasting. Follow us on instagram at the circling podcast to learn more about past, current and upcoming episodes. Please subscribe to the Circling Podcast on all major podcast platforms and leave us a review. It really does help.
Speaker 3I'd like to say a special thank you to all of those who participated in the making of this episode, as it wouldn't be the same without your contribution, and I appreciate your trust. Learn more about all the ways you can experience stand-up paddleboarding by stopping into one of the many retailers found locally, or visit Lori on Instagram at Paddleboard Oregon to get connected to all that her and her team offer. Don't forget to stay tuned after the show credits for this episode's contribution to the Circling Podcast's community art project exploring subliminal story art embedded with me. Lastly, if you know someone who you think would enjoy today's episode, please share it with them today. Hey, thanks for your time. Central Oregon, get outside. We'll see you out there. And remember the health of our community relies on us, of our community relies on us.
Speaker 7That's the most important part is the brotherhood that we have together and if we can throw in a little adrenaline on the side, that just makes it that much sweeter.
Speaker 6We always find a way to hang out, though, yeah that's the thing. It's like we are we always looking out for each other? We've never really had egos, but we're always finding a way to hang out.
Speaker 3Yeah, you guys are cool. This will be fun. I'll give you this episode. It'll be fun just to have this.
Speaker 7Yeah.
Speaker 3When you're 60 on the McKinsey.
Speaker 7Right, not too far off. For some of us it's a little closer than we want to admit.
Speaker 6I, I know.
Speaker 5It's like Christ. I'm already thinking.
Speaker 3God, I need to pee All right, perfect All right.
