Madagascar

A short flight form Denver International Airport, up and over the Atlantic Ocean will land you in Paris France. Where I must say the Flight Attendants become very attractive! Another leap South from Paris will send you and your dream girls over the African Continent to the 4th largest island in the word and your final destination, Madagascar.

Here you will face one of Life’s biggest dissensions, do I stay on the plane and try to make eye contact with Pènèlope the Flight Attendant, one last time… or do I go kayaking? I voted for Pènèlope but my companions, Matt Wilson and Henry Munter won the vote to go kayaking, sending us into one hell of an adventure.

Madagascar will certainly change your life and I would highly recommend it. The Malagasy are by far the nicest people, beer and food are dirt cheep, the crocodiles are huge and the exchange rate is $1US to 2,050 Malagashie. Therefore, total group funds will probably land you in the millionaire range.

Matt, Hennery and I had 40 days of unforgettable experiences in this whitewater paradise and below you will see a small summary of our trip, through the lens so to say.

Sunrise

Country side


In Mada even you shuttle bunny needs to be ready to giver!


Once the truck is stuck in the mud and you’ve spent the night sleeping by its side in a downpour, its time to continue the trek by foot.


The Goods


One of the small channels of the Manangar River


Mat and Henry drying out at camp on day 3 of 6 on the Manangar River


The west coast of Mada is much drier then the east coast which you’ve seen above. Here on the Ikapo River, the whitewater is warmer then your Sunday bath, the air temp is nearly unbearable and the crocodiles are nothing like the big furry teddy bears we have back in the states. Peddler Henry.


When we arrived in Mada we saw ourselves as the cocky bad-asses from America, that could run anything and everything she could offer. So for are fist of many self-support trips, we pored over the maps and found the largest, steepest river we could. It was in the 100k + length, so we packed breakfast for 2 days, dinner for 3 and one big bottle of Whisky. Here Hennery is seen givenr on day 3 of the unplanned 6 day first decent on the Onive River. In the end we lost the cocky attitude and learned a lesson.

Henry seems to be pondering why he didn’t get any sleep the night before, as he stairs down the pointy rocks that made up his bed. This portage took us somewhere around 10 hours, with way to many huge spiders, two rappels, one pendulum and a section where we lined kayaks? Ya, I too thought you only did that with rafts.


The Mada shuttle rig. Partying with the loc's.


As I was looking through these photos I just wanted to see more whitewater, so here’s one last pic, of your day to day ledge drop action.

The Pinner, Grand Teton National Park

Starting the new year off right!

Sunrise and the line, “Pinner.”

Summit Push

The joy of anticipation.

The Views of the Middle Teton.

A little tummy in your throat action.

Freedom

5000+ feet later it is certainly time for a celebration.

Billy Goating in the Tetons

Most likely a first D on the North West face of Treasure Mountain, and if not I hope the people before had as much fun as we did!

7:am we skinned our way through the Treasure Boy Scout camp on a new route to the summit of treasure mountain.

12:00: After to many switchbacks and a couple boldering problems later we arrived at the summit.

1:30: Lunch in the belly and completion of our Northerly snow pit analyses we where scared and disappointed at our results.

So instead of this bad ass line!

We opted for this more easterly Bunny Slope.

Brady Johnston descending into the unknown goods!

We soon found ourselves looking into some early season hucking or the start of rappel number one. After completion of the first rap, we had cruiser turns down to the next cliff band of uncertaindy.

Here we found rap#2

Standing ontop of rap#3 wishing I had more webbing and looking back at rap#2 with Brady at its base.

With dark swiftly approaching, we found ourselves beet down and still cliffed out. Rap#4

Sever thousand feet later we where looking up at our seemingly impossible descent, and yes I did learn that there is often much more snow at higher elevations than there is at lower elevations.

One random photo that I'm stoked on

Warren's haven too much fun with the Fuzzy Bunny on Vallecito Creek

Subaru’s and Waterfalls

Six days, 5 river, 3,000+ miles and plenty of goods to go around the table. Eleanor Perry, Kevin Driscol and myself had just gotten out of school for summer brake and where eager to get our first road trip under our belt for the summer. Eleanor needed to get to Eugene Organ where she was to pick up her new 06 Dagger Subaru.

It was Sunday afternoon when we set out to paddle new rivers every day, until I had to be back at work Saturday night at 5pm. We didn't have much time but felt we could make the best of it.

We alternated behind the weal every two hours squealing around turns at our top speed of 55-60mph. We drove all night until we arrived in the land where big water class 5 is just another pebble in your shoe.

We broke our first rule of paddling a new river every day right off the bat by spending 2 days on the North Fork Payette in Idaho. This river is to amazing to describe and I wish I could spend every day of my life here.

Ryan Casey sticks the line in Jacobs Later at 3000cfs

After growing gray hairs from fear and stress on the North Fork we drove through the night for the 2nd time. Arriving in Eugene Organ, we picked up Eleanor’s shiny new car which made me consider giving up everything I had in life to be her driver. This car was an automatic but had a spots mode that would allow you to shift gears manually via panels on the steering weal. All wile not having to use a clutch. Once the turbo kicks in around 3000rpms, all life’s troubles are left in your wake.

Unloading the huge wing of boats from one car to the next, looking for a little better gas mileage.

After picking up the new car we continued driveling for another 3 hours to the Little White River in Washington. I was so exhausted by this point I didn’t even take me camera. In short the day went kind of like this. One waterfall two waterfall yeeee. Three waterfall getting tired. Four waterfall I'm going backwards and am to tired to turn around. 4 5 and 6 all went painfully down hill from the last.

Day 4 we found ourselves with big juicy waterfalls and high water one the White River WA.

Kev dog flying into the white room. Kevin was stuffed into a cave for awhile after landing this waterfall leaving me to my limited vocabulary off oooo, eeee, ouch, ooo that sucks, as I was to far away to really help. I had fun watching at least and I think that’s what matters, right?

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Day 5: We didn’t have much time so we decided to rally for a few more driving hours to Canyon Creek WA. We had low water but had a grate time and some supper fun class 4.

Eleanor at the bottom of the first of many waterfalls for the day.

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After Canyon Creek Kevin and I drove non-stop from Washington to southern Colorado so I could be to work on time. We had lots of drive time on this trip but I still had one hell of a time and cant wait to get back to the North West

A huge thanks to E-nor for letting us drive her car from Durango to Washington and back so we could safe on gas by not taking any of our gas guzzling trucks.

Eleanor basking in the sun, thanks again.

Playing With Pandora’s Box

In Greek mythology, Pandora was the first woman, fashioned by Zeus. Zeus forced all the gods to give Pandora a gift in a plot to punish mankind. She was given blond hair and beauty, to curiosity and the power of healing. Which leads to the definition of her name (all gifted). Pandora was also given a box that she was told to never open.

One day, Pandora’s curiosity got the best of her and she peeked inside the lid of her box. Immediately all the misfortunes of mankind (plague, sorrow, poverty, crime, etc) come rushing out. Until now mankind had lived a life in a paradise without worry.

However there was one good thing that came out of Pandora’s box “Hope,” so now in times of evil mankind will still have hope.

My curiosity also got the best of me when it came to the granite wonderlands of the Animas River outside of Durango, CO. This curiosity began one year ago and here are the gifts, not evils that I’ve found in my little box.


Staring down the gauntlet at the put in for Pandora’s Box

Finding a little peace over uneasiness, through the art of photography at the put in.

Shawn Fullmer getting a little off kilter in the 5th drop, Swollen Member.

Contemplating the consequences of a swim in one of the few carved out eddies. (Photo by Keven Driskal)

Eleanor Parry seems to be a little to getty, not realizing what lays downstream. (photo by Kevin Driscol)

Overwhelmed to finally find light at the end of the tunnel. The crew emerges from gorge #1.

Luke stomping Long Rapid. (photo by Kevin Driscol)

Warren making the final moves in Long Rapid

Luke entering the turbulence of good old Rectiling.

Pandora throws one last lock at you before reaching salation. The key is finding the line that doesn’t land you in the sive on the right and the death hole and the left.