A warning to sensitive viewers: these images contain explicit depictions of canoes, Jeeps, fishing poles, and rivers and may not be appropriate for all audiences....
Category: Trips and Adventures
On YouTube: Skin on frame canoe catamaran trip on the John Day River
Just a quick FYI, we finished and uploaded two full length videos about the John Day River Trip to the Cape Falcon Kayak YouTube Channel. The first is the full version of all the shorter videos we posted last week, and the second is a video of me talking about the boats and the...
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Video: How tough is the skin?
For understandable reasons, the most common questions I get about skin on frame have to do with durability. Just like every boat the answer has to do with how it’s built. My general approach to choosing scantlings and coverings for my skin boats is to start out by building light and then abusing the...
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Video: John Day River trip, Day 8 on the river
John Day River Trip, Day 8 on the water. Most people who run this section of the John Day River take out at Cottonwood Canyon State Park, but we decided to go 20 miles further and take out at McDonald Crossing, the historic crossing site for the Oregon Trail. People typically don’t run this...
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Video: John Day River trip, Day 7 on the river
John Day River Trip, Day 7 on the water. Having fun with the music on this one. … continued from yesterday, the canoe catamaran system has gone through several evolutions since that first trip. For my pack canoes I put boards directly beneath the self rescue loops that are attached to the top of...
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Video: John Day River trip, Day 6 on the river
John Day River Trip, Day 6 on the river. People have probably been catamaraning canoes together since canoes existed but it’s not something you see much these days because modern composite construction isn’t compatible with the immense forces the outriggers place on the structure. How I got interested in this was literally an afterthought....
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Video: John Day River trip, side hike
Captain’s log supplemental: just a quick side hike. I’ll let the music and the imagery speak for itself on this one....
Video: John Day River Trip, 5th day on the river
John Day River Trip, 5th day on the water. The single most important thing you can do to improve your experience on a river trip is to wake up early. And by early I don’t mean 7, I mean 5. This might not sound like something you want to do on vacation so let...
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Video: John Day River trip, 4th day on the river
John Day river trip, 4th day on the water. Camping immediately above a 45° round rock slope made loading the Canoes a bit treacherous the next morning. I often turn the canoes upside down at camp and tie rocks to the seats to keep the strong up canyon winds from stealing them. For whatever...
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Video: John Day River trip, 3rd day on the river
John Day River Trip, 3rd day on the river. There’s music here. If you’re wondering why I spent two posts describing a single rapid, it’s because there are four separate articles in travel magazines right now that make the John Day sound like something you can do with zero experience after a quick trip...
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Video: John Day River trip, 2nd day on the river
John Day river trip, 2nd day on the river. In the last post I described the mile long rapid called Clarno, including the most consequential portion called lower Clarno. I’ve run this once in a (specially-designed) skin on frame kayak at 4000 CFS, which was fairly uneventful, and once at 2000 CFS in skin...
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Video: John Day River trip, 2nd day on the river
John Day River Trip, 2nd day on the river. FYI, there’s music. The Clarno to Cottonwood stretch of the John Day river is guarded by a mile long rapid called Clarno. Like most rapids, it’s fast with powerful holes at high water and bony with numerous pin spots at low water. I haven’t run...
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Video: John Day River trip, 1st day on the river
John Day River Trip, 1st day on the water. As usual there’s music if you’re into that. The 70 mile popular section of the John Day river between Clarno and Cottonwood cuts through a deep desert canyon. To limit river traffic, the BLM has instituted a permit system which I am very supportive of....
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John Day River Trip, Post 2
John Day River Trip, Post 2. While I try to summon the courage to start working on the 20 hours of video we shot, here’s a few more pictures from the trip. I’ll spend more time going into detail on the video posts but basically the point of this trip was to push last...
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John Day River Trip, Post 1
John Day River Trip, Post 1 We just spent a week on the John Day River testing last year’s solo nesting canoes. These sorts of trips are pretty brutal for me because of my medical issues, so if we could forgo the “Good to see you on the water looking so healthy!” comments, it...
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