I left good ole VT on Wednesday and landed in Reno Wednesday night.  I didn’t fly with a boat or paddle and this awesome guy Jonas Milton who doesn’t know me let me borrow his Project X 48.  Pete Delosa helped with getting me the boat and returning it.  Stephen Wright and Ruth Gordon let me borrow paddles.  A guy let me borrow his really nice slalom boat.  NRS let me borrow a SUP and Pau Hana let me borrow a SUP paddle, oh and Pete Delosa let me borrow his wife Amy’s boat for the boater cross.  I was all over the place that weekend with other peoples gear. It was so awesome to see the generosity people gave me. Sharing means caring!

I didn’t have the best weekend of competing. It started with the ridiculous hot weather which I was not accustomed to, the 3 hour time change, having a cold and not sleeping well but it didn’t stop me from trying and trying I did.

The comp started on Saturday and Jeff was the announcer.  The women went first and there was 14 of us.  The comp was held in Hole number 5 which is a fun hole but shallow and I always struggle in shallow holes.  I hit the bottom and have a mini heart attack each time especially since the boat was not mine and I’m really good at hitting the bottom!  I was the only Wave Sport paddler that was in a Wave Sport boat.  Devon Barker-Hicks is a new Team Wave Sport member but didn’t get her boat yet.  I was able to make it into finals in 5th place, then Jessie Stone, Jessica Yurtinas, Courtney Kerin , and Sage Donnelly.  Yes, a 12 year old beat all of us two days in a row.  What can I say she’s at her home spot, super competitor, and really good kayaker, she’s been paddling as long as I have so there were no surprises.

The men went next and I was a judge and they all had really goods rides.  We had finals on the same day just at 6pm so after the men finished prelims and semis we had a little break.  I went back to my room and slept for about an hour. I was starting to feel really run down by that point.  I set my alarm for 5pm and was up and getting ready for finals.  I think I drank 20 gallons of water that day and still felt dehydrated.

I showed up for finals and wasn’t able to put anything together except in my 2nd ride which was a mcnasty, air loop, shanked tricks, rock crushing and some flushes.  That kept me in 5th place.  Jessie was in 4th, Courtney in 3rd and the two local girls placing next, 2nd Jessica Yurtinas, and Sage Donnelly first.  Then had to judge men’s finals and Jayson Craig a local destroyed the hole linking a mcnasty and two phonixs monkeys, a back phonix and some other tricks putting him in 1st place, then Nick Troutman in second with another great ride, and Stephen Wright in 3rd with the only blunt mcnastys both ways.  By the time we finished finals it was around 8pm.  We were supposed to go out for my annual 30th b-day party but dinner finished up by 10:30 I needed to sleep and everyone was spent so we called it a night.

Sunday came way to quick and the SUP race was first starting about 10am.  I needed a board and Jeff was able to get me one from NRS called the Tyrant, 9 feet inflatable.  It was about a 3 mile race and the first time I was on a board since last year.  I managed to only fall in once and fell on the board twice and came in second place. I kept up with Courtney on a Pau Hana Big EZ 11 feet hard board.  This race took it all out me.  I was cooked the rest of the day. I helped with judging slalom and then took 2 slalom runs that where mostly clean just slow.  Then forced myself into boater cross which I’m always way to excited for but had no energy for it and didn’t make it to the next round which was a blessing because I was hurting real bad by that point and stumbled back to my hotel room and slept till 4:30.  I made it to the awards at 5pm said goodbye to everyone and Jeff because he was leaving to go to San Fran on business.  I got a ride to the airport and took the red eye home.  That’s my trip to Reno!

I’m home recovering and starting to feel better. Today I’m going to start training again for Wild Water the Worlds are coming up so I need to be ready for it.

This Saturday I’ll be at the Westfield Water Sports demo in Westfield, MA.  I’ll be showing off some sweet rec, touring, fishing, and whitewater kayaks for Confluence. If you are in the area come by and hang out it’s from 9-4pm.

Photo by: Stephanie Viselli

SUP Podium Courtney 1st, 2nd me , 3rd Sage

Eating messy tacos!

Photo by: Noah Fraser

Till next time,

Elaine Campbell

I spent last weekend up in Boone with the ASU crew getting in some seriously fun whitewater boat riding.  It all started late night thursday as I rolled into town and to the Boone kayak hostel, granted the amount of boats outside had been greatly reduced by school being out. After a few beers and some sleep it was time to head out on a mighty hefty adventure. It was decided previously to head to Linville for a good time with some stout rapids and hearty hiking. After the decision was finally made to paddle all the way to the lake the driving began. Needless to say it was pretty entertaining trying to find the way due to bridge closures and general tomfoolery. After eventually reaching the takeout we set shuttle and began the hiking portion of the day down to babel tower stoping to enjoy the view at the overlook along the way. Once we finally got down to the river it was great to see an awesome level and a great rapid to start off the day. We took our time as we made our way down the river stopping to film and have lunch. There were some occurrences of  note including myself swimming out of a hole/undercut combo and through a siphon and under a sieve which left me missing a shoe, elbow pads and some pride. However once everything was said, done and collected thanks to major help from my friends Mac, Ty and Colin, we continued to boogie on down the river eventually making it to the lake and one stout bootie. So after a draining day the only thing left to do was grab some dinner, plan the next day and chill. Watauga was the plan for the next day and we woke up to the gauge boasting an awesome level of 600! Ty and I gathered up our stuff and boogied our way down thanks to Theresia hooking us up big time with shuttle! The next day Ty and Clay walked for graduation and we all went paddling shortly after the ceremony was over with a great group of around 15 people. As we boogied our way down it was fun to pause and watch everyone else run the rapids after making our way down. As we came through stateline it was great to have an awesome sunset in the back ground with this great boof just below me! All in all I would have to say it was an epic and awesome weekend thanks to the great crew and friends up in Boone!

We’ve had a couple of good weeks on the road.  It started off heading to North Conway, NH for the Mount Washington Tuckerman Inferno Pentathlon.  The Inferno is a 8.3 mile run, 5 mile kayak, 18 mile bike, 3 mile hike, and skiing down Tuckermans Ravine. That’s what it usually is. This year it rained the night before and the river rose pretty high and the organizers decided to cancel the race on the river and make the kayak a flat water race.  Another change this year was the ski.  The skier’s didn’t ski the bowl this year because of 60mph winds and the ravine was a sheet of ice, so they skied part of the Sherman trail instead.  Mother nature decided to mess up the race this year but it was still really fun even though I had to race flat water.

I was on a Team of 5 women called Team Broads with Kim Seaman our runner, Nicole Vassar our biker, Di Collier our hiker, Ali O’Rourke skied and I was the kayaker. We competed in the all women’s category against 5 women teams.  We all raced really well and came in 3rd in the all women’s category, our time was 3:40:00.  I took first place in the kayak race out of all the the women and 10th in men. There were some really fast boats and some really fast paddlers so it wasn’t a gimme.  In the overall results we came in 22nd out of 53 teams that included coed teams of 5, duo teams and soloists. It’s such a great race and I am looking forward to it again next year.

I’m trying to catch my brother Mark and passed all these guys.

Next up was NC for US Freestyle Kayak Team Trials.  If you made the US Team you earned a spot to compete at the World Championships in September on the Nantahala River in NC.  Team Trials were held on the Nantahala River and was a 3 day event and pretty much rained 2 days straight during the competition and unfortunately I didn’t get any photos or videos because of it.  I haven’t really play boated at all this year.  I spent a week in WV and a few days at Eternity hole in March and that was about it.  I’ve been training mostly for Wild Water Racing because I’m on the US Team for Wild Water and competing at the Sprint World Championships in June in Slovenia so my time and energy has been spent getting ready for Wild Water Worlds.  I’m stronger than I’ve ever been and that was a huge help with my freestyle kayaking.  I was able to get a couple of days of practice in on the feature working around the International Canoe Federation Judge Training that I was doing.  My paddling was going really well with getting consistent mcnasties, air loops, splitwheels, clean cartwheels, and occasional space godzillas.

There was 15 women who competed. Prelims started on Friday and the level rose and the feature became flushy.  I was able to make it to semi finals in 7th place and 11 women moved on because Courtney from New Zealand was competing and she made it to semis.  Then it started to rain and didn’t stop until Monday.  The organizers asked the damn operators to drop the level and they did.  The feature was just like what everyone practiced in so that was nice.  In semis you get two rides best one counts.  My first ride wasn’t good enough to put me into the finals, I was a little conservative with it. Devon Barker and Jessica Yurtinas had a better score than me and I knew I had to do something if I wanted to make it into finals.  I knew I had to beat a 253 to make it into finals and then would have to wait to see what Kat did in her last ride since was the last to go.  This ride I went in and started with my mcnasty and it went then after that I did a bunch of other stuff and scored a 290 and then waited to see what Kat was going to score because she could of pushed me out of finals with her last ride.  She didn’t beat my score so I moved on to finals and in 3rd place. I was pretty happy with that as was Jeff.

We didn’t know if we where even going to have finals if the river flooded out but we did in a crazy flushy feature.  In Finals you have 3 rides best one counts.  In finals was Emily Jackson, Devon Barker, me, Adriene Levknecht, and Haley Mills.  The judging was extremely strict so lots of stuff didn’t go this weekend but it seemed they were even harder during finals. You would finish a ride in finals and be like sweet then the judges gave you like nothing, damn them!  I was sitting in 3rd which is a good place to be when you know what the others scored. Emily is super pregnant but still could throw down and Devon can easily have a great ride where she does all her tricks and puts up a lot of points even on a flushy feature.  Adriene and Haley are going to loop and space godzilla there brains out and get huge bonuses which makes them hard to beat.  My best score was my second ride which was a 110.  Emily and Devon had one ride left to beat my score (110), Haley’s (140), and Adriene’s (120) but they didn’t and the three of us made the US Freestyle Kayak Team.  It was a relief to just goof off in my third ride.  Anyway, that’s pretty much what happened.

This is my second time on the US Freestyle Kayak Team I was on the US Team in 2009 with Adriene in Thun, Switzerland.  I also am on the US Squirt Team they needed another women so I said I would do it, thanks to Jeremy Laucks for letting me squeeze into his squirt boat. I actually competed in squirt at the Worlds in Thun because they needed another country to enter so I did it there and used Jeremy’s boat.  I’m pretty happy to be competing in 2 World Championships this year.  I’ll still be focusing mostly on Wild Water right now since the Worlds is in June then when I get back I’ll do some training in freestyle but I’m not going crazy. The approach I took to the US Team Trials seemed to really work for me.  I’ve competed in 3 US Team Trials and this was the first one where I didn’t care one way or the other about making the team and good things came from it.

Shred Ready had a great showing this weekend and a few of us made the US Freestyle Team with Adriene Levknecht, Mike Patterson, Rowan Stuart, Tad Dennis, Jeremy Laucks, and me.

A big thank you to my number 1 sponsor Jeff Campbell, my family, and friends and to Wave Sport, Shred Ready, Mitchell Paddles, Zoar Outdoor, NRS, Maui Jim Sunglasses, KEEN, and Watermans Sunscreen for your support.

Celebrating making the team with Adriene, Haley and me.

Photo by: Shannon Christy

The US Team!

Here’s a link to the results  http://freestylekayaking2013.com/blog/us-team/

Till next time,

Elaine Campbell

Over the past weekend I had the chance to go to my first Tallulah Fest. Having missed a few years of them and not being able to paddle the river for 4 years due to my work schedule it sure was a good time to get out there. There was tons of fun to be had from the river to the party. It being my first time back in years was a blast since I couldn’t really remember all the lines and since this year we have had a bit of rain which allowed for a bit more flow to be spilled too! After the lovely hike down to the river we were greeted both days with a smaller then normal crowd. Most of us were in downriver playboats and having a great time hitting up all the spins, freewheels and splats that the river had to offer up. The river also has some awesome surfing waves and holes which I was happy to be charging in the Large Nano. Eventually though we made it to the lake.
Eventually we made our way back and began to take it easy. The festival started picking up in the evening and we were all having a blast. Finally though the video competition finally came up and everyone was so stoked to see the edits. Once the edits rapped up it was time to boogie down to some North Georgia boot stompin music. The night was a blast even though there wasnt a huge crowd there were plenty of good folks to enjoy the night with. It was an all around amazing weekend but how could it not be when it involves friends, kayaking and music!

This past weekend was the 22nd annual Scantic Spring Splash in Enfield, CT.  There were over 100 racers, more canoers than kayakers, young and old.  This was my first time racing this event and had a great time, plus Jeff even raced!  It’s a 5 mile race mostly flat water with 3 class II drops, a mandatory portage up and over the dam and the river had about 6 inches of water in it. I’ve been to a lot of events and will have to say that the Scantic Spring Splash is one of the best organized events that I’ve been to.  They had the boy scouts helping out at the portage area.  They passed out drinks when you came by and if someone was struggling with a boat they’d help carry it.  There was another group of kids called Explorers that came to help with directing traffic, informing competitors and spectators where to go.  The event had free shuttle services for competitors and spectators.  There was plenty of safety on and off the river. The volunteers all seemed to be happy and having a great time as did the competitiors.

I paddled my Wave Hopper since my carbon Wild Water boat would not have survived this race.  The race was a challenge for me with all the flatwater.  I can lose focus and get bored when it’s so flat but I felt like I did an ok job keeping myself motivated during the race but probably could of done better.  I lolly gagged during the portage and should of hussled a bit more.  After the portage is where the 3 class II drops are and where most of the spectators are to watch the carnage factor.  The majority of racers are not whitewater boaters so these rapids are hard for them.

The river was low and I bottomed out a few times. At the final rapid I stopped in an eddy after the first ledge to let a canoer get himself sorted out. He swam, his canoe was surfing in the little hole and he was standing up in the river trying to get his canoe out. The last ledge also had a swimmer and boat still in the water so the fastest line was congested with boats and swimmers. I should of just went and took the dry line which I inevitably did but for some reason I decided to wait.  Maybe the reason why I waited was because it was so entertaining watching the carnage that was happening right in front of me. Anyway, the race was great and the amount of spectators made it really fun!  A ton of people just cheering you on all along the entire 5 miles. That made it really neat and pushed me at moments to paddle faster!  Jeff had a great race, he survived it paddling my Wave Sport Momentum.  It sounds like he will do some more races this year with me so that’s exciting!

One thing I did learn about this race was that even though it was a super easy river, if you are going to race you should do a run on it first and get to know it before a race.  It would of made my life way easier.  My time was 44:48 which is ok but I’m a little disappointed in my performance but it was another great learning experience and was great training.  I came in 6th in the long boat class and had the fastest women’s time.

Next up is hopefully going to be the New Haven Race in VT that’s if the weather cooperates.

Here’s a link with some photos and quick videos of the race.

http://enfield.patch.com/articles/highlights-of-the-2013-scantic-spring-splash#video-13843830

Till next time,

Elaine Campbell

I’ve been out of the scene for a few months enjoying my winter in VT.  We’ve had lots of snow this winter and it’s been pretty cold.  I spent most of my time working at Timber Creek Cross Country and doing a lot of classic and skate skiing.  It was finally time to get out of VT and start paddling.  I headed to WV for a week bringing snow and cold temps with me.  I got some great days in on low water New River Dries and the Gorge section.  It was a great week getting myself comfortable in my boat again. Then I headed over to Eternity Hole in NC and put in a few days there.  It’s a great little play spot where every hole trick goes really nice and it was still cold.

Next up on my little paddling trip alone with no Jeff, Brook and Laya was a WildWater competition on the Nantahala in NC for the Bank of America US Open and yes, still cold.  I never got a break from cold weather on this trip!  The Sprint race was being held on Saturday and the Classic race on Sunday.  My buddy Mark and his wife Alicia drove from MA a few days before the race. We both finally got back in our wildwater boats after the long New England winter. I felt like I was starting all over again in my wildwater boat and using that damn wing paddle makes everything that much harder.  I was able to get it sorted out again but still not super comfortable.  Thanks to Alicia for being our awesome shuttle bunny!

We heard about another winter storm that was brewing on Sunday night, that was in our direct path to drive home after the Classic race.  We asked the extremely nice Chris Hipgrave who was organizing the WildWater races if we could do the Sprint and Classic on Saturday so we wouldn’t miss the Classic race or get stuck in a storm. He said yes, so we had a big day on Saturday with two races.

The Sprint race started at Pattons Run on the Nantahala.  I was feeling a bit tippy that morning in my boat which is never a good feeling to have in a wildwater boat but I was able to keep it upright and clean with a second place finish.  Selena Popp came in first with a 1:28.60 and I was right behind her with a 1:28.63.  The Classic race that Mark and I did went well I did it in 15:56 and we did it on the Nantahala. I guess on Sunday the damn wouldn’t open so they moved the Classic race to a different river so not really sure how my results faired to the other results but I’m pleased with my time for my first Classic race of the season.

I’m back home in VT and so happy to be back with the family.  I have a crazy busy schedule this year and am looking forward to it especially since Jeff, Brook, and Laya will be coming with me for most of it.

Here’s some photos from the wildwater race and a video from my 2 weeks away.

Mark Wendolowski and I killing it with our Shred Ready helmets on!

Photos: Alicia Clark Wendolowski

Photo: Jeff Campbell

Till Next time,

Elaine Campbell

Well Demshitz Craig Kleckner and Dave Fusilli just returned home from a brisk trip down the Grand Canyon of the Colorado River. This would be my fifth time down the Canyon and the coldest by far, it was also the coldest temperatures in the Canyon in twenty five years. This would also be my first time doing a kayak supported trip, this means packing up everything I need to survive for two weeks into my Pyranha Fusion, with everything lined up at the put in I knew this was going to be a great trip.

This was the scene from the first night and a very similar one followed for the next thirteen nights.

We had everything a winter trip could ask for freezing temps, cold hikes, frozen shoes, and even as you paddled the water froze on your gear.

Even with the cold temps, the moral of the group was very high and it didn’t break our spirits. After about a weeks the weather broke and we had some sunny warm days and we were able to kick back relax and have a couple beers and enjoy the rest of the trip.

If you have and interest and get the opportunity to do a trip down the Grand, DO IT!

The fall is coming close to an end. The leaves are all gone and the cold is creeping in. Here’s a quick recap of what’s been going on with us.  I made the US WildWater Sprint Team and will get to compete in the World Championships June 14-16, 2013 in Slovenia.  I paddled the Moose River and held a clinic for Mountain Man during Moose Fest.  Frankenstorm Sandy passed by and dropped some rain in the area so I got to paddle a bit more.

Here’s a video from some of the boating I’ve been doing.

Till next time,

Elaine Campbell