Video: The Cooper River, WA

 The Cooper River, just outside of Cle Elum here in Washington state, is a late summer resource that starts to come in as everything else is starting to drop out. It's also a great place to start scratching that creeking itch.

I spent a two day weekend on the Cooper, last July, with some awesome people. Old friends and some new friends came out to show me the lines and generally have a great time. Theres a decent amount of CaRnAgE to be had on the Cooper...

Music Credit:
Pretty Lights vs Summertime  &    Latyrx - Lady Don't Tek No


This is a quick edit to get the footage off the hard drive and into the internets.

Cheers

Dagger Mamba 8.6 long term review - 1 year with the Green Snake

Don't mess with this Mamba:

Mess with this Mamba:

I got my hands on the Mamba 8.6 in April of 2012, and it has been a great boat for the past season. I bought the Mamba 8.6 thinking that this would primarily be a big water Idaho or extended overnight boat. I didn’t really see myself pushing a 90 gallon creeker on a regular basis, then I took it down Robe Canyon on the South Fork Stillaguamish river; I’ve been sold ever since.

Mamba 8.6 stats son!!
Length: 259cm
Width: 70cm
Boat Weight: 22kg
Volume: 337L or 89 gallons
Paddler Weight: 79-118kg

This is probably the largest boat I’ve ever paddled. At 90 gallons of displacement, this thing (for my body size) is the whitewater equivalent to a Chevy Tahoe. This thing is a beast, and destroys waves and holes accordingly. That being said; it’s a very easy-to-roll boat and has crisp, clean edges. The rise of the cockpit gives you a sunken feeling if you’re under 6 feet tall, but I think this can be easily remedied with either foam shims under the seat, or a foam pad over the seat. That sunken feeling only lasted for about a week while I was getting used to the boat.

The Mamba 8.6 doesn’t have the rocker that you are used to seeing on some of the newer creek boats these days, but that doesn’t stop the nose from coming back to the surface when pushing through a hole or hitting a nice delayed boof.  The hull has a very pointed, slightly upturned nose with sharp, crisp edges that run back to about where the seat meets the thigh hooks, then they smooth out into more of a displacement hull shape.  The stern is large volume and flat, but not slicey.

There are always pros and cons to any hull design, so while this boat is much wider than the Nomad, it’s definitely not as nimble. The planing hull helps you turn pretty quickly in big water, but on lower volume rivers and creeks it’s not as fast to change direction as the Nomad or Shiva (IMOP). The upside to this is stability. This thing is very stable, to the point that I really can’t say much about it’s secondary stability at all. I’m always upright and the few unplanned rolls that I’ve had in this boat were generally initiated by either a plugged boof or an Oprah sized hydraulic. Neither of which care one bit for the width of your craft.

The outfitting for the 2012 was awesome and while I haven’t gotten my hands on the 2013 outfitting yet, I hear it’s even better. The boat boasts a movable bulkhead with a generous helping of predrilled holes for your leg accommodation. The “out of the box” boat comes with a pretty solid foam kit that is pretty easy to install and has proven durable in the long haul. Neither of the foot foam blocks has even come loose after a year of use and the hip pads are still tight and have held their shape.

The boat has 5 metal hand holds that are pretty evenly spaced for rescue scenarios as well as normal boat strapping escapades. One of the things that I like about this metal hand hold design is the width and placement of the band holds. Too many times, in a rescue scenario or sketchy portage session, the cloth grab loops on other boats can be a pain. Another boat I’ve paddled has small, almost finger hole type, grab loops at the base of the rear cockpit. You can generally only get a finger or two in there and a well-aimed carabineer. The Mamba solves this problem by giving you a full handhold. Very easy to rig webbing or rope to. Very easy to hold onto while stabilizing a buddy or recovering a boat.

Scott Waidelich grabbed a couple great shots in Robe Canyon. Robe Canyon on the SF Sillaguamish river is a great place for a large volumed boat.

  Last weekend I was able to finally put the Mamba's big water specs to the test and got out on the Tumwater section of the Wentachee at about 6500 cfs. The Mamba made it a breeze. Enjoy the photos by Scott Waidelich and Jeremy Bisson.

Adrian Wigston sacraficed a lap for us on Sunday and shot some video of teh "Dam Rapid":

The Mamba is kind of like the Oklahoma version of the RPM. Corn-fed and burley, but no buck teeth as far as I can tell… You can take her home to mom and be proud of your choice. My overall opinion of the 2012 Dagger Mamba 8.6 is that this is a great all-around kayak. While this isn’t a single purpose creek boat, it covers all bases from river running to creek boating with a little bit of green wave surfing to boot. I think that this would be a great beginner boat as it is very predictable and stable and for the same reasons I think this would serve well as an instructional craft. The Dagger Mamba 8.6 would be a solid addition to anyone’s whitewater quiver.

A huge thanks to the guys who sacraficed time in the saddle to get these photos:

Photographer : Dave Costello
Badass : Adrian Wigston
Jah Himself : Jeremy Bisson
The Living Legend : Scott Waidelich

Snow Gnomes - Robe in January

Yup, more Robe pictures.

A group of us made it into Robe when all else was too low. Snow on the ground, Ice in the trees and bright blue sky made for a memorable day on the water.

We used an alternate putin:



The forest on the trek down to the river was gorgeous.

Signs of man.

The boys breaking the frost off of their sprayskirts

Theres quite a few small hot springs in the area, none are large enough for full immersion though.

Sean Lee in T1.

Garbage.

Brett Barton in Garbage rapid.

Christian knight in Garbage rapid.

Icicles at Catcher's Mitt.

Good day on the water.

Stay Stoked, Stay Safe.

Video - The Big Quilcene

Only took 5 months to edit...

For a full write up of the trip and lots of pictures: The Big Quilcene

Sam Grafton - Promo Reel 2012

Sam Grafton likes to charge.



Spread the FIRE!!

Music Credits:

Styles P & Mr. Big - Hold on Little Girl

Wick-it the Instigator - The Golden Trap Gangster

Silver Falls Huck and Tuck with J. Bisson

Silver Falls – Ohanepecosh River, WA

Matt Kurle and I were still stretching and cooling off with a couple of cold beers when Jeremy Bisson decided to drive up with his crew to nearby Silver Falls.

After a fun quick lap on the main section of the Ohane, I thought our day was over and we were resigned to another 3 hour car ride back to Seattle. Jeremy put a stop to that nonsense.

A quick drive from the Secret camp, at the put in to the Ohanepecosh river, and you’re inside the Rainier National Park boundaries and looking for a small trail sign on the North side of the highway. As Matt and I pull up, the boys are already there, whipping eachother into a frenzy over who is gonna carry Jeremy’s boat back up the trail if he doesn’t run the falls.

I had spoken with Jeremy earlier in the day about the water fall and his thoughts on whether or not this idea would fall into the good or bad category. Jeremy was of the opinion that it was a decent idea as he judged flows would allow him to hit his line easier than a more padded out level. I thought it a marginal idea, at best.

The trail down to the river is short and beautiful. You are immediately reminded that you are in the middle of a pristine Washington forest: the trail winds through dense Douglas firs, red cedars, and Western hemlock. The undergrowth of moss, maidenhair ferns, and Oregon grapes is so thick you can barely see the ground outside of the immediate trail.

You come around one more corner and BAM! Silver Falls

While Jeremy walked up to the top slide to scout the drop, we all kind of spread out. Connor and Robby walked up to the lip of the falls. Matt, Garrett and I started taking pictures of the scenery and exchanging raised eyebrows.

After a bit it was just Jeremy and I and the short conversation went something like this…:

Jeremy: I can see my line, just gotta stay left of that ledge.

Me: Can you make it? Can you hit it?

Jeremy: Yeah, I can. I can make it, I just don’t want to miss it. I don’t want to go right at the lip.

Me: What about the slide above the falls?

Jeremy: That’s good to go, Im not worried about that.

Me: You gonna run it?

Jeremy: I was, until you talked to me. Now I don’t think so.

Me: Oh… Sorry man.

Jeremy: F*$k it, I’m gonna get my boat.

Me: Wait... What?

Jeremy walked back over to the trail above the run out and started gearing up while we had a quick safety talk. We would have two people with lifejackets and throw bags down on a rock in the pool immediately below the falls. And, like any dangerous endeavour, we would have three cameras to catch the action. Matt decided he was going to shoot video so I opted for photos.

The sight of Jeremy shouldering his boat up the side of the river to the top of the falls was impressive to say the least. My stomach was in knots and I was wearing shorts and a ball cap, not a sprayskirt and helmet. I cannot imagine what kind of internal monologue was going on during that hike.

Silver Falls is every bit of 40ish feet. The truly terrifying part is the lead in. A 30(ish) foot cascading slide drops into a river-wide hole and then rolls over another 50 or so feet of steep slide before the lip of the falls proper. The drop is anything but straightforward. The tongue has two cross currents at the lip. One hard one coming in from river right and another softer one coming in from river left. Jermey wanted to be on river left with a little bit of right angle.

Jeremy smashed it though, hit his line and connected with the pool in good form.

He was ejected from his boat on impact and watching his empty boat launch from the pile back upstream a good 20 yards was something I had not thought I would ever see.

Good lines, good times.