Photo of the day!

Few days ago my friend Shon Douglas Cottrill posted this picture from last year. We were up in Alberta/Canada. We had good times and ran South Ram river. Its cool overnighter with this huge 80 ish footer. Big first D miles away from civilization... Cant wait for more days like that. Soon though, stay tuned! 

Happy holiday and all the best in 2011! 

Jakub

Fall on the East Coast

Since mid September I have been hanging out and kayaking around East coast of the US. Its been fun times for sure. I found a job to make money for some kayaking trip in winter and have been living with my wifes family in Pennsylvania. Of course we took some weeks off to go kayaking, explored what big boys PA has for us and did some playboating on our local playhole on weekends. 

Here is a bunch of sick pictures for you to check.

Courtesy of Meg Smith

Jared Seiler scouting roosting stout in Nothern Pennsylvania

After not even two weeks in PA there came a huge rain and I got a phone call from my friends Jared and Graham Seilers to go run the shit. Those guys grew up here and stayed for fall as well so I was ready to see what Pennsylvania has to offer. It was sweet. 

Check out this roosting stout and Jared firing it up!

In October there was not much going on except work, kayaking flatwater, playboating and paddling the Upper Yough. We did a lot of mountain biking and I was looking forward to go visit North Carolina again and run some of the classic rivers out there. 

I love to mountain bike when there is no river to run and there is work to do. So easy, convenience, fun and taking just for a few hours. 

Anyway, by the end of October we bounded to North Carolina to kayak and compete in Green Race. We hung out around Asheville for over a week, talked to a lot of friends, kayaked heaps and got to see Astral LE4 Meg designed. 

HAving a lot of fun on Green River

Spanking the monkey!

Cruising down slides below Gorilla

Meg bombing down Rapid Transit

Jakub doing left line in Sunshine

Unfortunately, North Carolina didnt get much rain when we were there so we had to kayak the Green for most of a time, which is sweet though.

Getting interviewed for a Green Race daily coverage

During the Green race week we visited our friend Charlie and his parents who have a JEt ski we rode. Good times

GREEN RACE is definitely my most favourite race in the world. No doubt. Friendly atmosphere, amazing river and all the cool kayakers make this event more than just special. 

This is my race run in Gorilla part of the river. Such a good times

When we came back home from North Carolina we already missed Green river and our friends from ASheville. Its so cool down there. Beautiful mountains, creeks and great people. 

Now the winter is here and no snow, just cold while mountains out west are getting covered with deep powder. Its kinda said we cant go ski and snowboard because Megs knee was dislocated this fall and its not in skiing shape yet. All we gotta do is work till end of December and go kayak somewhere down South. Where is still unanswered question but I will keep yall posted for sure. 

Here is what we do while we are not working or kayaking. 

Rock climbing, mountain biking, kayaking, running. Having good times while were not working and making money for January and February kayaking/filming/picture and waterfall hunting mission down south...

Have a great winter whatever you do!!!

Jakub

Few new videos

Yoooo,

All good here. Check out few videos I was working on for last couple of days.

Here is Bryan Kirk on the Gauley river with prototype of Wave Sport Project X styyyling macho move off the wave.



Here is just a fun movie I edited from Red Rock Desert in MOAB(UT)Check it out!



Have a great day
Jakub

Kayaking Crystal Gorge

Yo, this a late update from my run in deepness of beautiful Crystal Gorge in Colorado. Nowadays, I am catching up on video editing, pictures, updates, articles and so on. On the East coast, where race and creeking season is about go off in a few weeks.

Anyway, here is a video from my run. Shot on Go Pro HD headcam, music by Mr. Bob Marley and Rakim - bad ass song. ENJOY!



Have a good fall!
Jakup

Black Canyon of the Gunnison VIDEO!!!

Jakub

Black Canyon of the Gunnison

All good here in Colorado. Summer is getting to the end, we got last full on week of work and then who knows what is gonna happen.

Last weekend I had a great time on Black canyon of the Gunnison with some of my best friends Yonton Mehler and Bryan Owen aka Astral buoancy, Brent Toepper aka badass guy who reps for Sweet in Colorado, Milo from Crested Butte and Daniel Windham from Boulder. We all rallied in on Saturday night to stay in Montrose, set up shuttle on the next day and meet rest of our crew. We put on in early afternoon, entered beautiful canyon and paddled down stream…

Our crew: Jakub, Daniel, Milo, Brent, Bryan and Yonton

Milo lives in Crested Butte and tried to talk me into running Black Caynon several times. This time it finally worked out and I understand why in his age of 46 it was his 46th run of the caynon.

We paddled in for a while and walls of canyon started to get taller and whitewater got spicier. There was two super fun rapids before portage of nasty looking rapid called triple drop.

Fun rapid number 1 and Yonton getting after it

Fun rapid number 2 - going for a boof

After portage of nasty looking rapid called Triple drop with really unnatural line we got to another badass rapid. Double drop with tight line continued with some juicy drops and cool moves. Daniel and I went and had a great lines.

Entry moves in rapid called Ball Crusher

Few rapids below Ball Crusher is a great waterfall. Gets better at higher flowes but our summer level 620 cfs was great for the entire run.

Big boof of fun 15ish footer

As you can see. Black Canyon is totally different river than anything else in Colorado. There are big boulder garden rapids in 2000 feet tall vertical walls. Waterfall also marks a big mandatory almost 1 mile long portage of sieve city deep in the canyon. The good thing is that after you get done with portage there is the best campsite on the world called cave. There is also big pool for fishing full of delicious trouts. Yumm!

View of the canyon while we were portaging

Our cavesite

So happy to make it down the portage and see the most beaautiful campsite on the world. After that we got few hours to relax, fish, eat and if we werent pussies we could swim in freezeing cold water. Some whiskey drinking afterwards and good night of sleep.

Daniel enjoying some fresh trouts

Thats what we saw in the morning before good stuff started to happen

When we put on in morning on the next day we started with big portage of huge river wide siphon. We dropped back in the river from big boulder jam. Next thing was a long big rapid and while everyone else was portaging I looked at it and decided to fire it up. Rest of our crew set up safety and few cameras and some exciting moves started to happen. Entry move is nice boof and then you gotta move to the left for the actual entrance.

Big boof to enter the rapid

This is the entry move of the rapid called Next Genaration. Right downstream of this thing is tight sketchy waterfall landing on the rock on the right and going in the undercut on the left. Downstream of that is few other bigger moves to do before the rapid melows out.

On the edge of the world dropping in the goods

Thats how main drop and bottom of the rapid looks like

After I ran Next Genaration I felt pretty good. There is no other place on the world I have been which has the big canyon and such a good whitewater to offer. Also, it runs 365 days per year. Almost makes me wanna live here!

After like two miles of fun class 4 whitewater there is a last portage to do. I scouted the rapid and saw big maze made out of siphons and manky looking drops. So I portaged my boat downstream. What I saw down there I couldnt just portage. Bottom very technical rapid ended with nice 20 feet waterfall. There I came, ran that thing and it felt like heaven.

One of the coolest moves in the whole run

Right below the waterfall we took a break, talked about what we just did, kept looking at the huge walls and after few minuttes paddled out to the take out.

After couple of miles of easy water we rolled in the take out. Ate granola bars, filtered some water and started hiking to the parking ground where our shuttle vehicle has been parked for last two days.

Happy to make it to the take out

Hike out is pretty brutal, almost 1 mile long and up the very steep hill. After we got that done we drank few beers and enjoyed being with a good friends. That was absolutelly one of my top 3 river trips in my life and I already know I will always come back there.

Thanks for a pictures to Bryan Owen from Astral buoancy!!!

Stay tuned

Jakub

Lake Creek video!

Hey folks,

Here is a short movie from my favourite convenience creek in Colorado.
Enjoy!



Peace
Jakub