Clicking on one of the photos below will take you to a gallery:

                                   

         Avery                                         BC/Alaska                                Nepal

                                                    

        Bali                                                 USA                                      South America

 

        Bhutan

            

Winter 2000, Toddie, Doug, Rich, Ralls and myself pack up and head south.
The trip began with a 4 day warm-up in Pichilemu, getting hammered in the waves, and eating bad seafood.

This was followed by an excursion to the far south for a week on the Futalefu.  What a fantastic river!  Rich earned the title "Corazon de Leon" for his unsuccessful attempts to drown himself in Mundaca.  Much to our dismay, his little head just kept bobbing up.  We stayed at Spe's place and literally drank the town dry.  On the last day, we had to scour the little village just to find some crappy wine.  But find it we did, and we drank that too. 

Other highlights:
Doug and I tried to kill ourselves in Inferno Canyon. 
Toddie gave Ralls the Queen of Spades
I took lots of pictures of "pretty clouds", which are not posted here

Oh, and we played dirty clubs. 

Afterward, we headed further south, for a crab fest, the "hip deep in crab" installment, and my last ever attempt to lead a trek, around the Torres del Paine circuit, the "hip deep in mud" chapter.  I feel compelled to mention here that at the end of the trek, Doug and I (the "guides") got lost. 

Click on 'Photos - S. America' for a graphical representation of the preceeding.

In the middle of 1998, as the summer was winding down, Gerry, Charlie and I found ourselves thinking about what to do when the fall came.  The inevitable question had been lingering with all of us, "Go North?" - North being where the Stikine is.  I had actually been thinking about it all year, and was pressing Gerry and Charlie to go as well.  Both had been before and knew better than to be as excited.  Still, we paddled hard all summer, with the thought of a big trip in mind. 

One night as we're sitting on a rock next the South Fork, talking about the coming months, Gerry had an epiphany.  "I know, let's do all three - Devil's Canyon, Turnback Canyon, and THE Grand Canyon!  We'll call it the Triple Crown, sell it to Men's Journal, and have it paid for . . . "  And so launched the adventure of a lifetime.

Moffatt of course had no problem selling it, and before we knew it, we had funding and a plan.  We roped Reggie into going as well - he would fly into anchorage and meet us for the first leg, Devil's Canyon of the Susitna.  The story, as it were, is that we’d be following in Walt Blackadar’s footsteps, retracing his epic descents (and swims) in these big wilderness canyons (except for the Stikine, which is The One He Never Did But Wanted To).

The drive to the put in turned into an epic road trip.  Charlie, Gerry and I drove to Portland and rented a GMC Jimmy from an unsuspecting Budget Rental Car.  Little did they know that we’d be strapping six kayaks on the roof and driving over 4000 miles in the next month.  We drove through the night to Prince Rupert, where we loaded the Jimmy on a shuttle for a three day journey through the Inland Passage.  This was one of the neatest parts of the whole trip for me, as the three of us plotted and planned, played World Dominating games of Risk, and checked out the passing scenery.  We spent countless hours reviewing Blackadar’s notes and pictures, hoping to get some insight into the places we were heading.  From Haines, another 1000 miles of driving remained to get us to Anchorage to pick up Reggie and on to Talkeetna, the takeout for Devil’s Canyon.

Devil’s Canyon became a personal battle for Blackadar, as he never actually made it past the first rapid without swimming. He dropped into Devil’s Creek rapid and spent most of it upside down and underwater.  Impressive enough is that he did it once and lived, surprisingly, he kept coming back for more.  By the end of his original expedition, only his teammates, including Rob Lesser, actually descended the whole canyon.

Two thirty minute flights via float plane got us to a sandy beach a few miles above the canyon.  I can remember a distinct gurgling in my stomach watching the plane take off and fly away, realizing that after ten days of traveling, here we were, and it was time to get busy. 

The next morning, we climbed up a tall cliff to overlook the entry rapid to the canyon, Devil’s Creek.  We were a bit late in the summer, and the water had dropped, maybe a bit too low.  A couple huge, unrunnable ledges defined the rapid, making the channel right of the main rapid the only realistic option.  While this option was steep and tough in itself, it was a little disappointing to have to essentially portage the first big drop. 

To be honest, the remainder of the canyon was not too difficult.  The infamous Nozzle didn’t really have enough water to be scary, and the other rapids were very straightforward. We stopped and camped at a beach near the halfway point, and the only other rapids of real consequence were the Pearly Gates and the Bus Stop.   The Bus Stop was the exit move, a riverwide hole that needed to be gutted.  Moffatt left that up to me – it was a little softer than I expected, and I was able to punch right through, partly helped by a loaded Overflow.  The boys followed, and we were left with a 20 mile paddle out, where we caught a passing train and headed back to Talkeetna.

A funny thing happened in Talkeetna that night.  On reaching the train stop, we ran into Taurus Gene(sp), son of Ray Gene, the first man to do a winter ascent of Denali.  Ray was killed on Everest while Taurus was still in his mom’s belly, which happened to be at Base Camp at the time.  Taurus introduced himself to us and invited us to come stay the night at his house.  Wait, let me back up.  Taurus approached us and said he was a filmmaker and wanted to drop us in our kayaks out of a helicopter into the ocean and that he would pay big money.  He then climbed in our Jimmy and took us on a tour of the scary forest “the trees have knives in them” before making us give him a ride home.  Taurus was chemically unbalanced to say the least, but very entertaining.  We met his mother, who he lived with in little house on the Susitna.  We spent the next few hours watching the sun set on Denali and listening to climbing stories about Taurus, his dad, and friends of theirs who had passed through over the years. 

Then we made a trip into town.

At a local bar, we saw the more primal side of Taurus.  Taurus had had a big day, what with all the excitement of new people and such, not to mention the half ounce of dope he smoked over the preceding few hours. After chugging three pints top to bottom, Taurus started heckling the performers who showed up for open mike night in Talkeetna.  He was asked several times to please quiet down, but instead took to playing along by blowing into his beer bottle.  Finally, the performer stopped his set and let Taurus know that it was time to knock it the fuck off.  Upon being confronted with this, Taurus went into fight or flight mode.  He jumped up onto the table, threw his beer at the bar TV and gave a primal howl as he ran out the door and into the night, leaving his accomplices (us) to apologize and cool things down.

We found Taurus and took him home.  His mother was nice enough to let us camp in her yard that night, and we had a chance to relax a bit and start thinking about the next leg of our little trip.

Check out photos, under BC/Alaska

Coming in Part II, Turnback Canyon

Glaciers, killer icebergs, and missing oatmeal.

Karri and I spent our honeymoon in Bali, a backpacker island destination in Indonesia, in the fall of 2000.  After having traveled together in Nepal and elsewhere, it was a bit of a letdown.  It mostly seemed like a Mexico for Australians.  Great party scene, lots of bars and beaches, but it didn't seem like there was a whole lot else to do.  We did manage to get ourselves off the beaten path and make some good memories, however. Most of the photos posted here are from the Gili Islands, a little chain of the neighboring island of Lombok.  We spent about five days here laying on the beach, drinking beer, and checking out the sunsets. 

The highlight of the trip was a three day stay at the Aman resorts on Bali, courtesy of Rich and Ralls' wedding gift.  This was definately the nicest place we've ever stayed, and we felt totally outclassed.  We even managed to make a nuisance of ourselves in the surf.  One day on the beach, we noticed the resort had a two person sit-on-top kayak, so we decided to take it for a spin.  There was some little shorebreak we started playing around in, and before we knew it, a nice size wave rolled in.  Karri in front and me in back, we started stroking this fifteen foot beheamoth boat onto this little wave.  As the wave started to break on the shore, the nose of the boat drove right into the sand, sending Karri into an ostrich maneuver and flinging me a good ten feet over the top, onto the shore.  We were laughing so hard we almost let the boat wash away.  In the meantime, the poor little Indonesian guy in charge of lifegaurding the beach was freaking out, thinking two of his customers were about to drown.  "You no boat in waves, OK!?"
All in all it was a great trip, and we still have a few nice pictures left over to remember it by.