Tag: water

Post Fire Kayaking – Soot Water

August 1, 2012

Kayak and outdoor enthusiast Christoper Wiegend and I hit the Poudre River in a tandem Jackson Kayak. After the big fire of July 2012 a big rain storm hit. Hopes were the water would be running high and fast but it’s the lowest Chris has ever run. The video below was filmed on an iPhone 4 in a LifeProof case and a helmet mounted GoPro camera. Click below for video.

Review: CamelBak Antidote Hydration

November 2, 2011

CamelBak Antidote 100ozI am totally impressed with CamelBak’s new Antidote hydration bladder. I’ve been though a few rough times with bags of water and their various shortcomings and even very soggy disasters. Sometimes, we tolerate some inconveniences to make something else more convenient. The Antidote eliminates the troubles from hydration bladders of the past and makes it easy to make drinking convenient. Click through to read about the features I love:

Kayak Fishing

July 10, 2010

After getting off the Kongakut, rest certainly was not an option! We’re in Alaska for crying out loud! So, after the 6 hour drive from Fairbanks to Anchorage, we unpacked the car, re-packed the car, loaded kayaks, dropped off rented bear barrels at REI and started the 4 hour drive to Homer.

With the summer solstice having just passed by only the overcast sky really made it seem dark, but we never needed flashlights, even while setting tents up in the rain about halfway to Homer. We must have pulled into the campground around 1am and slept until 9am.

Arctic Rafting

June 22, 2010

KONGAKUT RIVER HEADWATERS, AK - Helio pilot Ken puts the seat back into the plane. The seat has to come out to access the cargo space avaliable in the Helio Courier.Like || Tweet || More Photos || Purchase Photo

Walls of ice 8 feet tall surrounded us for a mile long section early on the river. This was, in part, what I came to the Arctic for. To experience the unique nuances of the circumpolar region: ice lined rivers, mountains carpeted in tundra, migrating caribou, foraging bears, wolves on the hunt, and yes, even to see if the mosquitoes were as bad as everyone predicted. The Arctic gets regular play in the news and although I knew I was already in favor of protecting this fragile landscape from any industrial intrusion, I wanted to see and experience it for myself.

The seven of us were on the Kongakut River in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge – 8.9 million acres established 50 years ago. In 1980 Jimmy Carter and other enthusiasts expanded it to today’s 19-million acres. The controversy between whether or not to allow oil extraction operations here is no secret. The pro drilling argue getting off foreign oil dependencies and an economic gain for the local economy. The con argue a disruption of fragile eco systems and that the surveyed estimate of how much oil could be recovered was but a mere drop in the bucket of US thirst for oil.