Soul tour 3rd update

Vancouver, BC

The truck decided to lay down on us for the 4^th time in a week on a highway toward Vancouver B.C.   It was the same problem we had expereinced previously,  the truck instantly lost power and died before we could change lanes on a busy intersate.  Stranded on the median of the main artery to Seattle during rush hour Ed and I discussed our options.   Out of money and patients, Ed called a friend Atom Crawford in nearby Oylmpia for assistance.  Atom gracously towed our rig to his house and offered his garage for as long as we needed it.  He also volunteered to get us drunk and take our minds off the lame piece of  transportation.  From Atoms house we had a fast downhill longboard ride to the bars where we drank whisky-beer backs until we no longer remembered why, what or who.  Ed and I where on our way to surf world famous Skookumchuck, a tidal boar off the coast of British Columbia.   Our plan was to surf the epic wave with a group of  friends at the greatest tide of the year, measuring 16 knots.   

Ed worked all the next day on the truck and fixed the problem.  We thanked Atom for his hospitality, and made our way for Ken Whitings house in Vancouver.   Ken took us to his backyard creek run, a beautiful class 4-5 gorge that was literally a 15 min walk from his suburban home.  The next morning Ed, Ken and myself took the half hour long ferry ride across Horseshoe bay toward Skookumchuck.  At this point it seemed that our luck had taken a drastic change in direction.  There wasn’t a cloud in the sky,  and we couldn’t have asked for a better group of friends to share the epic wave with.  That evening we witnessed a delapidated trailer burn to the ground in the town of Egmont.  Eletrical wires hanging near the fire caused a transformer to blow giving a nice fireworks display.  We camped on a freshwater lake and swam and laid out in the sun during the morning then surfed the wave during the tide change.  

It looks as though the truck is now fixed, thank god, out of money.   At this time I am splitting from Ed to produce an instructional video with Ken Whiting on the Ottawa River.  Ed is travelling south, spreading soul to all the Colorado festivals in June.  We will meet back up in New Mexico for a 4^th of July river bash on the Rio Grande, (everyone's invited). 

Soul tour 2nd update

Portland, OR

Another update from the road...  Ed and myself joined up with John Kern, Polk Deters, and Joel to paddle an upper tributary in the beautiful North Yuba drainage.   The day began with the group searching for an alternative to the 4-hour shuttle nightmare we had been warned about.  We ran into snow and were forced to descend 1300ft into a trail-less canyon to the river.  The run was long and started off really slow with splashy class 4 and several scary strainers.  Slowly the river got harder and harder entering into narrow granite canyons.  The only real info we had on the run was that once we reached a must run 20 ft falls with a nasty hole at the bottom we would be approx. 1 hr 45 min from the take-out.   Realizing at 7:30 PM that we had finally made it to the 20 footer, the thought of spending a cold night in the canyon was quickly becoming a reality.   After a quick scout we all dropped the narrow falls and paddled as quickly as possible through the remaining class 5 gorge.  At one point Joel took two back to back rodeo rides and like the rest of the group was quickly being worn down.   We had to make our way through sketchy lines with minimal safety in order to get through the hard stuff before we lost all light.   At one point Ed got worked in a river wide ledge hole then once out we couldn’t even see his hand signals pointing us to the right line.  Just as we were about to give up we made it to the take-out where a 2-mile hike to the car awaited.   At around midnight the 5 of us swilled beers, ate pasta, and were thankful for not having to spend that night on the river.

The next day Ed and I jumped on our bikes to ride the trial that we had previously walked out on.  While passing by a technical section of the trail, Ed flew 15 ft of the trail, rolling down a hill with his bike stopping on a rock pile.  He walked away amazingly with a few scratches and bruises, a blown tire and camel back, and a bent seat. 

That night we drove non-stop to Ashland Oregon when the soul rig ran out of gas.  Our goal was to make what gas we had last until we reached the cheaper prices in Oregon.  A mile and a half from the gas station the engine caught on fire after an attempted to spray WD40 into the intake manifold for a quick start.  The mind works slow at 5am after an all night drive, but we managed to put out the fire with little damage to the engine.  After a friendly visit from AAA we fueled up and continued on our way toward Portland.  Somewhere near Salem, OR we were stopped once more by loud noises and a dropping oil pressure gauge.  We managed to figure out the problem in a very crowded Costco parking lot full of fat people while a Jesus freak preached to us about joining the 777-heaven club.   

The road is a very interesting place and the epic continues……

Soul tour 1st update

Somewhere on the road in California

After several weeks of hectic preparation Ed and I are officially on the road.   The soul tour rig is picking up chicks with style.  We’re hulling a 1970 bubble camper trailer behind a full size ford 4x4 complete with blue SS racing strips from bumper to bumper.  Our collection of 18 kayaks where generously donated by Perception, Wave Sport, Eskimo, and Riot.  

After an all night drive from Salt Lake City, we arrived dazed and confused in Kernville, California.  Reality slapped us with inflated unleaded priced at $1.69 a gallon, and a below average year for snowfall. 

Our first clinic was on Brush Creek, a small, slick granite playground averaging 50 cfs and 300 fpm.  It was like seal-launching into a skateboard park watered by a garden hose.   We then ran into another large group filming a show for OLN, (Outdoor Life Network) and quickly decided that we had picked the wrong river, lesson learned.   Next door on the famous Dry Meadow Creek, 75 people were picking there way down the 7 teacups all at the same time.   Busy weekend on the Kern….

Driven off by high gas prices, crowds, and no water, we left for Fresno California.  We had some unfinished business with our trailer lights and refrigerator.  Luckily our friend Jeff Barnett owns a refrigeration business and helped us solve problems for two days.   With details in order we made off for Sequoia NP to run the Kaweah River.   We met some friends at the put-in of the Hospital Rock section and had a great day.   The river was at a perfect water level, and running clear green through white granite gorges, chalked full of class 5 rapids and a few Great Falls.  In the evening light we broke out the longboards for an exhilarating downhill ride.  

Next we camped for 2 days at an epic hole on the Merced River.  We felt that it was our duty to personally test all the rodeo boats to see if they worked correctly.

We then made our way to Nevada City California for a weekend of racing on the South Yuba River.  Saturday was the 2^nd annual Chuck Kern memorial downriver race on the Class 5, Rt. 49 to Bridgeport run.  The next day Ed and I competed in the pedal paddle race, a grueling 14-mile Mt. bike ride followed by 5 miles of downriver class 4. 

We are now on our way to Oregon and Washington for several weeks of paddling.  Look for us on the road, we would love to paddle with ya….