Well it’s official Mom and Dad, I’m no longer a virgin, I have finally found what life is really all about, kayaking in California. I’ve waited so long to have my chance at the goods all over this beautiful state and I’m pumped to have an entire month ahead of me with nothing on the agenda but to kayak as much as possible. We hopped in the van and rallied out of Hood River after one last high water lap on the Green Truss. Stopped and said hi to Shon Bollock working on his new movie that you gotta check out the trailers for HERE. Then hustled down to Sacramento Int’l to pick up Will Rostron and Rolf Kelly. We drove through the night thanks to some navigation errors (you can’t always trust GPS) and finally took a break only to wake up, call the rest of the crew, and find out they were 2.5 hours in the other direction with their sights set on Big Kimshew. So back on the road we went up all kinds of twisting Cali roads and found the spot we thought to drop in.

Here is Rolf our fearless leader checking out the scene below after taking a wicked fall while hiking down.

After finally making it down to the river I was so pumped to finally be in the magic of Cali where you can go bigger, slide longer, and stay smiling for miles. Here is Will on the first falls of the Kimshew, a perfect way to break us all in on a beautiful 20ish footer of granite goodness.

Jake, (sorry I don’t know your last name) caught a strange flake in the lead in but luckily the pool was deep, and it sure makes for a cool shot.

We definitely caught the river on the lower side of good and the in-betweens from the first falls to Kimshew falls was a bit low. Showing up to Kimshew got us all fired up and the River just picked up pace from here on through. This bouncy 40ish footer got the team fired up with good lines by all.

Here is Sean Lee probing first.

Followed by Will:

Then Andy Blanksley from above.

The photographer gets no love but it was great getting shots of all the CO boys firing things off. I had smooth lines too and was very surprised with how softly the Stomper landed off the drops. More awesome gorged in slides and boofs lead us down the next main event with Frency up next. The seal launch into the entrance sent you right into the current making set up quick and probing into the depths o so good and soft.

Here is Andy off this beauty as well.

Tom Janney was kind enough to grab my camera while I tested the Stomper’s ability to plug as well. Yeah it does that too:

From Kimshew Falls all the way to the takeout was just awesome, tons of boofs, slides and fun in an amazingly beautiful place. We were so lucky to have Brianne on this one to sweet talk and wink her way down and get the van through the locked gate saving us from having to hike our gear the 5 miles back up the road. Here is how the Kimshew lets you out, Will running the final drop with an awesome landing that sends you deep. From here we hauled to the Middle Feather and I’ll have shots up from there soon so keep checking back.

Currently Brianne and I are in Hood River volunteering as the photographer for a First Descents camp located up at the Panorama Lodge. These are an amazingly inspirational group of people that drive me to continue to raise money and awareness for such an awesome program. If you don’t know who they are, please click on my banner, find out, and donate to help change someone battling cancers life.

With the camp starting on Thursday we came in early to hang with family and get some laps on the little white. The little white salmon, I believe, is in the top 5 favorite rivers for anyone that’s been lucky enough to set foot here. It has long boulder-garden rapids, steep horizon lines, clean boofs, and everything else in between. It makes for the perfect place to showcase and test Liquidlogics latest creation the Stomper 90! The new Stomper 90 is the perfect addition to fill your quiver of LL boats. It takes the ability to boof over everything that the Jefe Grande brings, the speed and agility of the Remix, and adds it’s own special flavor with it’s flat hull and unique edge profile. It is by far the fastest whitewater kayak I have ever paddled. It has changed the way I paddle and I continue to learn new and amazing things as I get more comfortable running a flat-hulled creeker. It will be coming out around August and will be the perfect addition to the Remix or Grande you have already or will be purchasing soon. Here are some GoPro photos from a couple of laps down and an edit rocking my new Black Ops Jefe Grande and of course the Stomper 90.

One of the awesome views down the river.

A cool action shot.

Geoff Calhoun representing for Demshitz on the L dub.

When in Rome…brown.

Here is the edit. Stomper 90 on the lil-white. Be aware, music may have lyrics not suitable for small children. My gear seems to be running a black and yellow theme this year so it’s only fitting.

I finally have sorted through the hours of video from our sessions at Big Sur a couple of weeks ago. Shane was in town on a surfing mission and we took full advantage of every day starting in Glenwood in the mornings and making our way to Big Sur in the afternoons. Both waves were amazing in different ways. Glenwood was big and bouncy with a nice foam pile, great to work on new moves, and Big Sur was smooth and glassy so we borrowed some stand up boards from Hobie and our friends at BadFish River Boards. By no means are we awesome at SUP but we sure gave it everything we had and got some awesomely long rides. It’s amazing how much you can learn when there is no limit to how long you can stay on the wave. I think Shane held the record for longest ride staying out for at least an hour. Here are some shots thanks to my Dad, Gary and check out the video too!

Doesn’t get much better than this:

Obviously he’s stressed out:

But he can shred too:

Tommy Hillike was out on his board:

The Bad Fish Boards are made for this stuff and obviously a step ahead when it comes to river waves, they can even make me look good:

Trying to get rad on the 12 footer:

Here is the edit, we took so much footage from so many different angles, unfortunately I lost some good shots but I think it still turned out okay.

The new Liquidlogic Freeride 57 and 67 is finally out and in stock at your local retailer. John O’Neill from Alpine Quest Sports went down to Glenwood with me to test it out and see how it performed on a big flushing wave. At the higher flows of around 25,000 the river left side was definitely getting flushy and you had to really pay attention to not get washed off. Especially for those in smaller more park specific boats it was difficult to get long rides. John and I had planned on trading off and each taking some rides in the new boat but he ended up not wanting to trade me back, he stated the boat was perfect for catching waves on the fly and really easy to make it back to the eddy for more action. I had to wait to try it another day with Shane Benedict when he came to town at a slightly lower flow around 22,000. Click on the video below for some of that slippery wave riding action.