Jennifro

"Take me to the river,

drop me in the water."

-Talking Heads

I hacked into Jennfro's account to blog an adventurous post (isn't everyone sick of home decorations). I spent a week up in Canada leading a group of some of Calleva's best young kayakers. We ran 8 rivers in 6 days. Only stopping briefly to eat, sleep and pee! After a day on the river we would drive sometimes until the wee hours of the morning to get to the next river.

 

The Hardcore gang of 9 (brother Alex taking pic) We were one wet group as it rained on us all day, all night, all week. When the rains came down the water came up... so we had some BIG water in Canada as the rivers flooded to epic levels. Christian where were't thou?

Alex catching the sweetest wave in Canada, on a very long rapid called "High Tension". Our favorite game was "king of the wave". Everyone would try to get on at the same time and knock each other out.

First rapid on the Ottawa, "phils hole". Here I cautiously take the bait, though phil did not have me for lunch.

It was fun to paddle with my nephews Eric and Jamie. Here is Jamie on the Jacque Cartier showing us how to "boof".

We stopped at this huge rapid to scout it and and watched a few rafters go down. They had motorboats waiting below this rapid to pick up any rafters who had fallen out before they were swept down the next huge rapid. There was no room for error and we all rose to the occasion. I took this pic to show the size of some of the rapids we encountered. This is a 14 person raft getting dwarfed by a hole.

Alex took this pic of me taking the first run on this rapid. Not a great picture but it was an intimidating line that really got the heart pounding. I got caught in the hole at the bottom that wouldn't let me out. I eventually had to pop my skirt and swam out of the hole -- not fun!

My favorite pic of the week on everyones favorite river "the Gatineau" (which was running at a very high level).  Here is "Wolfman" riding the beast on the rapid "Lucifer".

This is not in Canada but right here in Maryland. We don't have to far for some good whitewater. Great Falls on the Potomac river is a very challenging run. This 22 ft waterfall is the final drop.

Who wants to go next year?