The River Gypsies Guide to North America

River Gypsies just finished publishing their new Guide to Whitewater Kayaking Classics throughout North America. I managed to get a page in there for some of Squamish’s classic waterfalls.

Check out the River Gypsies Guide to North America

River Gypsies Guide to North America

Reel Water Productions showreel from 2009

Bryan Smith of Reel water Productions just put out their showreel of cable camera shots from 2009. It’s well worth the watch………

I was along shooting stills for most of these shoots and you hardly ever get to actually see the end result of all the rigging and time spent. Great to sit back and watch the results….

Respect to Bryan and Matt for the rigging and cable camera operation….

WATCH REEL WATER PRODUCTIONS CABLE CAMERA DEMO REEL ON VIMEO

Robin Avery slack lining for Reel Water Productions

Rider of the year awards

Rider of the year awards

Patrick Camberlain of formerly YGP and more recently the Tribe riders has come up with the ‘Rider of the year awards’ . This is a yearly competition to celebrate whitewater kayaking in all it’s forms and recognize some of the key players in the progression of our sport.There are a variety of different awards from the best freestyle move, which will be a video submission to the more subjective rider of the year which will be peer voted.

Hopefully this concept will grow for Pat and will gain the support required to become an annual event that grows and continues for years to come. Working in Whistler I often get to go to all the contests and similar set ups in the snowsports industry and often wish kayaking had some sort of similar platform. Well here it is….. Great idea Pat….

On a personal level , I was pretty excited because I got invited to submit photos to the ‘photographer of the year’ section. This is super exciting as it is an opportunity for all the amazing whitewater photogs to showcase their work next to each other. Great to see the talent pool of photography that exists within our fringe sport that in reality has little to no financial potential for a photographer.

CLICK TO SEE MY SUBMISSION TO PHOTOGRAPHER OF THE YEAR AWARD

VISIT PAT’S TRIBE RIDERS SITE

‘Seasons’ Web TV series

Seasons web tv series

Bryan Smith of Reel Water Productions and Fitz Cahall began this Spring to produce a Web TV series chronicaling the Lives of five Adventure Athletes through the ups and downs of an adventure lifestyle.

They have just released the trailer……….22 more episodes to come…….

Here is the low down….

The Season. Five lives. A world of possibility.

From the creators of The Dirtbag Diaries and 49 Megawatts comes a new web television project following five athletes through the course of a single season in the Pacific Northwest. A veteran climber invents a new piece of gear.  A pro snowboarder searches for a way to return to the roots of his sport.  A boulderer returns from a series of injuries with new perspective.  A family man goes to Whistler to test himself against mountain biking’s elite. A young sea kayaker with a troubled past sets out to reinvent his sport.

Shot entirely in HD, this 22-episode series is available to you for free at a number of locations. Every episode premieres on the Arc’teryx web site.   You can have the HD version delivered right to your computer and find all the old episodes by subscribing on iTunes. Expect new episodes once or twice a week.

WATCH THE TRAILER ON VIMEO

Zipline shots

Back in 2007 myself Matt maddaloni of Sea to sky cam and Bryan Smith of Reel water productions teamed up to produce some viral video content for the Welsh Canoe Assosication. This was very early on in the development of Matt’s camera motion systems and involved myself and Matt actually being on the line to shoot. Matt has since progressed to a full automated system which can be rigged in back country situations in a matter of hours. Here are some of the clips shot using the early cable camera systems.

To read more about Matt’s new rigging and motion camera company : Sea to Sky Cam

Britannia Creek cable camera from Steve Rogers Photography on Vimeo.

Cable camera on Britannia Creek

Kayaking cable camera

Andrew Oberhardt

Kayak season is almost upon us…..

Well the snow is on it’s way out, pig flu is on it’s way in, the temperatures are rising and the rivers are slowly starting to fill for the summer. The rivers and creeks around the Squamish area are still low in relation to how warm it has been, it seems it may be another week or so before the season truly begins. Maybe the first of the rains will open the season with a bang ?

At present the Whistler area is slowly moving, but things like the Calaghan Creek are still too low, maybe a week or so will see them coming into the low end flows. Vancouver is starting to move and the Ashlu area maybe offering low Box Canyon flows.

All too soon the rivers will go from trickles to raging torrents and the start of the spring madness begins ! Spring kayaking always feels a little bit sketchy as you are often not as fresh as you are mid summer and the rivers are at their highest and most challenging flows. Spring in the Whistler area, usually means lots of laps on the super classic upper Cheak and high flow Calaghan runs, both offering big volume fun creeking…..

Bryan Smith on the upper Cheak

Tim Loubier on Calaghan Creek